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[Heb 13:17 NASB95] - Obey your leaders and submit [to them,] for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

God's design for His church is to have leaders over it. Many people leaving the institutional church are rejecting the idea of leaders. They had issues with institutional church leaders and they react by rejecting all forms of leadership over the church. This is unfortunate but I understand why its happening.

The first thing we must understand is that leadership is a spiritual gift given by the Holy Spirit to provide care for God's people.The biblical concept of leadership cannot be bad as it comes directly from God.

[Rom 12:8 NASB95] 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

This gift, like many others, must be developed and used diligently. One problem I see in America today is that we have adopted a way of training and developing leaders for the church that is designed for the institutional form of church that dominates the landscape. What is demonstrated in the Bible is more in line with discipleship. We see the leaders working with the next generation as they minister. We see the older leaders coming to help the younger and verify their ministry efforts. In other words, they learned as they ministered and not exclusively in an academic setting but out in the real world.

 

The majority of training in America is centered in colleges and seminaries. It is highly academic in nature and focuses on transfer of information designed to help the graduate run the institution. There is very little in the way of spiritual gift development, experiential training or even disciple making.

Disciple Driven Church is taking a bold step to offer an organic alternative to institutional leadership training for church leaders. We are establishing the Disciple Driven Church Training Center and Incubator. This training center will incorporate a mix of academic training, experiential training and real life church experience for those interested in leading the church without an institution.

Over the last couple of decades I have found very few people that are equipped to follow the instruction of Scripture regarding church structure and function. The dominance of the institution has caused Christianity to adopt their methods and systems over those of God's word. It isn't a lack of Biblical instruction but rather a lack of available training that perpetuates this issue.

As we prepare to launch this new venture I encourage you to stay tuned for future announcements regarding the project.