For our second post in the Leadership Foundations series, we felt the need to address this question – why are leaders needed?

From our Overview post, we defined leadership as this: a leader is a man or woman who receives vision from God to influence the people of God towards the purposes of God.

A disclaimer to begin: this blog, this post, and really anything we write about leaders and leadership is not meant to devalue ‘non-leaders.’ Like we said in the overview post, leadership is a role not a value, and Kingdom leaders are servants. There’s also different types of leaders over different scopes of influence, from a couple of people to thousands or even millions. It all depends on what God chooses to do in and through your life – and it’s up to us to be surrendered and content with our Kingdom assignment.

But we started this blog because the work of pioneering among the unreached is exceedingly difficult, and for those called to help lead a team of people in that work, the resources and training are slim to none. Because of that, there is a massive lack of well-prepared, well-coached team leaders on the missions field, leading to significant carnage in people’s lives that is largely preventable, and lack of effectiveness in the Great Commission. Here are 4 reasons why more and better leaders are needed on the missions field.

1. Because God’s pattern in the Bible is using leaders.

We mentioned this in the Foundations post as well, but God’s clear pattern throughout Scripture is in choosing, communicating, and working through a leader or leaders in order to lead the people of God. The majority of the books of the Bible are named after, or at least follow the life and actions of, the leaders of God’s people. Ultimately, every single leader in Scripture and in our lives is meant to be a dim representation of our one true and better leader, Jesus. In the one person of Jesus, we see all the facets of godly leadership together: prophet, priest, and king, servant, conqueror, shepherd, teacher, healer, everything.

And this pattern of leaders who imitate Christ that we are to imitate and follow (1 Cor. 11:1) is continued by Paul’s establishment of elders over the church in the New Testament. There are leaders for the shepherding of the flock where the church is established, and also leaders to pioneer the work where the church is not yet present. More on that later.

2. Because leaders are the bottleneck.

What we mean by this is that without leaders, the effectiveness and thriving of missions teams is greatly slowed or halted. If God’s pattern for helping His people thrive and multiply His glory among the nations is through godly leadership, it also means that where there is a lack of godly leaders, God’s people are slowed in moving towards His purposes. Examples abound in Scripture of unrighteous leaders leading their people towards ruin (10 spies, Saul, Judges, etc.), and godly leaders helping to make God’s name great and His people flourish.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-16

In Ephesians 4, Paul speaks of how Christ has given a variety of leaders with different giftings (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers – commonly known as the five-fold giftings) to the church. But for what reason? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.

Leaders are given to equip the people of God for the ministry of God – not simply to do the ministry themselves. And when the saints are equipped and ministering, the body of Christ is built up and the believers move towards maturity.

The same is true on the missions field. Leaders are greatly needed to provide equipping, development, shepherding, and vision for those called to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. It is arguably the most difficult category of calling that can be given to a believer – pioneering the gospel in a radically different culture that has been resistant to the gospel message and messengers for potentially hundreds of years. Yet there is a surprising lack of resources, development, and coaching for goers, and even less for team leaders on the missions field.

When we launched to the field as 25 year-old team leaders, we had already gone through a 9-month training program for cross-cultural workers, and worked in ministry for another 1.5 years to develop in leadership. That preparation helped greatly – and it was still maybe 10-20% of what we needed to be successful as team leaders. Most days, we had no idea what we were doing. As we reflect on our early years especially, it’s clear that without the Father holding and persevering us and our team to stay on the field, if we had gone just 5% more in the wrong direction, our entire team could easily have been sent home.

In our past 8 years on the field, we have seen many friends that were clearly called to the nations, passionate about the glory of God, fully committed to give their lives to the Great Commission, have to leave the field. In the ReMAP II study over missionary retention, they conclude that over 50% of people that leave the field, leave for preventable reasons like team conflict, lack of clarity, unmet expectations, and lack of effective leadership.

For me, much of this stems from the lack of well-prepared and well-coached team leaders on the field. Much of the mindset of the missions environment is a ‘next man up’ approach to leadership – someone needs to be a team leader if there are goers on the field, whether or not they are called or prepared or even want to be one. There are plenty of leaders that find themselves in a leadership role and want to do a good job, but just aren’t supported or equipped in order to do so. The weightiness of needing to be at least competent in a multitude of areas like shepherding, management, vision-casting, administration, communication, language learning, cross-cultural interactions, security, and not to mention pioneering the gospel among the unreached, can be crushing for almost anyone. And that’s just for those that even desire to be good leaders. I wish I was joking when we say that we know of multiple friends who moved overseas only to find their team leader had moved to a different location and abdicated their leadership responsibility without telling anyone.

