Editor's Note
This article is based on stories that were recorded in the Storytelling Booths at the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Incheon, South Korea, in September 2024. These booths served as a sacred space for global participants to share testimonies, prayer requests, and offer ministry insights from their unique contexts. We are honoured to pass these along as glimpses of how God is moving to form leaders in the image of His Son.
Across cultures, denominations, and generations, the global church is asking an urgent question: What kind of leaders do we need for the mission ahead?
The Lausanne Movement’s Fourfold Vision identifies one of the church’s greatest needs as ‘Christlike leaders for every church and sector’. The challenge is not simply producing more leaders, but forming leaders whose character reflects Jesus himself. Lausanne’s research and conversations with leaders around the world have repeatedly highlighted that leadership development must focus not only on skills and strategy but also on spiritual formation, integrity, and Christlike character.
What kind of leaders do we need for the mission ahead?
This need is increasingly apparent in a world that often rewards visibility, influence, and personal achievement. Yet the model Jesus gave his followers was radically different. Christlike leadership begins with following before leading, serving before being served, and surrendering personal ambition for God’s purposes.
Four participants at the Fourth Lausanne Congress offered perspectives shaped by their own contexts in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Together, their stories point to a leadership model that is radically different from the pursuit of status, influence, or popularity. Christlike leadership begins with being transformed by Christ, and then learning to serve others as he did.
Humility That Leaves a Legacy
Klemen Furlan | Slovenia
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For Klemen Furlan from Slovenia, one story shared at Lausanne profoundly reshaped his understanding of leadership.
He heard about a participant at the very first Lausanne Congress who was eager to make his ministry accomplishments sound impressive. When he introduced himself to the man sitting beside him, the man simply said that he was ‘just a pastor’ in Kenya.
Later, the participant looked at the man’s business card and realised who he was: the Archbishop of Kenya.
The contrast left a lasting impression. Here was a senior church leader with enormous influence who did not feel the need to announce his position.
Klemen recognised something of himself in the first man’s desire to appear important. He had arrived at Lausanne with a temptation to highlight his own accomplishments. Instead, the encounter challenged him to embrace a different posture.
Christlike character grows from an intimate relationship with Christ and is expressed through love, integrity, humility, and service.
‘To this day,’ Klemen says, ‘I strive to be as humble as that brother was.’
His story reminds us that Christian leadership is not measured by the titles we carry or the achievements we can recount. It is measured by the character we embody.
Lausanne’s teaching on Christlike leadership begins with this very principle: leaders must first be Christlike in character. Such character grows from an intimate relationship with Christ and is expressed through love, integrity, humility, and service.
In a world that rewards self-promotion, the quiet humility of a leader may speak more powerfully than any platform.
Transformation Before Influence
Juriel Hangi | DRC (Congo)
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For Juriel Hangi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Christlike leadership begins even deeper — with the transformation of the leader.
Juriel’s own journey of transformation eventually led him into leadership development among communities in the DRC. From that experience, he has become convinced that the church does not simply need leaders who can speak about Christian values. It needs leaders whose lives demonstrate those values.
‘The leaders that are needed in our community,’ he says, ‘are leaders who have passed through transformation.’
Juriel describes this formation through five interconnected elements. At the centre is union with Christ, from which flow transformed character, a clearer understanding of calling, and the development of competency. A leader shaped in this way becomes someone whose life has genuine value and credibility within the community.
Competence matters, but Christian leadership cannot be separated from spiritual formation.
He also identifies four dynamics through which transformation takes place: Relationship, Instruction, Spiritual formation, and Experience — what he calls R.I.S.E.
This offers a valuable corrective to leadership development that focuses primarily on knowledge and skills. Competence matters, but Christian leadership cannot be separated from spiritual formation.
Lausanne similarly teaches that leadership begins with follower-ship: before learning to lead others, we must learn to follow Christ. Intimacy with Jesus is therefore not an optional component of leadership development but its foundation.
