Leadership Development
A British evangelist commented, “If you Americans don’t change your practices, your big churches will soon look like the empty cathedrals of Europe.”
He was addressing the sad reality that discipleship is missing in most churches today. Churches has either become large and shallow or small and deep, but few are both deep in commitment to God’s word and wide in outreach to a needy world.
Checking the topic on Amazon.com, there are almost twenty thousand options for resources on Discipleship. There is more content on discipleship than ever in the history of mankind. Could it be that churches have settled for living in holy huddles, reading about discipleship, while neglecting to connect with those who need discipleship so desperately?
Having been involved in discipling ministries for the last forty years, I’m well exposed to excellent discipling resources. In fact, I could be the “Kathryn Kelly”(You Got Mail), a curator of Christian discipleship resources for every need in the church. I believe that effective discipleship can solve any problem in the church, even evangelism.
Great discipleship produces great evangelism or it isn’t great discipleship. Discipleship isn’t complete until the evangelized become the evangelist.
With so many Christian resources and ministry tools available on the Internet, Kindle and even free through online libraries, is the problem one of needing more content? I don’t think so.
The heart of the problem is always a problem of the heart. Jesus spent three years with his little band of brothers, giving them assignments, teaching them as he spoke to the masses and privately as he taught them to pray.
Jesus practiced a relational leadership development process that is missing in today’s church. Jesus didn’t just cram content into the minds of his disciples, as the Pharisees modeled. He loved his followers to within an inch of their lives. He gave them assignments and then debriefed them on what they learned. He allowed them to see his heart for people and his vital connection with his Heavenly Father.Jesus practiced “life on life, way of life” discipleship.
We see the beginning when Jesus made his invitation, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." Matthew 4:19 ESV
They weren’t even asking to become “fishers of men,” but they were willing to follow because they saw who Jesus is and how much he loved them.Could it be that the missing element in our churches today is relational leadership development environments? I believe so.
