The Challenge - Christian Leadership Development

May 2009

After reading Mark Elliott’s comments in the last issue of the Digest, I took to heart his challenge to evaluate what is happening in intentional leader development in my sphere of influence. What I discovered may be of value to you.

A simple GOOGLE search of the phrase “leader development” revealed 110,000,000 sources of information in less than 0.16 seconds.

Bringing the evaluation closer to home revealed fundamental changes in efforts to facilitate intentional leader development from the Next Level Leadership Network at the North American Mission Board. As a resource, they have rolled out a customer service focus that includes a team of representatives aligned with the existing regional coordination approach to “enhance organizational momentum by complementing continuous improvement efforts at the point of organizational need.”

All that being said, the Next Level/North American Mission Board effort provided us with an advocate and representative focused on resourcing our perceived intentional leader development needs. This policy change can help us, however, coming to grips with an intentional leader development strategy for KNCSB is a challenge.

Determining a strategy that focuses the efficient and effective use of our resources has yet to be accomplished. Mark captured the essence of our need when he encouraged us to find a way to engage each other in dialogue and debate to develop a process that can positively impact disciple making.

Intentional leader development is the common recurring need to sustain all of our ministry efforts. Mark refers to leader development as discipleship because the greatest impact we have on future ministry lies in our ability to disciple tomorrow’s leaders today.  Just as Paul instructed Timothy “to entrust and train reliable men (disciples) so that they will be qualified to teach (disciple) others,” so too are we obligated to intentionally disciple everyone desiring to grow more in the likeness of Jesus.

Over the next four months I plan to personally call on all Kansas-Nebraska associational directors of mission to hear their thoughts on growing tomorrow’s discipling leaders. I encourage everyone concerned with this burden with Mark and I to share your thoughts as we seek to chart the future of leader development in KNCSB. I am confident that I understand God’s will in this task and ask you to join me in thanksgiving as I surrender this time and effort to discover His guidance. I look forward to hearing from you. God bless you as you serve and lead.

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