LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
The Connections Between Discipleship and Leadership
Submitted to Dr. Donald Hicks
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of
DSMN 500 – C01
Discipleship Ministries
by
Luke Lethco
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Contents
Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………3
Great Commission Leadership ……………………………………………………………...3
Secular Leadership vs. Christian Leadership ………………………………………..4
Leadership and Discipleship ………………………………………………………..5
The healthy Church…………………………………………………………………6
Other Leadership Styles
The Equipper……………………………………………………………………….6
Great Commission leaders vs. the Equipper………………………………………7
10 Kingdom Leadership Principles and Old Fort Baptist Church…………………………7
Conclusion
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Introduction
Christians leadership is the be the backbone of a healthy church. A strong leader will be
able to rally people around the right cause the growth of an organization. In the secular world,
this cause usually is limited to the bottom line or some philanthropic venture. However, in the
Church, it is the goal of the leader to rally the people around the cross of Jesus Christ for the
glory of God. It is for this reason that Christian leaders must be distinguished by the fact that "he
or she is a committed Christ-follower. Being a Christian isn't enough. Since not all Christian is
leaders, Christian leaders must take another step. After they come to faith in Christ, they must
put themselves under the lordship of Christ."1 Christian leadership and discipleship are two
interconnected realities, that must be analyzed for proper Christian growth. It is through the
connection of these two ideas that allows for individual and organizational growth and health.
Great Commission Leader
Great Commission leadership is Christian leadership. As in all that, the Christian does
should at its heart be focused on the great commission. What is Christian Leadership? “A
Christian leader is a person of influence. He or she follows God’s vision for his or her life, and
influences others to follow God’s plan for their lives.”2 There are several aspects of this
definition that must be highlighted to understand great commission leadership fully. First, one
must recognize that in order to be a leader, a person has to have influence. Leadership by nature
"is a process of influence. Anytime you seek to influence the thinking, behavior, or development
1 Aubrey Malphurs, Being Leaders: The Nature of Authentic Christian Leadership,
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2003), 15.
2 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 198.
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of people in their personal or professional lives, you are taking on the role of a leader.”3 A person
cannot lead if there is nobody to follow. Secondly, the leader is a person who knows the direction
in which they are going. A leader is a person by nature of vision. "Being able to see further,
farther, and clearer is an important responsibility for the Christian leader."4 Finally, it is the
responsibility of the Christian leader “encourage, equip, and empower individuals to grow and
become what God intends them to be.5”6 Great commission leaders are developers of people;
they are disciple-makers. In fact, "the biblical leader is first and foremost a Bible teacher, and the
people of God are a distinctive teaching-learning community where the principles of business
leaders may not always apply."7 To summarize, the Great commission leader is one who
influences people, has the vision to follow Christ, and is committed to developing those around
him/her.8
Secular Leadership vs. Great Commission Leadership
One must realize that secular leadership is by nature fundamentally different from
Christian or Great Commission leadership. Where the goal of Christian leadership is the
development of the individual for the glory of God. The motivation of secular leadership is “that
you are here to help make the organization successful.”9 The problem with secular leadership is
that “self-promotion (pride) and self-protection (fear) are the reigning motivations that dominate
3 Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges, Lead Like Jesus, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books,
2005), 5.
4 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 196.
5 Emphasis Added
6 Ibid., 197
7 Gary Bredfeldt, Great Leader Great Teacher: Recovering the biblical vision for
leadership. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2006), 15.
8 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 196.
9 Ibid., 194.
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the leadership landscape.”10 The unregenerate leader's motivation is how I can make the
organization look better so that I can look better? This stands in stark contrast with the Christian
leader who's motivation "is that I am here to help you become a healthy (mature) and productive
part of the body."11 It must be understood that where the secular leader seeks to promote self, the
Christian leader seeks to promote the body of Christ.
Leadership and Discipleship
The Church today must understand that in order to grow and disciple people effectively
for the glory of God one, there must be strong leadership within that Church. "For far too long,
we have substituted activity in church events and called it discipleship. Organizational activity is
no substitute for personal discipleship."12 It is understood, therefore, that the job of the Christian
leader "is to help individuals grow, develop, and serve the king and his kingdom."13 In a word,
the Christian leader is to be a disciple-maker. To be clear, leadership and discipleship are
different. However, a person who leads will inevitably be a disciple-maker. These two principles
live in a symbiotic relationship with one another, where "Teaching [or discipleship] is the most
effective means through which a leader can lead."14 An effective Great Commission leader
MUST be a disciple-maker by nature.
