Excerpt modified from Leaders Who Last by Dave Kraft pp 25
How would you define leadership? A recent commenter on our blog shared legit concerns about the term “leader” when the Bible often refers to Jesus and his followers as “servants.”
Kraft writes, “A Christian leader is a humble, God dependent, team-playing servant of God who is called by God to shepherd, develop, equip, and empower a specific group of believers to accomplish an agreed-upon vision from God.”
These are the key ingredients of leadership:
- Christian leaders are, first and foremost, servants (bond slaves) of the Lord, and second, servants of those they are leading.
- They are characterized by humility, dependence, and team-playing, rather than being a loner or one-man show.
- Christian leaders are called by God into leadership. They do not decide for themselves to be a leader. They are not pushed into leadership by well-meaning supporters, nor do they arrive at leadership because no one else will do it.
- Christian leaders have at least four major responsibilities:
- Shepherding—a leader loves and cares for those being led.
- Developing—a leader helps those being led in their personal walk with Jesus Christ to become fully devoted followers.
- Equipping—a leader trains those being led for ministry
- Empowering—a leader inspires, encourages, affirms, believes in, and frees people up to serve out of their gifting
- Christian leaders are moving toward a specific destination.
- Christian leaders are creating and sustaining an agreed upon vision. There is an initial buy-in and a growing ownership of the vision among those being led.
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