LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Submitted to Dr. Dave Early
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
DSMN 500-B07
The Connection Between Discipleship and Leadership Assignment
by
Julia M. Amspacher
March 1, 2021
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Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………….……….……2
The Similarities between developing disciples and developing leaders….………………….……2
Compare and contrast the leadership chapters in Early/Dempsey with Putnam………………….3
How and Why a Healthy Church is the Ultimate Goal for Discipleship………………………….4
10 Kingdom Leadership Principles Applied………………………….…………………….……..5
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….…..6
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………7
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Introduction
Leaders and disciples are both important in the church. Some can argue that leaders and
disciples are the same thing, some can argue that they are completely different, and some can
note similarities and differences between the two. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, you are
ultimately a leader. The moment you reflect Jesus is the moment you become someone of great
influence. A leader in the church needs to be a spiritual leader. A leader who is leading towards
Christ and not towards things of the world. “If leaders don’t practice biblical love, then the
people in the church will use the word love but not exhibit it accurately either.”1 The goal of any
ministry is to point people towards Christ so that we can further His Kingdom. In order to do that
effectively, there must be disciples and leaders of spiritual influence.
The Similarities between developing disciples and developing leaders
There are many similarities between developing disciples and developing leaders. Both of
these can have a great level of impact and influence. Leadership is a gift and a calling. God
equips people to be leaders or all kind in this world. Just like being a disciple is a calling and
developing other disciples. Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to
observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the
age.” 2 Timothy is a letter that talks about leadership and shows Paul writing to Timothy to
appoint men who have proven themselves as faithful to go on and teach others. 2 Timothy 2:2,
“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men,
who will be able to teach others also.” Developing disciples brings leaders naturally. If you go
and develop a leader without biblical foundation then they are just a leader. But, if you go and
develop a disciple, you have a spiritual leader formed right from it. Our goal in ministry is to just
1 Putman (2019) p. 111
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make disciples but when we do that we will get people who naturally are great leaders and will
influence others because they have Christ living inside of them.
Compare and contrast the leadership chapters in Early/Dempsey with Putnam
The main difference between leadership and discipleship is the sole fact that leadership is
mostly about influence and getting people to look up to the impact that you have and modeling
that in their own ways whereas discipleship is about following after Jesus. Discipleship is also
being influential to those around you, but not to look to you but to look to Christ. “The general
idea is simply this: a leader will persuade or influence other people to follow either their example
or follow the stated vision by their character.”2 Not everyone is gifted as a leader. There are
people who are naturally born to teach and there are people who are not. Just like God equips
pastors to teach, He also equips leaders to lead. “Some pastors lament the lack of leaders in their
church. But I believe that for the most part, the leaders are already there in the body; they are just
undeveloped or overlooked.”3 The text shares that people her are at the head of the church are
trying to do the leading themselves that they don’t take time to look for leaders. Some pastors
think that they can do everything but forget that God has a special place for leaders in the church.
“Not everyone can lead thousands of people, but most can lead a group of three or ten.4” Pastor’s
think that they can lead their entire church when an effective leader will lead a small group.
Another part of leadership in the church is the administration that God puts into place. God
appoints people with different gifts and it is beautiful when each part come together to function
to create a healthy church. “Christian leadership is the process of influencing individuals to
follow God’s plan for their lives and become all they can be for Christ and His mission.”5
2 Early and Dempsey (2013) p. 195
3Putman (2019) p. 123
4 Ibid., p. 124
5 Early and Dempsey (2013) p. 199
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How and Why a Healthy Church is the Ultimate Goal for Discipleship
“A healthy church looks like and acts like a healthy body.”6 The local church is a great
place where discipleship happens. Ephesians 3:10 says, “So that through the church the manifold
wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.”