Juriel’s experience in the DRC reminds the global church that effective leadership grows from transformed lives. Before God works through a leader, he is continually at work in the leader.
From Powerful Leaders to Servant Leaders
Harison Kirit | India
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In Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Harison Kirit sees another challenge facing the church: the temptation to import leadership models based on power and influence.
In his context, political and cultural models of strong leadership can shape expectations within churches and ministries. Harison believes the church must intentionally offer a different model.
‘We need more Christlike leaders,’ he says, ‘from powerful leader to servant leader.’
Harison has responded by investing in mentoring and leadership development throughout Gujarat. Together with his family, he has conducted seminars and translated resources into Gujarati so that leaders can engage with Christlike leadership in their own language and cultural setting.
His emphasis is not simply on acquiring better leadership skills. He describes a movement from skills to character, from building ‘my kingdom’ to building God’s kingdom, from ministry in isolation to teamwork, and from passive growth to intentional multiplication.
Christlike leadership is servant leadership that seeks to empower others rather than consolidate authority.
This is deeply consistent with Jesus’ own model. Lausanne’s teaching describes Christlike leadership as servant leadership that seeks to empower others rather than consolidate authority. Jesus did not merely teach servanthood; he demonstrated it by washing his disciples’ feet and ultimately giving his life for others.
Harison’s work also highlights the importance of contextual leadership development. Christlike leadership does not require every culture to look the same. Rather, biblical principles must be embodied faithfully within each context.
Through mentoring, translation, and multiplication, Harison is helping leaders in Gujarat discover that the most powerful form of Christian leadership may be the willingness to serve.
Character That Produces Hope
Jason Potter | Australia
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Jason Potter from Australia brings another perspective to the question of Christlike leadership: How do we form leaders who can withstand the pressures that come with influence?
Jason observes that in many Western contexts, people increasingly rise to leadership because of popularity, presentation, or perceived charisma rather than spiritual maturity and character. He describes a celebrity culture that has, at times, entered the church.
Competent leaders can be placed on pedestals, creating unhealthy expectations and exposing them to the dangers that accompany power and visibility.
For Jason, the answer is not simply to teach leaders how to avoid moral failure. Leadership formation must go deeper, developing spiritual maturity and resilience.
Drawing from Romans 5, he points to suffering as part of this formation. Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance produces character; and character produces hope. Rather than always avoiding difficulty, leaders can learn to allow God to use hardship to deepen them.
Character may take years to form, but it can sustain a lifetime of ministry.
‘People of character create hope,’ Jason says, ‘not people of presence and popularity.’
His challenge is particularly relevant in an age of platforms and public ministry. A leader may be able to attract a crowd without having the character necessary to sustain faithful leadership.
Lausanne’s Christlike leadership teaching similarly warns against leadership centred on position and power, calling instead for leaders whose authority is exercised to build others up.
Character may take years to form, but it can sustain a lifetime of ministry.
A Different Kind of Leadership
Four voices. Four contexts. One recurring invitation.
From Slovenia comes a call to humility. From the DRC, a reminder that leaders must first be transformed themselves. From India, a challenge to replace power with service and to develop leaders within their own contexts. From Australia, a warning that character must be stronger than charisma.
Together, these testimonies give flesh to Lausanne’s vision of Christlike leaders for every church and sector. The State of the Great Commission Report has highlighted leadership as a significant area of concern and opportunity for the global church.
How can we become leaders who look more like Jesus?
The question before us is therefore not simply: How can we develop better leaders? It is more fundamental: How can we become leaders who look more like Jesus?
That transformation begins in our relationship with Christ and is worked out through humility, service, community, mentoring, suffering, obedience, and everyday faithfulness.
May God raise up such leaders in every region of the world — leaders who do not seek their own glory, but point people to Christ; who do not build personal kingdoms, but serve God’s kingdom; and whose lives leave behind not merely impressive achievements, but a legacy of people who have learned to follow Jesus.
May we pray for Christlike leaders to be formed, equipped, and multiplied throughout the global church.