3. Because the Great Commission is unfinished.

In Romans 15, Paul gives some insight into his driving motivation for his life and ministry: “and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written, ‘Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.’”

This Romans 15 type of ambition is what Floyd McClung called ‘Apostolic passion’ – people with a passion for God’s glory among the unreached who are willing to abandon their lives for this purpose. Many people, whether goers, senders, or mobilizers, have this apostolic passion.

But I believe it is leaders with apostolic passion that are needed to pioneer out into those 7000+ remaining unreached people groups, and to equip and influence the people of God who might have this same apostolic passion towards their most effective role in the Great Commission. Leaders are the ones that are willing to go forward and go first, ones that see the need and fulfill it, ones that can create the solutions and opportunities for others to join in.

If God’s pattern in Scripture is using leaders to move His people, and a lack of leaders is the bottleneck for effective ministry, then the Great Commission remains unfinished because there are not enough godly, effective leaders with this Romans 15 apostolic passion. 

Hudson Taylor was a leader with this apostolic passion; he said, “If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?”

Jim Elliot said, “‘He makes His ministers a flame of fire.’ Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul – short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him. ‘Make me Thy Fuel, Flame of God.’”

Lillias Trotter said, “Oh to learn how to fight through the battle in the heavenly places till the day comes. To attempt the impossible & expect the impossible – it comes back to that again.”

C.T. Studd said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”

Has God given you this burning desire in your heart to see those without the gospel worship Jesus? Has he gifted you with a mindset or willingness to push forward when you see a need or a gap? More of these leaders are needed to see the Great Commission finished and to hasten the day of Jesus’ return.

4. Because it might be the role God has called you to play.

The first 3 reasons were abstract, high-level reasons why leaders are needed. But for the person reading this post, it comes down to what role God has called you to play. If you’ve read this far, it may be something that God has for you.

Like I (Steven) mentioned in the first post, I reluctantly entered into a role of team leadership. It was weird to lead my friends, I didn’t feel ready, and I had never really thought of myself as a leader. But I remember praying and asking the Lord, talking with mentors, having honest conversations with the friends I was going to be leading, and felt like the answer was yes. It was a role that God was asking me to take.

It has been the most difficult, frustrating, lonely, insane thing that Jenn and I have done. And it has been the most rewarding, worthwhile, humbling season that drew us closer in identification with Jesus than we could’ve imagined.

Leading a team took a lot of tears, long conversations, conflicts, hours in the hospital with teammates, hard decisions. But God brought us through all that and provided what we needed, mainly through teaching us Union with Christ. In 2019, when we expanded to 3 teams, we realized that our original team was ending. So we did a little exercise and asked – think of 3 words that describe yourself and 3 words that described this team when you first joined, and pick 3 words that describe yourself and the team now. And these are the words they chose.

From selfish, proud, naive, insecure, broken, superficial, strangers – to joyful, rooted in Christ, safe, knitted together, abiding, thriving, tested, humbled, fruitful, impactful family. It’s such an unbelievable thing that God did in such a short amount of time. By God’s grace, we are coaching dozens of Thai church planting teams that have seen some unbelievable fruit in the last few years. And that is so awesome. But if you ask us what might be the most rewarding thing from these last 8 years, it would be this list and our people. To see people freed from sin, grow into their own giftings, to see our team go from this mishmash of strangers into a legit family – it’s been one of the greatest privileges and joys to be a part of what God was doing with these people. If you would consider playing this role on a team as a leader – I guarantee it’ll be one of the most difficult things you’ve ever done, and probably the most worthwhile.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with an exhortation: Don’t disqualify yourself! So many times with leadership, including in me and Jenn’s story, we get in the way of what God is trying to do in and through us. We might think – my character isn’t godly enough, my motivations aren’t pure enough, my experience isn’t good enough, my giftings aren’t impressive enough – whatever it is, and we think, ‘maybe I shouldn’t be a leader.’ Many of you guys may have heard this quote – ‘God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called.’ Moses, David, Abraham – all of them were not ready for the leadership role that God prepared for them when He called them to it, but for all of them, He prepared them to be leaders over His people in the right role and the right timing.

