Influence

 the shape of leadership

Why Leadership Development Is Essential to the Great Commission

Equip people to reach your community and the world

Leadership development is essential in the pursuit of your vision and the growth of the church. Without an adequate supply of qualified leaders, you’ll hit a lid organizationally and burn out personally. But need for leadership development extends far beyond your local church; it’s imperative to the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

I recently returned from 10 days of ministry in Kenya, Africa. Several years ago, I also had the opportunity to minister in Gabon, located on the west coast of Africa. In both places, I trained local pastors, and in both cases, I discovered just how desperate pastors are for leadership development.

Let me put the need in Gabon in perspective. At the time I traveled, there were roughly 100 Assemblies of God churches throughout Gabon, and yet only 50 pastors. That means each pastor was leading, on average, two churches because there simply weren’t enough qualified pastors. Of these 50 pastors, only 20 of them had received any kind of training.

That’s when it hit me that we cannot fulfill the Great Commission unless we train and equip leaders. This is what we can expect without leaders and leadership development:

  • New churches are not planted
  • Existing churches are underserved
  • The spread of the gospel is limited
  • The discipleship gap widens
  • Basic Christian theology is almost non-existent
  • Servant-leadership is replaced by positional or even dictatorial leadership styles
  • Growth barriers are not broken
  • Church conflict is managed poorly
  • Ineffective ministry strategies are employed
  • Existing leaders experience burnout

That’s just a taste of what happens (or doesn’t happen) when leaders aren’t adequately equipped and trained. The ripple doesn’t stop there.

In my visit to Kenya, the leaders asked me to teach about marriage, and to provide biblical perspective on what servant-leadership looks like in the home. It was like a breath of fresh air for many of these pastors and their wives as their eyes were opened to the love and respect necessary for a healthy marriage.

Leaders are catalysts for change, and the intentional development of leaders will advance the work of the Kingdom.

An abundance of leadership books, seminars, resources, blogs and podcasts are available in the United States. There are so many conferences and webinars that you can be selective on where to invest your training time and resources. Unfortunately, the same isn’t true in some of the most desperate parts of our world.

Many pastors have received no training. Zero. As a result, their congregations are being poorly led, and the mission of the church is being marginally realized. The same is true for leaders at every level in many countries of the world. Corruption, abuse of power and a lack of integrity are decimating entire sectors, from business to government, from education to the media.

Leadership models have a way of multiplying throughout countries and cultures, and when the only leadership model you’ve ever seen is positional — or on the verge of a dictatorship — it’s easy to replicate what you’ve seen. It’s not that you want to lead poorly; it’s that you know no other way to lead. It’s never been modeled for you.

Jesus addressed the heavy weight poor leadership creates when He described the Pharisees of His day.

Jesus said, “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others” (Matthew 23:2-7). 

“Heavy, cumbersome loads” sounds an awful lot like the burden many people carry today because of the poor leadership they sit under. Jesus offered a different leadership model when He said, “The greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23:11).

Unless pastors, business leaders, government officials and other cultural influencers are trained and equipped in biblically sound servant-leadership principles, they will only perpetuate the dysfunction that disables the flourishing of a culture. Again, that’s why leadership development is critical to the Great Commission.

Although the lack of training is glaring, many leaders in these countries are hungry to learn. As I trained pastors and business owners in Kenya, I was humbled by the hunger these leaders exhibited; they listened intently, asked thought-provoking questions, and feverishly took notes.

If you’re a pastor, I would encourage you — even plead with you — to make leadership development an important part of your missions strategy. Leaders are catalysts for change, and the intentional development of leaders will advance the work of the Kingdom and the transformation of cultures.

The preaching of the gospel is imperative to the Great Commission, but the development of leaders is the undercurrent to multiplying the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Without equipped and empowered leaders, the Great Commission fails to gain the traction necessary to reach the ends of the earth.

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