Crawford W. Loritts, Jr is a wise and humble speaker. His book, Leadership as an Identity, reflects those same characteristics.

Pastor Loritts’ book challenges the view of Christian leadership as being far more than a set of skills and giftedness or even personality. It’s not a book on “how to” lead well. This book instead dares to say that leadership for a Christian is something other than that. It is an identity that a believer assumes when God calls that person to lead. This is manifested best when the leader embraces four key characteristics: brokenness, uncommon communion, servanthood and radical, immediate obedience. Crawford points to these being the four underlining character traits of great leaders in Scripture, and in the church through history.

This book is written in a very easy to read style drawing on Scripture as well as the words of wisdom from Christian leaders that have withstood the test of time and trials and exhibited these four characteristics. Loritts contends that only when a leader submits to these processes in their walk with God, can they truly be called a Christian leader and glorify God in the manner in which they fulfill that assignment that God has given.

These are not easy traits to seek and ultimately they are the calling of everyone who wants to claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ. The responsibilities and challenges that leaders face in the church, however, make these traits far more essential to wrestle with.

Having read many books, this could easily qualify as one of the best of any leadership book out there. If you are a leader in the church, whether you are paid staff or volunteer, whether you lead adults or children or serve in a soup kitchen, this book is for you. It is a book to be read, underlined, savored and prayed over in the pursuit of leadership that will stand the test of time and bring the utmost glory to God in the process.  Then read it again. It’s that good.

Congratulations to Pastor Loritts on obeying God in putting these thoughts on paper and sharing them with a wider audience. May the church be blessed and God glorified all the more because of the words on these pages.