There is so much joy in stepping into what God has prepared! Like the parable of the talents, it doesn’t matter if you’re given 2, 5, or 10 talents – if you’re faithful with it, you join in the pleasure of our good Master. But if we reject or bury it, His response is rebuke. Be obedient to what He calls you to – whether it’s a role of leadership, or whether it’s something else.

In our next post, we’ll try to answer the question – How do I discern if I’m a leader?

All Leadership Foundations Posts:
LF – Why are Leaders Needed?
LF – How Do I Discern if I’m a Leader?
LF – How Do I Develop as a Leader?
LF – How to Form a Personal Development Plan
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The words ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’ have a lot of broad connotations for different people. The term leader is used in sports, business, family, church, hobbies, politics, military, and practically every possible area of life. As a blog and resource for missions leaders, we thought it’d be good to define and introduce some of what we mean when we say ‘leader’ or ‘leadership.’

We’ll have a series of posts covering the thoughts and lessons we’ve learned about leadership over the years, and we will try to answer questions that we have had in our discernment process and questions that aspiring leaders have asked us over time. Things like – ‘How do I know if I’m a leader?’, ‘What type of leader am I?’, or ‘What’s the process for becoming a team leader?’

Much of the following is from an ‘Aspiring Leaders’ workshop we’ve given for the past 2 years at a conference for future cross-cultural goers to introduce them to leadership and help them discern if God is calling them towards a leadership role overseas.

What is a Leader?

When we launched to the field as team leaders 8 years ago, we were 25 year old, 6 month newlyweds – and we had NO IDEA what we were doing. Most of what we’ve learned, we’ve learned from making mistakes and failing repeatedly. Over time, as we started to learn how much we didn’t know and how much help we needed, we started grabbing mentors in every category of team leadership, reading books and articles, and most importantly, receiving from the Holy Spirit and the Word.

From that, a few clarifying lessons about leadership have been repeatedly true.

Firstly – what is a leader? After looking at probably 20 definitions of leader and leadership through my seminary class, this is the definition I use, primarily adopted from Robert Clinton’s Making of a Leader with a little adjustment.

A leader is a man or woman who receives vision from God to influence the people of God towards the purposes of God.

• Receives vision: Another word you could say is to receive direction from God. Without receiving direction from God – then it’s just a worldly leader instead of a godly leader, even if they are a ministry leader. Leaders must be consistently receiving from the Lord – through the Word, through community and mentors, and through prayer and the Holy Spirit. And this is true for a big, life-long vision, and the day-to-day steps of faithful obedience towards that end goal. Receiving from God is an essential component for a leader!
• Influence the people of God: The word influence here is used broadly, and can encompass a large variety of words – manage, direct, encourage, empower, communicate, etc. Once you have the vision, you have to be able to apply influence over a group of people to move in that direction. One way to tell if you’re a leader? If people are following you towards something.
• Purposes of God: There’s an end goal that God is trying to move His people towards. For missions leaders specifically, it’s to ultimately see God’s glory among the nations. As a leader, the things you say, the decisions you make, the actions you take – they are all focused towards leading the people God has given you towards seeing all peoples worship Jesus. And leading them to thrive in the specific purposes and roles He’s given them.

Other Aspects of Ministry Leadership

Now that we have the definition of leadership, here are some other aspects of biblical leadership that we think are important, with consideration towards missions team leadership as the focus.

God’s pattern throughout the Bible is using leaders: If you think about almost all the stories in the Bible, they are told primarily through a man or woman that God is calling to be used as His representative to receive vision or direction from Him, and to lead and influence the people of God, whether Israel or the Church, towards the purposes that God has. Think about people like Moses, David, Daniel, Esther, Paul, or Priscila and Aquila. God absolutely has a personal relationship with every person that belongs to Him, AND He chooses to use specific men and women as leaders of His people. Both are true. 

Many times, when the leaders that God chooses are godly, obedient, sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, and act as servants, the people of God thrive. When leaders fall into sin or disobedience, it has a negative effect on the people of God. For example, when the 12 spies enter into the Promised Land in Numbers 13, 10 of them are intimidated by the people in the land and spread a bad or false report to the people of Israel. In turn, the people grumble against God and invoke his anger, to the point that Moses has to intercede on their behalf. But the consequence is significant – from the poor leadership of the 10 spies, the people of Israel are condemned to die in the desert.

