Josh Plovanic's Writings and Thoughts

For  a lot of my life, when the topic of leadership comes up in conversation or in classes, the concept of servant leadership was often held in high regard. It was a far less authority-based form of leadership that brought the leader down to the level of his or her subordinates in terms of action and activity while still maintaining the position of leadership.  It is often considered in many Christian circles as the most Christlike form of leadership one can engage in. However, for me there is one form of leadership that transcends even servant leadership while also including it, and that is the form of the "healer leader." The difference between a servant leader and a healer leader is that a servant leader is focused on service that doesn't always include acts of restoration and repair, while a healer leader actively and consistently looks for opportunities to repair brokenness within the system they lead and within the missions and objectives they are trying to achieve.

Human life is a special phenomenon in the universe. All the experiences of love, truth, joy, victory, glory, and reality in general have been experienced to its extreme depth by humanity and the human experience is all we know. There are a lot of things that make human life valuable, and many ways to measure that value. There are different opinions and different perspectives on the issues, and I debate with some of my friends as to whether intrinsic worth is legitimate.  From my perspective, what gives a person intrinsic worth comes from their individuality and the unique identity of each person, but it goes deeper than that. It's not just individuality and uniqueness that makes people priceless and infinitely valuable. My main foundation of why I think human life is sacred comes from our sentience and our awareness.  The philosophy I am about to explain is complex, but if understood it gives a different clarity to anyone reading this why it is so egregious and atrocious to harm or

"And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  -1st Corinthians 12:21       One of my favorite topics to talk about is hierarchies and systems. Complex systems fascinate me, and my interest is perked significantly by human systems like agencies, institutions, and governments.  My other favorite topic to talk about is ideas and ideologies. One thing I've oberved in the world is every single grouping of people, whether a government, agency, political movement, or any particular organisation of people is systemized into a hierarchy by ideas. I'd bet you twenty bucks you won't find an exeption to this. Ideas form the purpose and foundation of pretty much all human organisations and movements. They are the reason they exist. As I've observed people in the community, I've noticed how really passionate and zealous people seem to be almost taken over mentally by ideas that they end up acting on be

       People have a hard time extending grace to others, especially people they don't like or people they think they are better than. It's hard to extend grace and mercy when you think someone doesn't deserve it, but in all honesty grace and mercy are never something someone deserves. Then they wouldn't be grace or mercy. Grace by definition is something you could never earn.       Because of our poor ability to extend grace, many wounds are never healed and many relationships are broken permanently. We fight amongst ourselves over selfish desires and ambitions and damage our friendships and loved ones. We don't open doors for people who have made mistakes, and we don't forgive hardly anyone who have violated our boundaries or our sense of correctness.  Gracelessness makes the world harsher and even more brutal than it needs to be, or could be. There are a few inhibitions to our ability to extend grace. The major ones I've noticed are fear, disgust, judgeme