Leadership and Discipleship

By Dr. Gregory Wiens

Leadership and Discipleship are two sides of the same coin. Let me suggest that you can’t be a healthy growing leader without both of these essentials. I write a lot about leadership in this column and believe it is critically important for healthy growing churches. However, without discipleship the best leadership skills can be dangerous in the Kingdom of God. What I write about leadership assumes that the leader is developing a vibrant, obedient walk with our Lord through walking in His Spirit, time in His Word, transparency in His Body, and submission to His Lordship.

With pastors of a generation ago, this was a valid assumption, but I am noticing it is not always so today. Many pastors I work with spend more time on their leadership skills than they do on their own devotional life. This is a very, very dangerous position. We find ourselves wonderfully equipped to lead an organization that lacks a spiritual heart and soul. The Church is a spiritual organism, with organizational principles at work. The leadership skills that I write and believe in help us navigate many of these organizational principles. They are biblically founded and necessary for a healthy growing church.

However, the church is the Body of Christ. It is a living organism with members of His Body. He is the head of this Body. So for us to be His leaders in His Body, we must be totally committed to seeking His face through spiritual disciplines and spiritual mentors to accomplish His ends. A good question to ask ourselves, is how much time do you spend in our spiritual disciplines or with spiritual mentors?

Spiritual disciplines are those practices that we participate in regularly that allow our life to conform to the image of Christ. Regular time of studying God’s word for personal transformation, not teaching is essential. This is the discipline to submit your life under the Word of God. There must also be reflection, meditation, prayer, quietness, fasting, serving, journaling and the like which are hard and take time.

Dallas Willard eloquently deals with this subject in his books: Spirit of the Disciplines and Renovation of the Heart. I re-read portions of these books every few years to remind myself of what God desires of me. I have found that I always have room to grow in my disciplines. Like all disciplines, every single day I make decisions that will determine the fruit of that day’s disciplines; it is a life long journey. They are called spiritual disciplines because they are not easy. They don’t just happen without intentional effort, energy, practice and accountability.

Spiritual mentors are different from coaches. Coaches (in my vernacular) deal with leadership skills; spiritual mentors deal with issues of living out our faith in family and community. These mentors need to see you in life and have the opportunity to speak of when and where your spiritual health or discernment is lacking. It is very hard for them to do so if they are far away. They should know you well and long. When they see you violating spiritual principles they need to be free to call you on it. I will need these kinds of people in my life for the rest of the cruise.

The challenge with leadership skills and discipleship disciplines is that they often compete. Surely, they compete for resources in your life. You only have so much time and energy, so you have to set priorities in how you are investing your efforts. Too often, leadership gets the priority when discipleship should be the priority. This is because leadership is urgent, but discipleship is important. Without discipline, the urgent will win over the important.

At other times, I find they compete in how I make decisions. In these times, walking in the Spirit and being in submission to the Word cause me to make leadership decisions that can be awkward, painful and difficult for an organization—but best for God’s continuing move in His Body.

My prayer is that you will find leadership skills and discipleship practices as simply two sides of the same coin. I pray that you will not develop your leadership skills without first laying the foundation of the spiritual disciplines. You can’t be a healthy growing leader without both leadership and discipleship, and I pray that you also recognize discipleship is primary.