Discipleship can only go so far with however healthy a church is. The more healthy the church,
the better the discipleship will be. When everyone works together it makes everything a lot more
effective. The way a church becomes healthy is when the Christians in the church are
individually healthy. Ephesians 4:16 says, “from whom the whole body, joined and held together
by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body
grow so that it builds itself up in love.” It is the churches responsibility to put in place a
community that is producing discipleship. “A healthy church is a representation of the people of
God coming together to accomplish the mission of God for the glory of God.”7 We are called to
seek the Kingdom first. “Disciples are compelled to seek. The church seeks.”8 As we seek first
the Kingdom of God, it is only then where we are able to lead others to become disciples. A
church that implements this will have many blessings. In order to go out and evangelize into
different communities, the local church must first be healthy. The rock on which it stands must
not be shaken. The purpose of going out and reaching people out in the community is to bring
people back to the church so that they can come back and continue their spiritual journey with
God in a place that has a good community. If someone recently came to know Christ, they don’t
know how to further their relationship with Him on their own. They need people to meet with
and have a community of believers around them to keep them accountable and push them
forward. There is data that backs up the fact that church support is essential in young Christians
6 Ibid., p. 211
7 Ibid., p. 213
8 Nel (2017)
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growing in their walk with the Lord. “The data demonstrates that psychological factors shape
preferred pathways of discipleship, that perceived church support is important for growing both
depth of discipleship and strength in vocation, that perceived challenges to faith weaken depth of
discipleship, that the discipleship pathway of group activities is central to growing young
Christians, and that depth of discipleship is further enhanced by the pathway of individual
experience, while strength of vocation is further enhanced by the pathway of church worship.”9 It
seems that is all comes back to the church which is why it is important for the church to be
healthy.
10 Kingdom Leadership Principles Applied
From the Kingdom Leadership/Followership principles handout, the Kingdom
perspective that personally needs to be shaped for me is the second one which is “You are not a
leader, you are a follower of a leader. You influence people to follow King Jesus through your
example, through your words, through your prayers, through your love, through your
enthusiasm.” I have never looked at the definition of a leader in this way before and now I will
never not look at it this way. Everything that we do in this life is for Him. As a “leader” we are
not leading people to us, we are leading people to Christ. Even though we are used as a vessel to
bring people to Jesus, we are leading them through us and it is only through the Holy Spirit
through us that we are able to bring them towards Jesus Himself. This is hard today in the world
where there are so many big churches that look up to the pastors who are “celebrities.” What is
wrong about this is that when something in the public gets shared about them that puts them into
a bad light, the people who look up to them get hurt. They forget that all of us are still sinful. We
should not be looking up to the big name pastors because they have a huge following but we
should be looking at how Jesus uses them to bring people towards the Kingdom. This is
9 Luter (1980)
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something that I know a lot of people and churches can work on with the era that we live in
today. Another one of the Kingdom principles that stuck out to me was the “The way up the
ladder is down.” The more that we get rid of ourselves the more that we get closer to Jesus and
move up our “relationship ladder” with Him. John 3:30 says, “He must become greater; I must
become less.” Jesus gave the ultimate example of what it means to lay down your life. We see
this in Philippians 2. The way that we become closer with Jesus is when we humble ourselves
and starting living out of Jesus’ love and going out of our way to serve those around us. We
won’t get anywhere by only living to please ourselves. We also won’t get anywhere by trying to
serve others out of an empty well. We need to be immersed in the Word of God first before we
can spill Jesus onto those around us.
Conclusion
Jesus is the reason that we get to do what we do and He is the only way that we will ever
be able to cultivate a healthy church. We need to work together and all humble ourselves before
the Lord so that He can use us to change other people’s lives. It is important to be a part of a
church and to use your gifts to create a community of believers that helps aid in the spiritual
formation of disciple’s lives. It all starts with Jesus as our firm foundation and it begins with the
body of Christ in our local church. When each part of the body learns how to function on its own,
then it will be able to function altogether to create a healthy church.
Bibliography
Dempsey, Rod; Earley, Dave. Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and
Confidence (Kindle Locations 4542-4580). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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Earley, Dave, and Rod Dempsey. Disciple Making Is . . . How to Live the Great Commission
with Passion and Confidence. B&H Publishing Group, 2014.
Luter, A. Boyd. “Discipleship and the Church.” The Bibliotheca sacra. 137, no. 547 (1980).
Nel, Malan. "Discipleship: Seeking the ‘Kingdom and His Righteousness’." Hervormde
Teologiese Studies 73, no. 4 (2017)
Putman, Jim, et al. DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make Disciples Who
Make Disciples. Zondervan, 2013.
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