Strauch's Agape Leadership

In Strauch’s biography “Agape Leadership”, we learn about the life of R.C. Chapman, a well-respected man who held a reputation for Christlike love and deep-rooted faith. As a result of the way he exhibited Christ, Chapman influenced hundreds of people for the gospel and thousands of people respected and admired him. Strauch describes Chapman’s method of Christian education perfectly within the title of his book: “agape”. Agape is a word that the early Christian’s created to describe the type of love that Christ showed to the church: a mind-blowing, wholly sacrificial love. Chapman sacrificed himself for the benefit of the gospel. Agape love was his motivating factor and the key component of his love-filled gospel mission. Although Jesus Christ is the ultimate picture of agape love, R.C. Chapman is an incredible picture of agape love, in action, as well. To the world’s ears, agape leadership is a contradicting term. People, when they hear the phrase “service” or “sacrifice”, would not …show more content…
As Strauch says, “To not respond with discipline is to dishonor God, disobey the Word of God, and fail to properly love the erring member”. In other words, responding with discipline is what Scripture commands and the best way to maintain a unified and Christ-focused church. If we avoid disciplining we will, in turn, create a lukewarm church who is comfortable living in their sin. Avoiding being disciplined by the church is a sign of a Christian who is weak in their faith and failing to enact church discipline is a sign of a leader who does not love the church as he should. In Hebrews 12:6 ,we find that “...the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Since Christ is both the ultimate picture of agape love (Matthew 20:28) and the head of the church (Colossians 1:18), then should we not follow The Great Example and discipline those within our