Creative fidelity and Christian leadership

• Main Author: Arabit, Auria U., SdP
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Servant leadership; Christian leadership; Christian ethics; Philosophy; Religion
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/12313
• Institution: De La Salle University

This work studies Creative fidelity through Renewal Chapters of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Poor as a proposed paradigm for Christian leadership and Communal discernment. The challenge of contemporary time is to have “new ways of reimagining leadership (Lowney, 2014, p.3); one that recognizes and empowers every member of the congregation to take responsibility in a turbulent, fast-changing and sometimes unsettling new century.This article expounded the historical development of the concept of creative fidelity. In the discussion, the elements of (a) time and change, (b) imagination and dynamic memory, and (c) prayerful and communal discernment are elaborated. The study explores the documents of the General Chapters from 1965-2009 concerning the evolving understanding of servant leadership as proposed by Vatican II. The renewed perspective on authority and obedience, dialogue and discernment, and, communal and individual responsibility was gradually yet constantly elucidated over the years to authentically live the following of Christ.As shown by the Renewal Chapters, a Christian leader knows how to read the signs of the times, adopt to necessary changes yet rooted to the fundamental principles of truth and charismatic spirituality. This balance approach is characterized with the capacity of a Christian leader “to bring from the storeroom both the new and the old” (Mt 13:52).