​Jesus’ definition of leadership is not what the political revolutionaries of his day wanted. They wanted to subjugate their enemies. They wanted to turn people into an army that followed their commands. They ironically used the same strategies of the system that oppressed them to fight for change. But Jesus had a different idea.
 
To understand how Jesus leads, we must understand what kind of leaders were rallying people to their cause in first-century Israel. He wasn’t the only one claiming to be the Messiah. Many self-proclaimed kings were carving out what they thought would create God’s kingdom on earth. So he had to boldly demonstrate what leaders in God’s economy really did.

​Jesus was not always the most succinct teacher. And he taught that way on purpose.

Among first century Jews, Rabbis generally had one of two teaching styles: Halakha or Hagadda. Halakha focused on concrete rules to follow. Hagadda focused on provocative story-telling that explored what God was all about in more powerful ways than abstract statements could deliver. Jesus preferred one of these methods to the other.

I proclaimed the "Death of Systematic Theology" in 2016 because its form and function does not reflect the diverse genius of Scripture. It is a bold claim, but I believe the evidence is there to warrant it. In that critique, I called for a new kind of creed that advances beyond "statements of faith" to an inspiring storyline that defines who we are and where everything is headed. I called it an "Orthoscript,” so we could move beyond the debate between"Orthodox" statements (about how to correctly phrase the tenets of your faith) and "Orthopraxy" (the right things to do).

In my initial manifesto, I presented a sample narrative of Jesus in action rather than the typical set of static statements, but I never published a comprehensive "Orthoscript" about the whole story that defines why we are here, where we have faltered, and who we can now be in the story God is writing. I believe it is now time to replace every "doctrinal statement" stuck in the linguistic concepts of previous cultures with a new metanarrative. And I need your feedback in order to overcome my own biases and cultural misperceptions as we craft a story bigger than ourselves that can define each self.