By no means did I have everything figured out by then – far from it. But the leadership lessons the Spirit gave through Scripture have remained true for the last decade. I’m thankful for the Spirit’s guidance in some of these foundational insights that have helped define my philosophy of leadership and ministry. Here are some of the leadership lessons that I discovered from the life of David.

One of my favorite books is Through Gates of Splendor. Everyone knows the big story of their deaths on that beach and the after effects of the Auca Indians coming to know Jesus. But for me, the real value in that book is reading the private journal entries from each of those men, and seeing the depth of their conviction and passion for Jesus and for the lost.

On the 3rd page of the book, Jim Elliot writes in his diary,

“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 aflame. But flame is transient, often short lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul-short life? Make me thy fuel, Flame of God.“

That last phrase, “Make me thy fuel, Flame of God,” is a poem from Amy Carmichael which talks about dying to self, and God’s grace in our weakness. Jenn got it framed for me this Christmas.

So this sort of conviction, this kind of passion is deep in our hearts as we’re on the plane taking off from Austin last year, holding each other’s hands and sobbing our guts out, because there’s a unique sort of dying to self that happens when you stop calling America, “home.” We are ready to die for the glory of Christ among the unreached. That’s the kind of conviction and vision we have upon leaving, and I’m sure that is what you guys feel as well.

I wish I could tell you that after one year, we’ve had nothing but passionate worship for Jesus and boat loads of people coming to know Christ. That hasn’t been true.

Before you go, everything is theory: you have a massive end goal to see movements among the unreached. And so you build this perception before going, maybe unintentionally, that everything overseas will be these big wins and dramatic moments.

The reality is very different. There is a lot of plodding. A lot of confusion, a lot of sin coming to the top that you didn’t even know you had, a lot of “I don’t know.” All the while you’re learning everything from new like a baby, especially language, and your whole team is also thrashing like they’ve just been thrown in the deep end. They’re looking at you to tell them what to do, like you actually know! There is a lot of guessing, because you really just don’t have enough information or experience to make a decision on your own wisdom.

And that is actually a grace of God.

As I’ve been trying to learn how to be a good leader, I’ve been studying David and Saul in 1 and 2nd Samuel. So I want to give you three comparisons between David and Saul as a framework for some of my own experiences in Thailand.

Listening to the Holy Spirit vs. Depending on your own Wisdom

To me, this is the most obvious difference between David and Saul. Saul seems to be insecure about his authority, his role as King. So he makes decisions based on what will benefit him, or appease his followers.

Saul disobeys God, and God takes His Spirit from him. Everything that Saul does after that point is based on his own wisdom instead of the Spirit’s, and Saul’s jealousy and sin has David fleeing for his life.

1 Samuel 22 is where we can see Saul has completely unraveled. He’s an insecure, jealous, power-drunk leader. Ahimelech the priest has just aided David with bread and by inquiring of the Lord for him, and Saul finds out. He’s basically foaming at the mouth when he confronts Ahimelech.

And Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?” Then Ahimelech answered the king, “And who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, and captain over your bodyguard, and honored in your house? Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to his servant or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” And the king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” And the king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David, and they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me.” …And Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword.

-1 Samuel 22:13-19

Saul’s insecurity, his jealousy, lead him to kill a whole city of innocent people, the servants of God. It all starts from his lack of obedience to God, and his failure to submit to the Spirit.

I used to be super insecure about my role as a leader. I’m on a team with a lot of my closest friends – I grew up with them, and they know how big of an idiot I am. I don’t have way more experience, and for a long time, I didn’t understand that being a leader is a role that God gives to serve the body; it’s NOT some kind of improved value. If you know your identity is in Christ and you are a servant of his, then you won’t be worried about the approval of your teammates. You won’t be concerned with whether they like what you’ve said or not because you’ll be focused on obeying God, who put you in that position.

Being a leader is a role, not a value.

David, in comparison to Saul, often does what seems contrary to the obvious, and also contrary to what his people want him to do. Before making a decision, he inquires of the Lord. This is the key idea.

9 times in 1st and 2nd Samuel it says that David inquires of the LORD. When David inquires, he is specific, and he is obedient. He asks specifically of God, “What do you want me to do? Should we go here? Will we have victory?”

And he is obedient. Every time he inquires, he does exactly what God tells him. He doesn’t do what his men tell him, and he doesn’t do what he might think is best. He does what God tells him to do.

I think the best example of this is in 1st Samuel 30. David and his men have gone to battle but are sent back. While David and his army are gone, the Amalekites raid Ziklag, the city where David’s army left their women and children, and they kidnap everyone.

And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought the ephod to David. And David inquired of the LORD, “Shall I pursue after this band? Shall I overtake them?” He answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.”

–1 Samuel 30:3-8

This is probably one of the hardest points of David’s leadership. He comes home from battle to see his city ransacked, and all the women and children kidnapped. They are weeping until they have no strength to weep! And his followers want to stone him – they are bitter and desperate.

I don’t know if you’ve experienced this kind of desperation yet in your leadership. I don’t think I have. Everything has failed, and everyone is against you. David is chased from his homeland, the King who he has served wants him dead, he’s lost his family, and his own followers want to kill him. I’m praying I have the response of David when this moment hits – he strengthened himself in the Lord.

Here is where it gets crazy. He inquires of the Lord. Should I pursue? Will I overtake them? And he waits for God’s response.