For some reason, God chooses to work through leaders, and as leaders go, many times, so go the people they lead. We’ve seen this as practically true on the field as well – when there are godly, healthy, servant team leaders, the teams tend to thrive. When there are ill-prepared, detached leaders, teams tend to suffer. And unfortunately, in our experience, there are many more ineffective and unhealthy leaders than effective and healthy leaders. Largely, team leaders want to do a good job and lead well, but the task is so insurmountable and the preparation and support is so minimal, that they are not set up for success. This is why we chose to start a blog for missions leaders.

Servant Leadership: The biblical definition of leadership is not the same as the world’s definition. Mark 10 makes this very clear – James and John want positions of authority at Jesus’ right and left hands. And Jesus makes it clear that biblical leadership is servant leadership. 

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Mark 10:42-45

People might think at first that being a leader has privileges – you get to decide what happens, people have to listen to you, do what you say – that isn’t really biblical leadership. If you try to ‘exercise authority’ instead of serving others and putting other people’s needs and desires above your own, then your leadership will backfire. So this is a question for aspiring leaders who are discerning: are you willing to put down your preferences in order to be a servant leader?

Leadership is a Role, not a Value: I (Steven) personally struggled with stepping into leadership when we were forming our team. Some of the people on our Thailand team were friends that I had known for 20+ years, and we were just wanting to join a team together. But as we investigated, we didn’t find almost any teams that were healthy and pursuing a vision for movements. So we were encouraged to become a team, and I was invited to be the team leader. At first, I rejected it completely – it’s so weird, why would I be a leader over my peers and friends? I’m not better than them, and I didn’t have more experience or anything like that. But as I spent time in prayer and studying the Word and asking for feedback, God was showing me that leadership is a role, not a value. The world may look at leaders and assign to them more value. In the kingdom of God, our value is found in belonging to Christ, regardless of what role we play. 1 Corinthians 12 helped me to understand that the body of Christ has a variety of giftings, meant to serve one another, and in fact it is the more modest parts that deserve to be given greater honor.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

1 Corinthians 12:21–26

For me, God had given me some attributes and giftings that made sense for me to step into the leader role. So when I learned that it was a role, not a value putting me ABOVE my friends and teammates but even more so in a position BELOW them as a servant, then I became willing to say ‘yes’ to becoming a leader. And a huge credit to my friends, who displayed great humility by allowing me and even encouraging me to become their leader. There are many roles on a team; some of the ways that the leader role serves others is by helping to cast vision, make decisions, take responsibility, and communicate.

Character and Gifting for Leaders: There are many ways to break down the components of a leader, including character, calling, gifting, and capacity. But the primary marker of biblical leadership is Christ-like character. Leaders are not perfect – in fact, in the Bible, there’s a ton of flaws that we see in leaders – but it’s clear that Paul emphasizes spiritual character and maturity as the prerequisite for becoming a leader. Having certain gifts or attributes as a leader are important, but the character piece is primary. 1 Timothy 3 and 1 Peter 5 provide some lists of expected character for leaders in the church or ministry. For our team, we are particularly looking for people who have strong humility, maturity, and integrity, or at least are willing to develop in those things. Godly character is primary for spiritual leaders!

In terms of leadership giftings, one grid to look at is APEST in Ephesians 4:11 – “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” This can be a helpful grid to think about what type of leader you are, though it’s not just limited to those. There’s also the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. For example, administration is another type of gifting that can be found in a leader. Learning your leadership giftings is important so that you can lead out of the ways that God has made and gifted you. And learning your giftings helps you to be self-aware about the areas you might be weaker – in order to develop your competencies as a leader or to recruit others that will fill in those weaknesses. We’ll talk more about developing your character, giftings, skills, and strengths in a future post.

Types of Missions Leaders – Team Leader and Sub-Team Leader: Lastly, there’s many different types of leaders within the church and ministry, but for the purposes of this blog, we are specifically focusing on leaders for missions teams. You’ve probably heard people say something like, ‘everyone is a leader!’ In some sense, this is true that every disciple is a leader, because we are all called to be disciple-makers.

But throughout Scripture (Exodus 18:13-26; Deut. 1:13-15) and in ministry, there are different levels of leadership – a disciple-maker would be a leader over 2 or 3. You might have a leader over a disciple-making team of 6-10 people.

Two roles that we are primarily highlighting is that of a team leader or a sub-team leader, but there are a variety of leadership levels on missions teams. The goal is not necessarily to reach one of these levels, but to identify what level of leadership that you are at and to serve faithfully in that role for the season that God has you in.