Jim Elliott – Risk Taking

By Doug Franklin April 12, 2013

Definition:  Risk Taking is the leadership skill of finding value in taking appropriate risks within the context of a leadership position.

In 1956 Jim Elliott was one of five missionaries seeking to contact the Auca Indians in Ecuador.  This tribe of forest dwellers had killed many people who had attempted to conquer them.  The missionaries made numerous attempts to communicate their friendly intentions to the Aucas’.  Finally, they landed their plane on a crude landing strip.  As the group stepped out of the plane, the Aucas’ greeted them with spears.  All five men were killed.

Jim’s wife, Elisabeth Elliott, later came across some inspiring words in her husband’s journal.  “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  Today the man who killed Jim Elliott is a Christian as are most other Auca Indians.  Jim and his colleagues blazed the trail, and they gained what they could not lose.  Someone has said, “Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”