Every church on the planet has leadership. They do not all have spiritually qualified leadership. There is a big difference. Some churches have politically qualified leaders rather than spiritually qualified leaders. Those churches are not being led the way God desires them to be led. They need different values. They need the value of spiritually qualified leadership.
The Scriptures are clear on the value of spiritually qualified leadership. One of the very first examples is found in Exodus 18. Moses’ father-in-law Jethro instructed him to select leaders to oversee the people who “fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe.” Once the church grew in Acts 6, they chose deacons to give spiritual leadership and serve people. These deacons were to be “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” Later, as the church expanded, Paul instructed Titus in chapter one, verse five, to appoint Elders above “above reproach,” followed by a list of qualifications worthy of leading in that role.
God requires spiritually qualified leaders and not just politically qualified leaders. Having the right last name, being in the right job, and knowing the right people are not the qualities God seeks in church leaders. God is looking for leaders that walk the walk and talk the talk. God is looking for disciple-making leaders! If the church’s mission is to “make disciples,” how can you have anything but disciple-making leaders?
Sadly, very few churches today have disciple-making leaders or spiritually qualified leaders. In most churches, leaders are chosen by the “good old boy” rather than the “Godly character and conduct” method. For most of my life, I have been in churches that select leaders from a list of people who have been members for at least two years and are at least twenty-one years of age. What a horrible way to select leaders! Can you imagine Jesus selecting leaders this way? Not hardly. Jesus spent three years training the individuals who would one day lead his movement. He knew these people inside and out, who was ready to lead and who wasn’t. Jesus had qualified leaders because they had been with him and were fully trained disciples.
The church needs a new approach to leadership selection and development. The church needs to develop leadership out of discipleship and select leaders who are fully trained disciples. When this approach is used, the church is better served by spiritually qualified leaders who can lead the church to accomplish Christ’s mission.
I highly recommend that your church raise the value of spirituality-qualified leaders and become the kind of church that God is honored by. It might take courage to lead the church to change what might be years of tradition. If the right change occurs, it will be worth the effort. A church with the right leaders is a church that is much more likely to be accomplishing its mission, and that is what honors the Lord.
Please contact us at impactdisciples.com if we can help you become a disciple-making church. We provide resources, training, and consulting that can help your church become a disciple-making movement.
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Because of the importance of intentionality in disciple making, we at Discipleship.org are going to emphasize this skill set and mindset over the next four months. Please join with us and seek to share understanding, insight, and practical tools so that you can become skilled at intentionality in relational disciple making and you can help those on your team or in your leadership group to do the same. There are four ways in which we are emphasizing intentionality to help you in the next four months.
- Discipleship.org City Tour Forums – our four City Tour Forums are designed to help you and your team both understand and develop an intentionality posture. The tour is comprised of one day, high impact forums where there will be teaching and round table discussions. Every attendee also gets a copy of Brandon Guindon’s new book, Intentional: Living Out the Eight Principles of Disciple Making.
Click the image below for more information.
Take the FREE Individual Disciple Maker Assessment – we designed this assessment with a team of national and international disciple making leaders to help each individual be able to evaluate their disciple making mindset and skill. Just by taking this assessment, you will gain an appreciation for the value of intentionality, along with a sense of how you can increase your own level of intentionality. Click the image below to take the assessment.
- Read the short FREE book, Becoming a Disciple Maker: The Pursuit of Level Five Disciple Making – Bobby wrote this short eBook with statistician Greg Wiens to help you understand the mathematical and practical impact of one person’s disciple making efforts and skills.
Click the image below to download this free eBook.
- Read Brandon Guindon’s book, Intentional: Living Out the Eight Principles of Disciple Making – Brandon wrote this Discipleship.org book and Zondervan is publishing, because the understanding and practice of disciple making is so crucial. Every attendee at each of our City Tour events (Nashville, Houston, Dallas and Raleigh), as mentioned above, will receive a FREE copy of Brandon Guindon’s book.
Click the image below to order Brandon Guindon’s book from Amazon.com.
Please join with us in this quest to better understand and practice intentionality. It will help us all to become more and more like Jesus, the world greatest disciple maker.