Hunter Baker, a political science professor at Union College, is a man with a sense of humor. For starters, he is quick to make fun of himself. Given that he has both a PhD and a law degree, he occasionally goes by Dr. Hunter Baker, Lawyer – which he jokes is both his name and a string of four quite different professions.

And now there is this clip from a journal he writes:

You’ve been missing something.  You have lived your life wondering whether there might be anything greater than yourself, some cause, some great undertaking to which you might dedicate your life.  You have experienced many of the world’s possibilities, eaten many meals, played with many toys, accumulated goods, but still found yourself dissatisfied.  Perhaps now you have come to a time of decision.  Maybe you are ready to move to a different level.  You are ready to leave lesser things behind as you subordinate your life and goals to something big enough that you can place your hopes upon it.

What I am asking is this: “Are you ready to give your life to the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA?”  Or maybe you already have?  We have meetings every Saturday.

Hmm. I know many who attend worship services there.

I recently listened to a lecture by a seminary president on leadership. There are lot of people writing, speaking and blogging on leadership today, but I found these comments particularly insightful.

According to this theory, leadership must begin and end with conviction – i.e. leadership is about “the transference of conviction that leads to communal right action.”  So leaders must be people of conviction and must spread that conviction to those around them.

But what are convictions? Or, what are the right convictions? They are not mere beliefs. Rather, they are centering beliefs that are so fundamental that we can’t understand anything without them. We don’t know who we are or who God is without them. Convictions are not beliefs that we hold. They are beliefs that hold us.

Many people lack convictions. They are shallow and lack a clear sense of purpose. Christians are called to be people of deep conviction, and our convictions must be God’s convictions, which we find in his Word. Once the convictions of the Word of God become our convictions, then we are positioned to influence those around us in positive, meaningful, God-honoring ways.

How then do we go about conveying our convictions to others?

· It happens through communication. Presence, while necessary, is not sufficient to pass our convictions to those around us.

· A leader must be able to speak well – clearly articulating our convictions. We must repeat the same things over and over again – because people remember what we repeat. People should know what convictions walk in the room when you walk in the room because you have talked about them so frequently.

· A leader must be able to write well. Books extend further than you. They last longer than you will. They are important for maximizing your impact.

The way to tell if you are a convictional leader is to look at those around you. Do they now hold your same convictions? Convictional leaders don’t take their convictions to the grave with them. They live on as the convictions of others – expressed in their thoughts, words, and actions. This is the legacy of a convictional leader.

I recently watched a video of a talk that David Brooks gave last month at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and, as best I can tell, a secular Jew. He’s also a very insightful guy. In this particular lecture he reflected on his recent experiences teaching a course at Yale. What he expected – and got – was a room full of this country’s best and brightest college seniors. What he didn’t expect – and was troubled by – was the realization that these students had no interior life. He reports that they were so focused on external success that they’d not only failed to cultivate their inner world, they didn’t even have a vocabulary to talk about it.

You can watch the lecture for yourself by clicking here. What I found interesting was not his observation about the students at Yale or his conviction that we need an inner world, rather it was his belief that we are broken.

As I noted above, I’m not sure exactly what Brooks believes about spiritual matters, but it’s not every day that New York Times reporters use the word “sin.”

In the lecture, Brooks describes his efforts to help students begin thinking about their inner world by assigning certain books. In particular, autobiographical works written by people who were not only very accomplished (in worldly terms) but who also had a rich inner life. His list included people like: Dorothy Day, Francis Perkins, Dwight Eisenhower, George Marshall and Samuel Johnson

It also included Augustine.  In particular, it included Augustine’s Confessions.

Perhaps you’ve read it. If not, add it to the pile of must reads. Here’s what Brooks emphasized:

• Augustine, who was born in Algeria in 354, was exceptionally bright. Exceptionally, exceptionally bright.

• His mother, Monica, was a devout Christian. She was also ambitious for her son. Brooks called her a Tiger Mom. Perhaps she was.

• While he is still young, Augustine goes to Carthage, a university town, to try to impress the grad students. He is very vain. He leads a sort of wild life. (Not wild by today’s standards. But he is involved in the hook-up culture.) All of this throws him into turmoil. Augustine writes:

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Everyone with a moral compass agrees that poverty is bad. Many additionally argue that we have a moral obligation to end it. Jesus certainly points us in that direction. The key question is: how? What is the best way to help the poor?

Over the last thirty years, international child sponsorship has become one of many people’s favorite strategy. Large organizations such as Compassion International, World Vision and Save the Children and smaller organizations such as Life Builders, New Hope Intl, I.N. Network and HBI, annually funnel $5B per year toward 9 million sponsored children. Does it work? Is this an effective way to fight poverty?

I have assumed it does. Indeed, Sheri and I have not only sponsored a dozen children over the years, I’ve been a spokesman for one of the main groups, challenging people to give up a cup of coffee every day in order to feed, clothe, educate and evangelize a child.

But does it really work? Until recently we did not know for sure. Now we do. University of San Francisco economist Bruce Wydick just published the result of his team’s investigation into Compassion International. They studied the effects of child sponsorship in Bolivia, Guatemala, India, the Philippines, Kenya, and Uganda. The results? Child sponsorship proved to have a statistically significant impact in several areas.

• Sponsored children are more educated than their unsponsored siblings, neighbors, and peers from the same communities. (They are 27-40 percent more likely to complete secondary school and 50-80 percent more likely to obtain a university degree.)

• In areas where the education levels are lowest (such as sub-Saharan Africa) the impact of child sponsorship is the greatest. Similarly, in areas where boys have higher levels of education than girls the impact was greater among girls, and vice versa.

• When sponsored children finish school, they are 14-18 percent more likely to be hired for a salaried job, and they are 35 percent more likely to get a white-collar job. Many sponsored children decide to become teachers, and others take on different leadership positions in the community or in the church.

• Additionally, sponsored children were measurably more hopeful than their unsponsored siblings and neighbors. This hope is seen in higher levels of self-worth, more ambitious goals and greater aspirations. In short, sponsored children believe that they can change their own future – and the evidence shows that they do.

Can a small investment each month really make a difference? Yes. It’s an effective way of breaking the cycle of generational poverty in the poorest countries around the world. It’s not the only way, but it’s an effective way. Sponsor a child.