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The Connection Between Discipleship and
Leadership
Discipleship Ministries (Liberty University)
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The Connection Between Discipleship and Leadership
Jason A. Parrish
DSMN 500: Discipleship
Ministries September 26, 2022
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Great Commission Leadership
As followers of Jesus, we are all to pursue the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). This
is to be adapted into churches as well; the church is responsible for providing the discipleship
and ministering to those there to create new disciples. A healthy goal should be to develop
disciples capable of making other disciples. Chuck Smith had a great statement about this when
he said, “pastors should look after those who are there and realize that these are the ones the
Lord has brought for them to minister to.”1 This explains the importance of trusting the LORD
in providing people for your church, and then when they are there, you have whom you’re
supposed to minister. We are to go into our communities and preach the Gospel so everyone can
hear, but this doesn’t always lead people to church. Everything could be done right, but if it’s
not in the LORD’s will or His timing, it just won’t happen. So when we have new people show
up to the church, as leaders, we are to see them as people provided by God. This is why an
established discipleship system needs to already be in place. As said by Putman et al., “As a
church leader, your job is to create an overall system in which people can be placed into
environments where they are discipled. As a pastor, you are not discipling everybody yourself.
Rather, you are creating a system where everybody in your church can be discipled.”2 It’s self-
evident that the pastor alone can’t reach everyone on a standard Sunday, but through effective
discipleship programs, each person can be reached by the church.
In these discipleship programs, two different categories of people attend. The first is the
leader, who leads the small group or class, teaching others what they already know. Then there is
the attendee or disciplee, who are there to learn and grow in their walk with the LORD. The
1Giffard, Pierre Alain. "Leadership and Church Growth: The Case of Chuck Smith." Great Commission
Research Journal 11, no. 1 (2019). 78.
2Jim Putman, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman, DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your
Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013).
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difference between the two is that one has learned enough in their spiritual walk and has grown
enough individually that their teaching would be helpful to others. As said previously, the
purpose of a discipleship program is to make disciples capable of making other disciples.
Basically, this is saying that the goal is to create other leaders within the church. The
development of the two is different, as they each require a different focus. A leader needs to learn
how to be as self-reliant and more Jesus-focused. Dempsey and Earley state, “Jesus sacrificed for
us, and in order to lead like Jesus, we must sacrifice to develop God’s children. In the same way
that we are to serve and develop our family, we are to serve and develop His church.”3 This
further explains the need to sacrifice wants and desires for the spiritual needs of the people being
discipled. As for the disciples, their focus is established on consistent daily spiritual disciplines.
These are not easy, but as a follower of Jesus, you must want to be more like Him. As stated by
Earley and Dempsey, “Those who would be the disciples of Jesus must practice the disciplines of
Jesus. If we want to live as Jesus lived, we must do as Jesus did.”4 This is foundational for the
disciples being taught by the leader.
Reading Comparison & Contrast
Both readings gave great insight into what a leader truly is. They explained that
leadership in the secular world is different from leadership found in the church. At first, this
might be surprising, but understanding the focus needed and the similarities between the two
becomes more apparent. As for secular leadership, found in the Dempsey & Earley reading, it
says, “The motivation in secular leadership is that you are here to help me make the organization
successful. The health of the organization is the highest goal. Furthermore, as a leader, I am here
3Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making Is . . .: How to Live the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence
(Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2013).
4Dave Earley, Spiritual Formation Is...: How to Grow in Jesus with Passion and Confidence
(Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 158.
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to make the organization successful, and the person is viewed as a resource.”5 For Christian
leadership, it says, “The motivation in Christian leadership, however, is that I am here to help
you become a healthy (mature) and productive part of the body. The result will be that the body
(organism) will be healthy.”6 This shows, as stated in this text, the difference between the two is
in approach. When looking at the other text by Putman et al., the definition of a leader is “to
guide and equip the saints so that the entire church becomes a mature community in which
disciples flourish. It involves releasing the ministry and gifts of all believers. It’s about creating
a place where everybody learns to be a minister by growing, serving, and making disciples
themselves.”7 It’s pronounced to see the similarities between the two definitions. A leader needs
to put the church and its people first so that growth can happen and the result will be a better
overall community. This gives a direct focus to the leaders allowing them to understand their
primary role in the church. They are to minister to others and help them grow into leaders who
can create other leaders.
