Roz Stirling is the director of Cleopas, a Christian ministry that functions to help provide space for leaders (and others) to draw aside to pay attention to their relationship with God. She is also involved in providing spiritual accompaniment and is keen to develop resources to help people with personal spiritual formation.
In this first part of our conversation Roz talks about her family background where both of her parents were important influencers in her development. Church provided her with some of the earliest opportunities to be involved in leadership with young people. She talks about her career as a teacher during which time an incident took place that gave her a deep call and passion for the Church to be relevant to young people.
After teaching, she spent some time working in the North of England with UCCF, an experience that carried quite an element of culture shock and proved challenging until she realised that she needed to pursue a more relationally-based form of leadership.
After some work with the YMCA she moved to work with the Presbyterian Church as ‘youth officer’, a role she carried out for 21 years.
Next time Roz will be talking about her work with the Presbyterian Church, her experience of burnout and illness and how she came to develop the work of Cleopas.
Two questions for reflection:
- Roz talked about the influence of her father in helping her to persevere in challenging work circumstances: do you have people who have spoken to you like this?
- How important to you is the relational aspect of leadership?
Listen to the podcast here:
The Crucible of Leadership 