Leading with a Creative and Innovative Design

By Allen Quist 

A Sacred Texture Analysis of 1 Peter

Creative and innovative use of existing knowledge (part 2)

In organizations leaders need to understand those they are leading, including the behaviors that the group values. The strongest leaders are actually able to “shape what the followers want to do” and to use their commitment to the group as a starting point for behavior.

Principle: For an organization to flourish in turbulent times, it must possess members fully committed to the organization and to other organizational members.

Peter had seen believers grow from a political entity under the structure of the Jewish religion during the Gospel period to a separate kinship family of believers after the coming of the Holy Spirit – from an insular religion to a perichoretic cosmopolitan family of God.

Peter wrote to Christian believers struggling with differing cultures and values from the world around them as well as their own previously held values. His challenge lay in moving his audience from the surrounding cultures and value systems into a new culture and a new set of values. Peter needed to teach his audience the necessary concepts for them to pull together and withstand the onslaught of struggles with courage and heart.

Peter had learned well how to creatively and innovatively use metaphors to change the paradigm of his audience. One of the metaphors Peter used was “living stones” (2: 4-8). Believers need to see themselves as “living stones” in a spiritual house built on the foundation of “The Living Stone” (Christ). To help them Peter re-applied the Old Testament titles to them, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (2:9).

The believers are a new group, a spiritual house, a chosen race, the family of God (4:17). The help them grasp the significance of being part of the family of God, Peter created a simile within a comparison of the old and the new redemptive model. He creatively helped them see how they were not redeemed by the old method of sacrifice of gold and silver but with the precious blood of God’s lamb, the blood of Christ.

The immense feeling of community within this family and the strong desire to not dishonor the family gave them the power to withstand outside persecution. In a familial culture the core attributes of the in-group were faith as it has to do Christ and love as it relates to the group.

According to Huntsman, “Life is not a game of solitaire; people depend on one another.” What one member of an organization does reflects on and affects all the other members. Organizations are a type of family.Peter knew that life is tough and that people need to belong to a family where they can find identity and sense of purpose – a family committed to one another as a fictive family. As an organizational leader, you need to build a feeling of family. As a family, you need the people you lead to serve the purposes of the organization and they need you to serve them.