From Texas to Italy, a new way of training leaders
In the heart of Texas, in the Austin area, a university experience is growing that attempts to hold together what we are often accustomed to considering separately: professional preparation and personal development, enterprise and service, innovation and responsibility, leadership and Christian principles.
It is Austin Christian University, a young university reality born in Georgetown with a vision summarized in three words: Christ, Craft, Culture.
Christ as the foundation of the person, craft as responsibility toward one's work, culture as the space in which to put what has been learned at the service of others.
It is not simply a matter of adding a religious component to an academic path. The idea is deeper: to form people capable of succeeding without separating success from the meaning attributed to it. And it is precisely this aspect that makes the Texan experience interesting even from an Italian perspective.
Because many of the words that dominate the language of management training today — leadership, coaching, mentoring, responsibility, the ability to create value — encounter here principles that have belonged for centuries to the Christian tradition: service, generosity, attention to others, personal responsibility, the ability to lead by example.
John C. Maxwell, one of the best-known international authors and trainers on leadership, himself comes from a Christian pastoral background. His famous summary, “Leadership is influence,” brings the concept of leadership back to the ability to impact others, even before the position occupied.
It is not surprising, then, that Maxwell has also been involved in the activities of Austin Christian University, where the relationship with entrepreneurs, professionals, and leaders represents part of the educational experience.
And this is where the American model becomes interesting.
Not just theory, but application. Not just the classroom, but experience. Not just skills, but character.
Students are introduced to entrepreneurship, project building, innovation, and new technologies, while simultaneously maintaining a Christian and theological education.
In an era in which artificial intelligence is transforming professions and businesses, this approach takes on a particular significance: technology can multiply what a person is capable of doing, but it cannot determine what values should guide what they will do.
And this is probably the point that is most interesting even when looking from Italy.
Becoming closely acquainted with this reality are John and Marianna Tufaro, who have led Celebration Church in Caserta since 2017 and are the Italian Ministries Directors of the international reality founded in Texas by Joe and Lori Champion.
The relationship with Texas, therefore, did not begin today. It is a relationship built over the years, through training, discussion, and the sharing of the same vision.
But today that relationship takes on a meaning that can go beyond the ecclesial experience.
Because John Tufaro does not look to Texas only to observe what has been built. He looks to that model to understand what principles can be translated into the Italian reality.
The gaze, then, inevitably returns to Italy. The goal is not to simply replicate an American model, nor to transfer ready-made formulas from one side of the ocean to the other. It is to succeed in bringing to our territory the most useful aspects this experience can offer, creating new educational opportunities here as well and, above all, offering the younger generations tools to grow.
An education that starts with being, even before doing. Because it is from identity, values, and awareness of one's own responsibility that a different way of studying, working, doing business, innovating, and leading others necessarily arises.
Ultimately, this is the vision that looks from Texas to Italy: to form people even before professionals, because from their being can arise a doing capable of producing value without ever losing sight of the other.
