Historic leadership principles for today's Christian leaders!

The concept of “oriented” leadership does not come from the geographic use of the word orient. Rather,  we are using it in the historic Christian sense.

In the early Christian Church a person was oriented at their baptism.  In the ancient liturgical rites (still used in the Eastern Christian Churches) you or your sponsor (if you were baptized as an infant) turned toward the West and rejected Satan.  Then after you affirmed your rejection of Satan and all his works,  you turned toward the East and acknowledged that you had joined Jesus Christ and believed in Him as King and as God.  At the time of your baptism you were oriented toward the East, to the direction from which the sun rises and from which the Sun of Righteousness will return.  From Apostolic times Christians have prayed facing East.  Orthodox churches are built facing east. 

Oriented leadership, then, is leadership--not to mention our whole life-- oriented toward God as manifested in Jesus Christ.

Oriented leadership is an approach to Christian leadership developed by Mike McKibben and Ben Williams and first published in the book Oriented Leadership.  That book is now out of print, and has been revised and expanded with a new title, Beyond Tyranny & Narcissism, as the working document within the larger subject of Christian leadership oriented to and informed by historic Christian theology and practice.