CAPTION: Liz and James Grier hope Normal Imperfect Heroes will reset how we think about failures in leadership and our own failings
Bishop’s new book takes an honest look at leadership failures
The Bishop of Plymouth and his wife have published a new book together about leadership and failure.
Normal Imperfect Heroes explores leadership through the lens of different biblical characters including Abraham, David, Moses, some of the disciples and Mary the mother of Jesus.
The Rt. Rev’d James Grier started writing the book while he was on sabbatical several years ago.
The book is published by SPCK and the book launch took place in Exeter Cathedral’s Cloister cafe.
Faith Shaken
Speaking at the launch, Bishop James explained how the book had come about. He said “I thought I’d love to write about heroes in the Bible who actually aren’t so heroic as a bit of a sabbatical discipline, but also as a way of bringing together stuff I had taught on over the years. I tried to get it published, and that didn’t quite happen.”
Liz said “About 18 months ago, I just really felt that what James had been talking about in his book was something that the church as a whole needed to hear, so I persuaded him to revisit the book. I helped him reshape and rewrite and fit it for publication. So it’s a joint effort.
“I had been talking to people whose faith had been really shaken [by the revelations about Soul Survivor and other cases]. There had been some stuff going on in churches where leaders had failed, and it seemed to me that maybe their faith had been more in the leaders than in God. And it was just a time to refocus people’s attention on God.”
“I don’t think any of us need to fake it and pretend we’re perfect. That’s the whole point of the book. Nobody is. Nobody’s going to be other than Jesus. We need to be real and we need to be honest about that.” Rt. Rev’d James Grier, Bishop of Plymouth
“If you’re trusting in a person, we’re all going to mess up. We’re all going to let people down. So it was trying to speak into that culture.
Bishop James said the book is not just aimed at people in leadership. He said “All of us influence people in our lives and for some of us our faith has been shaken because of leaders.
“It’s exciting to me that we’ve had people in their 20s who’ve read it and who said they laughed and cried, and also a lady in her eighties who is buying more copies for people she wants to give it to.
“I’d love people to read it, and from reading it, get excited about reading the Bible for themselves and praying for others.”
He said the book set out to show that all leaders will fail at some point, but “failure is not the end of the story”. He added “I don’t think any of us need to fake it and pretend we’re perfect. That’s the whole point of the book. Nobody is. Nobody’s going to be other than Jesus. We need to be real and we need to be honest about that.”
James and Liz started Unlimited, a youth-focused church in Exeter, together a number of years ago. Liz has previously written a book about the experience of setting-up Unlimited, and said “I think one of the key things we learned through running a church together and having young children in that church is that we needed to be authentic and honest, and we couldn’t, try to be anything that we weren’t.”
Not cheap grace
James said the church has a strong message for society when it comes to how we treat leaders who fall short: “We can be kinder and not try to scapegoat. We live in a world of cancel culture, a world where we put people on pedestals and want them to be perfect and amazing, whether that’s leaders of celebrities.
“And then equally, we like to see them fall off. and we’re disappointed them at the same time when they fall off. And we have that conflicted, complicated relationship which also leads people going, well, you’ve done wrong, we don’t want anything to do with you anymore. That’s not the way the Bible talks about people at all, people mess up.
The whole point of Christian faith is that it offers a way back through forgiveness and redemption and restoration. In the middle of that, we do need to be real about the consequences of failure. In particular when people have been hurt by our failure. It’s not just cheap, grace.
“God takes very seriously the pain caused. And if we hurt others, it may be that we’re not capable of or appropriate to carry on leading.
“But, for most of us, what we need to hear is that God offers redemption. He offers a fresh start time and time again. And we don’t have to be perfect because we’re not, we’re forgiven.”
You can find out more about the book here.