The Goal for Discipleship in a Healthy Church
When bringing a discipleship program into your church, the outcome is to create a church
that, in general, is Christ-like. Each person is working on their personal walks with the LORD
and living sacrificial lives wanting to serve the church in all capacities. What this ultimately does
is make the church healthier. Johnson explains this further by saying, “The first and primary call
for all Christians is to be faithful, Christ-centered disciples. For this reason, Christian leaders
must have a baseline knowledge and practice of the classic spiritual disciplines.”8
5Dempsey & Earley, 2013.
6Dempsey & Earley, 2013.
7Putman et al.
8Johnson, W. Mark. "Leadership Development: Re-enforcing Healthy Churches and Preparing
for Exit." The Great Commission Baptist Journal of Missions 1, no. 1 (2022). 4.
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As faithful Christians serving the LORD and the church, we need these basic spiritual
disciplines to guide our lives, allowing us to be more fruitful. These basic spiritual disciplines
mentioned include but are not limited to being in God’s word, prayer, evangelism, stewardship,
and worship. Each of these is to be practiced not just alone but with others. In our small groups,
we are to read and learn from the Bible together. We are to pray with and for each other. We are
to serve each other and the church by giving time and money if needed. We are to worship
together corporately and in private. Lastly, we are to go into our communities together and
preach the good news of Jesus Christ together. Discipleship, whether on a large scale of 4 to 10
or a small scale of 1 to 3, you are to live life together, working along each other’s side to grow in
your walks with the LORD. When churches have these discipleship programs in place, you are
creating healthier members and a healthier church. As said by Bonhoeffer, “Christianity without
the living Jesus Christ remains necessarily a Christianity without discipleship; a Christianity
without discipleship is always a Christianity without Jesus Christ.”9 From this, we understand
that discipleship is needed within a church, resulting in the church becoming healthier overall.
Ten Leadership Principles
To evaluate a church honestly, you have to understand not only where it’s successful but
also where it fails. In learning this, you might discover areas you felt were strengths, but after
looking further, understand it’s not what it seemed. This can be sad to certain members, while
others see finding fault as a blessing because the church can grow that much more. Regardless,
every church should look into these ten principles to see where they need growth.
9Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss,
vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 59.
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In the evaluation of my church, I realized certain principles where the church as a whole
could use growth or at least a change in perspective. Starting with the third principle, our church
has a problem with obsessing over its building, as most churches do. It seems like they
sometimes worship the building in a very unhealthy way and that it’s their job to be the sole
preserver over it. They don’t necessarily want bigger and better but lose touch with the
importance of their current building. Our pastor is great at steering them back and helping them
to realize their faults.
Three more principles that cause strife belong in the same group, with those being 4, 5,
and 7. Each of these is a widespread struggle by congregation members and a problem that can
only be fixed with personal discipleship. Most followers of Christ that are not very spiritually
mature also go against each of these. They don’t have fellowship with Jesus, and their
relationship with the LORD only goes as deep as their acceptance. Due to this spiritual
immaturity, they feel they are more important in the church than they are and don’t serve in
some capacity. This excludes them from learning and eventually using their gifts to fulfill their
role as the body of Christ. The feeling of superiority also prevents them from seeing the true
intentions of a follower is to be the lowest among all and a servant to everyone. In discipleship,
they realize their faults in this area, as most people end up doing. The problem is that
discipleship on a personal level is not present, so this would need to be implemented so that a
step forward could be taken to resolve this problem.
The last principle we will evaluate for my situation is the eight. As mentioned in a
previous paper, a problem that hurt our church’s outreach is the congregation’s age. They’re
much older, and it’s a struggle to get to church sometimes, so it would be much more
challenging to get out into their community to preach the gospel. This means that the younger
people in the
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church need to step up and represent the church in this way. Eventually, I will get the privilege to
teach an evangelism class, and through this, I pray that the LORD will give them new passions
for sharing with everyone.
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Bibliography
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 4. Minneapolis: First Fortress Press,
2003.
Earley, Dave, and Rod Dempsey. Disciple Making Is…: How to Live the Great Commission with
Passion and Confidence. Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2013.
Earley, Dave, and Rod Dempsey. Spiritual Formation Is… Nashville: B&H Publishing Group,
2018.
Giffard, Pierre Alain. "Leadership and Church Growth: The Case of Chuck Smith." Great
Commission Research Journal 11, no. 1 (2019).
Johnson, W. Mark. "Leadership Development: Re-enforcing Healthy Churches and Preparing for
Exit." The Great Commission Baptist Journal of Missions 1, no. 1 (2022).
Putman, Jim, Bobby Harrington, and Robert E. Coleman. DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help
Your Church to Make Disciples Who Make Disciples. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013.
