Craig T. Owens

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When I wrote my book, I was attempting to bring church leaders back to the biblical foundation for what it means to be a pastor. In a very similar fashion, Roger Parrott does this same thing for ministry leaders in his book Opportunity Leadership. 

Parrott is the president of a vibrant Christian university. As anyone who has been in the arena of higher education will tell you, making long-range plans is at the foundation of everything the administration and faculty do. But Parrott asks where did we get this model? Is this something we see in the Bible? 

Actually, we see verses that subordinate human plans to God’s plan. Verses like, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21) or, “They tried [planned] to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to” (Acts 16:7). This is why Parrott makes the case that we are missing out on what God has in store for us because we only want Him to work on our carefully-made plans.

Parrott makes the case that their university has grown and seized opportunities because they were open and responsive to the doors God presented them, instead of missing out because they were blinded by their plans. 

Obviously, switching to this model will take tremendous buy-in from the point leader all the way through the entire organization. So the bulk of Opportunity Leadership helps prepare Christian leaders to change their paradigm, prepare for the inevitable pushback, and help their teammates move forward. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book—finding myself saying, “Yes!” frequently as I was reading it—and I am confident all Christian leaders will benefit from reading this insightful work. 

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