10 Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges, Lead Like Jesus, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Books,
2005), 5.
11 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 196.
12 Ibid., 203.
13 Ibid., 202.
14 Gary Bredfeldt, Great Leader Great Teacher: Recovering the biblical vision for
leadership. (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2006), 15.
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The Healthy Church
In measuring the health of a local church, one is able to see the health and efficacy of the
leaders of said Church. Therefore, it is important for church leaders to be continually taking
stock of the heath of their congregations in order to gauge their own personal leadership health.
Contrary to popular opinion, however, church health is not measured by attendance alone. In
some cases, attendance and giving can be viewed as symptoms of health or sickness but should
never be seen as a ruler itself. What then, is a healthy church? "A healthy church is a
representation of the people of God coming together to accomplish the mission of God for the
glory of God."15 The health of the Church is then measured by how well the body of Christi is
acting like the body of Christ in unity and growth.
Other Leadership Styles
The Equipper
The equipping leader is similar in nature to that of the great commission leader. The job
of the equipping leader is "to guide and equip the saints so that the entire church becomes a
mature community in which disciples flourish."16 By nature, the equipping leaders focus is on
leadership development, not necessarily on the health and growth of the individual. The
equipping leaders' focus is, therefore, on personal authenticity. Or to put it another way, "it is
especially important to live out the life of the authentic disciple with our families."17 Secondly,
the equipping leader would focus on creating systems for discipleship. The equipping leaders see
15 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 213.
16 Jim Putman & Bobby Harrington, Disciple Shift: Five steps that help your Church to
make Disciples who Make Disciples, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 114.
17 Ibid., 120.
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themselves as "the overseer of the disciple-making community." Third, the equipping leader
would developer of leaders. It is then the final responsibility would be then to cast vision for the
Church at large.18 This is a key component of leadership, no matter the model. This model of
leadership is more focused on the corporate leadership of the Church than the individual
leadership of the people.
Great Commission Leadership vs. The Equipper
Although the Great Commission Leader and the Equipper are both models of Christian
leadership, their differences in focus make them unique from each other in an interesting way. It
is the task of the Great Commission leader, too, "encourage, equip, and empower individuals19 to
grow and become what God intends them to be."20 It is through this focus on individual growth
that makes the Great Commission leader unique. Where the Equipper is focused on systems by
which leadership is developed, the great commission leader fundamentally believes that
individual growth spawns’ corporate growth. It is because of this that the great commission
system seems smaller and more intimate than the equipping leader.
10 Kingdom Principles and Old Fort Baptist Church
In the context of the Church that I am pastoring, the biggest struggle seems to be to
"connect people to one another" although this seems like an easy and logical Christian step, the
interactions within our small groups seem to still be formal and superficial by nature. It is also
18 Ibid., 126.
19 Emphasis Added
20 Dave Earley and Rod Dempsey, Disciple Making is…: How to live the Great
Commission with Passion and Confidence (Nashville: B&H Academics, 2013), 213.
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difficult to get people to use their spiritual gifts in service of the body of Christ. People genuinely
seem unwilling to service within the context of our local gathering. The hard part is knowing
how to fix this problem. I believe that the issue is not an issue of lack of leadership but a lack of
leadership development. At Old Fort, it seems as though there is an emphasis on systemized
leadership development, but there seems to be missing Great Commission leadership. I believe if
we attempted to build leaders on a smaller scale, the Church would be able to grow inward more
effectively, creating a well-balanced body of Christ.
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Bibliography
Blanchard, Ken & Phil Hodges. Lead Like Jesus. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Books 2006.
Bredfeldt, Gary. Great Leader Great Teacher: Recovering the Biblical Vision for Leadership.
Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2006.
Earley, David, and Rod Dempsey. Disciple-Making Is…: How to Live the Great Commission
with Passion and Confidence. Nashville, TN: B&H Academics, 2013.
Malphurs, Aubrey. Being Leaders: The Nature of Authentic Christian Leadership. Grand Rapids,
MI: Baker Books, 2003
Putman, Jim, and Bobby Harrington. DiscipleShift: Five Steps That Help Your Church to Make
Disciples Who Make Disciples. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013
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