Leadership development is an important aspect of personal and societal transformation. It engages people in changing systems, structures, and people. Leadership development should not be confined inside church walls but should go beyond so that the gospel will be carried out in the marketplace. We will not succeed in world evangelization when we do not think deeply about strategies to use for reaching out to professionals and different influential groups who can impact the lives of many with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The purpose of global mission should not only be to bring people to heaven but also to transform them with the power of the gospel while on earth, so that they impact positively the world with moral values such as justice, peace, fairness, love, etc. The proclamation of the gospel is a very good thing but it is not the whole thing. We should proclaim and also demonstrate.
Some leadership training programmes focus on packaged knowledge, techniques and skills to the neglect of godly character. By contrast, authentic Christian leaders must be like Christ in having a servant heart, humility, integrity, purity, lack of greed, prayerfulness, dependence on God’s Spirit, and a deep love for people. The Cape Town Commitment II-D-3
Christians need a special kind of discipleship to be able to transform societies. In leadership development we shall measure the impact of our activities rather than how big they are. Leadership development empowers the few so that they can win the masses. This is the strategy Jesus used to reach out to the entire world with a small group of people called disciples. The world today is in great need of leaders who could spearhead transformation in all domains, knowing that the power for transformation comes from the gospel. World evangelization needs the development of leadership for fulfillment of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ as stated in Matthew 28:18-20.
We are in the very early stage of building a global network but we have started to form some connections. In Accra, Ghana, we attended TRANET (Transformers Network), which is a network of leaders from different Christian organizations and churches as well as Christian politicians, formed to discuss how leaders could bring about change in the life of people and in society using the gospel and different strategies. With this gathering, some connections were made to start networking with different leaders.
We are planning to team up with leaders who have a passion for leadership development in exchanging ideas on how we can impact the lives of many for Jesus through social networks and the like. Join us in developing leaders of integrity who will spearhead spiritual and societal transformation in this desperate world.
