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Discussing Leadership vs Discipleship

I want you to understand what I’m talking about when I say leadership development in the church should be discipleship development. If you pour into someone and that person becomes a great leader, wonderful. But all you have is a great leader. You pour into someone and that person becomes a great disciple, you get a great disciple AND and great leader.

If you take the StrengthFinders, load up on Maxwell books, bookmark the business/marketing section of amazon.com, you are on a path to better understanding how to connect, lead, and manage people, processes, and problems. Great. Now, as a believer, filter that through Great Commission and how does all of that get applied?

Check that.

How SHOULD all of that get applied?

We are called to make disciples. That was Christ’s final word. That is every church corporations “bottom line” (or at least should be). The fruits of the Spirit, strength assessments, ten commandments, and staff evaluations should all be centered around one eternally important question:

HOW ARE WE MAKING INFLUENTIAL DISCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST?!?!?!?!?!?

For the Christian church: leaders are great but disciples are better.

Am I wrong? I want to keep this conversation going.

Discussion

5 Comments
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scott beasley March 4, 2009

Agreed! I have learned the hard way that SPIRITUAL leadership is influencing people in the direction of God’s way and will. We cannot do that with mere principles and strengths. It is a work of the heart. Read Reggie McNeal’s A Word of Heart…awesome.
Shane Smith March 12, 2009

One of the concepts that I have been wrestling with lately is the idea that perhaps not all disciples become leaders, and that there is often nothing wrong with that.

1 Thess. 4:11-12 seems to direct many of Paul’s disciples to live average lives.

Micah 6:8 sounds like it could be carried out by a pig farmer just as well as a Rick Warren.

Of course, all the books are written by Type-A leaders, and the sermons are all preached by visionary entrepreneurs.

Even though each believer must take part in the great commission, perhaps there will be some who never learn to teach, preach, speak, sing, administrate, or even delegate…

?
willgoodwin March 13, 2009

Agreed many disciples will never be a Paul or a Peter. Even the with the Apostles there was a range of giftedness that led some to make of an impact than others.

And where a 10 can lead anyone, a 2 can still lead a 1. And maybe that is all that matters.

my point is that to fulfill the Great Commission, you’ve got to have some “leader in you.”
And if you are going to pour into someone to try and make them a better leader, you might as well do it from the perspective of pouring into someone to make them a better disciple.
RaiulBaztepo March 28, 2009

Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo