There’s an awful lot of negativity around today, especially in Christian circles, about technology and the damage it is doing. Here’s an infographic that re-dresses that imbalance by showing how technology is helping us to fulfill God’s mandate to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion …” (Gen. 1:28).

Click through to launch the infographic.

Fathers and mothers, not Harvard Business School, are raising the next generation of leaders. Those who will lead families, churches, businesses, and even government in coming decades are presently receiving leadership-training in our own homes. We may not realize it, but we are qualifying (or disqualifying) our children for influential and effective leadership by how we are parenting them. And if our children are to lead in any realm of life, then we must develop optimism in them.

An optimistic view of people
First, we must teach our children to have an optimistic view of people. Matt Perman recently blogged about how the best leaders have a high view of people.

If you don’t have a high view of people, you shouldn’t lead. If leadership involves lifting people up to do and become more than they realized they could, then you can’t do this if you look down on people or think that most people are not capable of much.

Matt based this on the truth of us all being made in the image of God. Of course, that image is significantly damaged and defaced by sin, but its outline remains. And that is not to deny total depravity. In fact, Christians who believe in total depravity should have an even more optimistic view of people. Because we believe that grace is more powerful than sin. We believe that where sin abounds, there can grace much more abound.

If children are brought up in a pessimistic home where neighbors, “friends,” pastors, teachers, and other family members are verbally “hung, drawn, and quartered” at every meal, then they are not going to have a high view of people. If only the negatives and failures of people’s lives are discussed then they will develop a hopelessly pessimistic view of everyone.

But if children are nurtured in an environment where conversions are rejoiced over, growth in grace and gifts is celebrated, and even evidences of God’s image or “common grace” in the unconverted are celebrated, then children are going to see the potential of every individual. They will look on even the most hopeless cases with believing optimism.

An optimistic view of the future
In the same article Matt went on to say that the best leaders also have a high view of the future. He quotes Marcus Buckingham who says that one of the essential talents of leadership is optimism, because “leaders rally people to a better future.”

If you don’t believe that the future can be made better, then nobody will want to (or should want to–that would be strange) go to the future that you have in mind.

Again, Matt grounded this forward-looking optimism in the truth, this time upon the biblical doctrine of providence.

If parents express cynicism and suspicion about every new event or endeavor in the school or in the church or in business, then children are not going to be enthusiastic about innovating, creating, or leading themselves. But if parents encourage new ventures, stimulate creativity, speak confidently about the future, and express their trust in God’s providence, that produces a rich and hopeful soil in which strong leadership can germinate, grow, and eventually come to full flower. 

An optimistic view of God
So, if we want to produce godly leaders for the home, the church, and the state, we must begin now in our own homes and raise children with an optimistic view of people and an optimistic view of the future. And this is all rooted in an optimistic and high view of God.

It’s been sad for me to watch the almost unanimous adulation given to the Pope from almost every quarter during his recent visit to the United Kingdom. Even previously Gospel-centered churches have joined the “worship” with hardly a glance back at history.

I was therefore heartened by John Ross’s response to this ecumenical love-in on Reformation 21: Auld Reekie reeks no more (hope that piques your interest!).

Like me, John Ross is a Scot living and working abroad (in his case he serves at Dumisani Theological Institute in South Africa). Like me, he too was saddened by what he saw over the last week from a distance. The radio interview he is referring to in his post was on Radio Scotland’s “Call Kaye” with John Beattie on Thursday 16 September, just after 9am. The caller was the Rev David Robertson (D.R.), minister of St Peter’s Free Church of Scotland, Dundee (previously the pulpit of Robert Murray McCheyne). Here’s an excerpt from the transcript:

D.R. ‘I would disagree with the Pope about many things. I would disagree about it being a state visit. I would disagree on  condoms and so on but I would like to welcome him to Scotland …I think the Pope himself is an intelligent, thoughtful man. I think he is right about secularism…. I think most of all the Pope is right about Christ. Owen Dudley Edwards earlier  this morning commented about the Free Church and the Pope’s book on Jesus and I think it is one of the best books on Jesus that I have ever read,  so I would like to welcome him as a religious leader. I would like to welcome him as a fellow Christian. Personally I would love to meet him and to hear him. I feel perfectly free to disagree with many things that he stands for and says but overall  I think it is a good thing that he is here.’

STUDIO PUNDIT  ’Isn’t that amazing John (Beattie)?  That is a Free Church of Scotland minister.  This could not have happened thirty or forty years ago. The Free Church would have come down on him like a ton of bricks. Thank you (David ) for what you said, because this is the voice of reason.’

D. R. ……’The Catholic Church for me as a Protestant,  I have to say this shamefacedly,  are the ones who have stood up the most to  the kind of militant secularism …..I feel perfectly entitled to disagree with the Pope about many things, and there are still plenty people in the Free Church who might even  be horrified at what I am saying,  but I have to look at each thing as we go along.   I have read much of the Pope’s stuff.. .It is very often misrepresented  in the press by people who have never read it, who go for cheap headlines …I think  he is a thoughtful, intelligent man and I think people should show him respect and should listen to what he has to say.. ‘