The confusion between making disciples and developing leaders

Dann Spader May 9, 2019

my saved content

VIEW AS
A PDF

Many principles could be identified in a discussion on leadership development, but let me give just one for our present purposes: you don’t need a lot of leaders.

Leadership is my top ministry gift, and I believe I understand this gift and calling. And because of this, I often swim upstream when I make this statement, but I firmly believe you don’t need a lot of leaders. You just need the right ones! Jesus only had twelve. And they were all He needed. So many want to make the focus of ministry as leadership development. But nowhere does the Scripture say to make leaders. Our mandate is to make disciples, and there is a difference!

I’m convinced that if we keep our laser focus upon making disciples, we will have more leaders than we know what to do with. The work of ministry is disciple-making. As we keep our focus on this, and then our ministry grows, God will gift faithful men and make them able to equip others. This is the leadership calling.

Leadership is a gift and a calling. Second Timothy 2:2, which many use as only a discipling text, is really in the context of leadership living. Paul writes to Timothy and tells him to find and appoint reliable men who have proven themselves “faithful” and “able to teach others also” (NASB). Faithfulness connotes a proven mature lifestyle. Able connotes an innate ability from the Lord. Faithful and able.

So often, especially in America, we communicate that the goal of the Christian life is to become a positional leader. This is more the American culture than the biblical mandate. In fact, the opposite is true. 

Our calling is to become a servant, a relational and loving disciple-maker. Paul calls it being a “slave” of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we verbally or nonverbally communicate that our end goal is positional leadership, we then encourage people to pursue that position. If everyone wants to be a leader, or we call everyone a leader, then in reality no one is.

Photo source: istock 

my saved content

VIEW AS
A PDF

Dann Spader has dedicated his life to disciple-making and teaching others how to take someone from a seeker to a reproducing disciple themselves, all by following the pattern Jesus laid out for us in scripture. More than 750,000 people in 90 plus countries have been trained to make disciples emulating the life of Christ through organizations and initiatives he has led. He is the Founder of Sonlife Ministries and currently serves as Founder and President of Global Youth Initiative (an alliance of organizations in 95 countries committed to "equipping leaders for movements of multiplication”). Learn More »

• A multicultural church avoids intracultural leadership (by Bob Whitesel)
• 5 church communication resolutions (by Mark MacDonald)
• Eight unforced errors churches make (by Thom Rainer)
• Do you speak ‘guest’? Learning to speak community lingo (by Mark MacDonald)

Free eBook

Steps to Launching Your Personal Workplace Ministry

Have you ever felt the pull to full-time ministry work as a missionary or pastor? If not, you can still make a Kingdom impact without quitting your current job. In this eBook, you will learn the four essentials that can change your perspective of work, your workplace, and most importantly, your heart.

Download Now