Jesus knew he was in the business of building a following. Crowds flocked to hear Him preach and teach, be healed and delivered. He could have drawn people to Him, because He attracted crowds. Jesus chose twelve.
His decision reveals more about Jesus as a leader. Jesus was not concerned with headcount at the expense of leadership capacity. He prioritized the leadership of His message over the mass of His messengers. Leadership development was Jesus’ leverage in influencing a culture. The Great Commission is essentially a charge to develop leaders who can then lead others to follow Him.
What the Church needs to recognize is that many discipleship programs are really nothing more than informational programs. The key difference between information acquisition and influencing lies in the potential to reach beyond the individual.
Information Without Transformation Leaves the Individual
Many discipleship programs do a superb job of giving attendees information. They are excellent resources in providing the Bible’s message, doctrine and the mechanics of spiritual life. None of these are insignificant, because knowledge is not dispensable. However, knowledge is not reproductive either. A person well informed on the mechanics of spiritual growth is not a leader of others in spiritual growth, but rather an inquirer who has merely acquired information.
Paul recognized this when he wrote to Timothy, “…And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2, NIV). Observe how Paul’s charge to Timothy encompasses a continuum of leadership development. From Paul to Timothy there is the potential of leadership. From Timothy to reliable people is the potential for leadership. And finally, from reliable people to others also still holds that potential. It is interesting to observe that Paul was not disciplining Timothy to be a good follower, but to be a leader of others in his turn. In other words, a discipleship that stops at the personal level is not complete discipleship.
Jesus Modeled Leadership, Not Just Crowd-Management
Consider how Jesus spent His three years of public ministry. Although He preached to thousands, He invested the majority of His time with twelve men. He instructed them, corrected them, and allowed them to make mistakes with Him there to guide them. Jesus prepared them for the task ahead by releasing them in small assignments long before He expected them to go out in fulfillment of the Great Commission.
Jesus was a leader who invested in others. He laid out a curriculum which involved talking privately with His disciples, going beyond what He said to the masses, and assigning them responsibilities that stretched their faith. Jesus didn’t leave them to figure it out on their own, but He did release them to go beyond anything they had previously experienced in their spiritual lives. Jesus knew that it would take more than just instruction to prepare these men. Jesus modeled leadership. He knew that in order for others to lead well, they would need to know how to lead by His example. Any effective leadership curriculum must include these same ingredients: nearness, repetition and releasing responsibility.
The Great Commission Is Actually a Multiplication Mandate
Read the Great Commission again, and consider its implications for leadership development. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, NIV). Christ’s mandate is not simply to get people to come to Him or even to be fully developed in their faith. It is to reproduce that kind of faith, making followers who in turn make followers. The Great Commission is essentially a multiplication commission.
You cannot fulfill a multiplication mandate with an addition methodology. You cannot add people one at a time to the front lines of spiritual life and hope to keep up with the demands of the culture. Multiplication requires you to get to the point of developing leaders who can lead others into obedience to Christ. Everything is dependent upon leadership. And even the leadership potential of the gospel depends upon how we develop leaders.
This is why the Maxwell Leadership Foundation sponsors EQUIP to help churches bridge the gap between discipleship and leadership so that the formation of leaders never gets stuck at the informational level. A discipleship program, like Beyond Success, is not an afterthought to a leadership development program. It is an essential element of it. The reason is that leadership development is really just the outworking of a discipleship experience that understands the necessity of multiplicative influence.
Stewardship Isn’t Simply About Growth. It’s About Multiplication.
Each leader is given a stewardship of influence. Your stewardship does not end when you have grown a leader. It continues when that leader helps to grow someone else. The potential of your leadership is directly related to how well you can get beyond yourself and help others reach their potential. The multiplication of the gospel was not meant to be the responsibility of just one generation in any church or ministry. It was designed to begin with Jesus, move to the twelve, go to Timothy, extend to reliable people, and ultimately to equip those who didn’t exist before. A discipleship program that only graduates attenders leaves the responsibility of multiplication where it should be: in your hands. A discipleship program that develops leaders is able to reach beyond you, growing disciples further than you could see.
If you are looking for a discipleship program that incorporates both a leadership development component and the potential to produce attenders who become leaders, explore how EQUIP’s programs, including Beyond Success, are designed to bridge the gap and get beyond the individual to develop leaders who then get beyond themselves to develop others. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn more at iequip.org.
