Dan B. Allender - Leading with a Limp: Take Full Advantage of Your Most Powerful Weakness

Praise for
Leading with a Limp

There are good books on leadership, but this one is profound. It is better than a how to do it book; this is a how to be it book for leaders. Dan Allender offers serious wisdom rather than simple platitudes.

M ARK S ANBORN , speaker, leadership consultant, and best-selling author of The Fred Factor

Not only is Dan Allender a good friend, he is a great leader. In Leading with a Limp, he has shown us how we can effectively lead those allotted to our charge. Read this book; it will bring a lot of things into perspective for you.

D ENNIS R AINEY , president of FamilyLife and coauthor of Moments Together for Couples

After I read this book, the first two words out of my mouth were At last! Amid a deluge of spiritual gifts inventories, at last there is someone who understands how Gods strength is made perfect in our imperfections. At last someone has brought spiritual strengths and spiritual weaknesses into conversation. For Dan Allender, the limp is a limpid way of walking that leads into the very presence of God.

L EONARD S WEET , author of The Three Hardest Words and Out of the Question Into the Mystery

Leading with a Limp is not your basic cafeteria-brand manual on how to do leadership. It is a call to openly face your shortcomings as a leader. Dan Allender reminds us that our greatest asset as leaders is not our competence but the courage to name and deal with our frailties and imperfections.

D R . C RAWFORD W. L ORITTS J R ., author, speaker, and senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, Georgia

Once again Dan Allender has propelled us headlong into the paradoxical wonders of the gospel of Gods grace. Leading with a Limp exposes the thin veneer of respectability we leaders try to stretch over our destructive idols of control and pragmatism. In so doing, Allender invites us to the freeing humility of leading as the chief sinner in whatever context God has placed us.

S COTTY S MITH , founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and coauthor of Restoring Broken Things

I often wonder if other people feel the way I do when they read books on leadership. Most of the books are heavy on motivation or strategy or positive thinking. Dan Allender looks at how anyone can move his teamand himselfforward when he is pummeled by circumstances and his heart is fainting. This is real-world stuff, but youll have to take off the rose-colored glasses to read it.

B OB L EPINE , cohost of FamilyLife Today

Leading with a Limp will have a lasting impact on me; it addressed several issues Im struggling with at this point in my life and leadership. I thank God for this honest and insightful book!

B RIAN M C L AREN , pastor and author of The Secret Message of Jesus and A New Kind of Christian

L EADING WITH A L IMP
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ( NLT ) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189.
All rights reserved.

eISBN: 978-0-307-55034-7

Copyright 2006 by Dr. Dan B. Allender

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK P RESS and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Allender, Dan B.
Leading with a limp: turning your struggles into strengths / Dan B. Allender.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. LeadershipReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Failure (Psychology)Religious aspectsChristianity. 3. IntegrityReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Title.
BV4597.53.L43A45 2006
253dc22
2006003516

v3.1_r1

Mike and Myra McCoy,
your grace with my failing has invited me to be more in love with Jesus.

L eading is as natural to me as going to the dentist. I dont have to be told to go fly-fishing or sailing. I take the opportunity to do so whenever the moment is available and the elements are conducive. The same is not true for leading. I have known a few who seem to lead with elegance and ease, but they confess that the price is high and the ability is not innate.

In fact, what I have learned from those who lead well is that the price always seems to outweigh the gain, but to do anything else would be to betray their calling and deprive those who hunger for their wise care. I am deeply grateful for those who have led me to lead and wrestled with me to become a holier and wiser leader.

As chairman of the board of Mars Hill Graduate School since its inception, you have been a gentle father, bold warrior, and passionate artist who has called each of us to honor our better angels and to confess and repent of our darker paths. You have been a friend who has suffered my failures with Resurrection hope. This book, and certainly the school, would neverand I mean neverexist without your care. And thank you, Myra, for leading Mike in the high call of broken leadership.

You are a generous, kind, and wise man who has willingly chosen what still must seem like an absurd path toward being the chief operating officer of Mars Hill Graduate School. Your ability to help others walk into the magnificent calling of God is a work of awesome beauty. Your wisdom regarding the organization of this book was the turning point in its completion. What good is to be found on these pages is to your credit, and truly the failures are mine alone. Thank you, Barbara, for calling Ron to see the wildness of his own calling to be at Mars Hill.