Think about it — WHAT ELSE IS HE GOING TO DO HERE? Not pursue them?! The people would most definitely stone him at this point. But he doesn’t do what is obvious, he doesn’t do what he feels would be right, he doesn’t do what his people want him to do. In the lowest point of leadership, he looks to the Lord. That is the defining mark of a godly leader. And God gives them victory – they reclaim everything and more.

In every one of the 9 inquiries that David makes of the Lord, he is trying to make a strategic decision. He asks, what should I do? Where do I go? When should I do it? Will I have victory? He takes the specific effort to pause, consult a priest with the ephod, and listen to the Lord. Most of these are urgent battle decisions that need to be made quickly, but David consults the Spirit.

So for you leaders — When you make a decision (What people groups should I go to, and when? Who should I recruit? What is our approach?), you need to ask, have I covered it in prayer first? Do you know what the Spirit’s voice sounds like? Do you have the intimacy of coming into his presence daily?

For us, we came in with a vision to mobilize Thai believers to start movements. We also came in with a strategy, timeline, and plan that was our best shot based on what we knew before we arrived in Thailand. But there’s so much that you won’t know until you arrive. We have learned so much in this last year, and our strategy has been changing and adjusting. We learn, we consult with the Lord, we discuss, and we tweak our strategy. But our vision is always the same – for that, we prayed and fasted and sought the Lord, and the vision is from him. So our strategy and timeline we hold loosely, but our vision we hold tightly.

Whenever there is a strategic decision to make, I need to fight to cover it in prayer before I make a decision. Because chances are, what I think is the best is not right.

So the first mark of a godly leader – listening to and obeying the Holy Spirit. Starting now – learn what the Spirit’s voice sounds like, and get in the habit of submitting every decision to him first.

Humility in Service vs. Pride in Position

We’ve already seen how Saul is insecure about his leadership role. He’s worried about what the people think about him and about David. He’s consumed by jealousy for his position when people start to sing David’s praises.

The women sang to one another as they celebrated,

“Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands.”

And Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, “They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands, and what more can he have but the kingdom?” And Saul eyed David from that day on.

-1 Samuel 18:7-9; 12-13

Saul was afraid of David because the LORD was with him but had departed from Saul. So Saul removed him from his presence and made him a commander of a thousand.

Saul goes on to make unnecessary decrees and orders that are all based on preserving his own position, as opposed to serving the purposes of God who put him in that position! God wants to use David, but Saul, instead of empowering his best commander, becomes jealous and limits him. It’s about his glory, not God’s.

As a leader, you are there to empower your people to succeed. If one of my guys starts to see 2nd and 3rd generation fruit and the beginnings of a movement, I’m not going to demote him because I want to be the one who gets credit! I’m going to give him all the help I can. Your team members aren’t there as servants to fulfill your vision – you are there as a servant to help them fulfill God’s vision.

A leader exists to be a servant and help others fulfill God’s vision for them.

David knows that He is a primarily servant of God, and his heart is after God’s glory, not his own. He hears from the Lord, and leads his people in obedience to God by serving them.

As a leader, you have to do the gritty stuff that most people don’t like to do. And you have to make hard decisions – and take responsibility for those decisions – which most people don’t like to do either. Making difficult decisions is a large part of how leaders can serve.

Going back to 1st Samuel 30, after the Amalekites have raided Ziklag and kidnapped the families, when God tells David to pursue he takes 600 men in full on pursuit. Remember, they’ve just prepared for war and have traveled 3 days back to Ziklag. They’re really tired.

As they reach a river, 200 of them are too exhausted to continue, but David goes with 400 and overtakes the Amalekites and gain everything back. When he goes back to the two hundred exhausted men, a conflict arises. Let’s see how David deals with this.

Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the brook Besor. And they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him. And when David came near to the people he greeted them. Then all the wicked and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children, and depart.” But David said, “You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the LORD has given us. He has preserved us and given into our hand the band that came against us. Who would listen to you in this matter? For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.” And he made it a statute and a rule for Israel from that day forward to this day.

-1 Samuel 30:21-25

With authority and reason, David resolves the conflict swiftly and decisively. And he makes it a statute so that his people know: this is the clear expectation moving forward. And they don’t run into this problem again.

Throughout 1st and 2nd Samuel, we see that David is a servant of God, and he directs his people to obey God. He gives them clear guidance so that they can thrive, and in conflict he’s at the forefront mediating and taking responsibility for his people, shielding them, and protecting them.

Jenn and I are responsible for our people. When there’s hard stuff to do, we need to be first in line. We had to go recently to figure out visa extensions. Which is one of the utmost joys of living in another country. Jenn and I actually didn’t need to go because we were coming back here to renew our visas, but we went anyway so we could figure it out for everyone else. So we have to do the wake up early, dress up, get all the documents, travel out to the immigration office, wait in line for 3 hours, figure out the mess, all that. And of course, we get rejected because we have the wrong paperwork.

I’d much rather be meeting with Thais and sharing than going to the visa office, but I need to do it for my team. I’ve asked them to be here in Thailand, so I’ve got to make a way for them to be here, even if it is tedious and unexciting.

We went to Thailand about 3 months before the team, and I’d recommend that every team leader go 3-6 months early to figure stuff out for your team. There’s a lot of transition, and a lot of logistics. You serve by being the first ones through the wall for your people.

If there’s a conflict in your team, you’re there to mediate. I hate conflict, and I generally avoid it if I can help it. Thai people take it to the next level – if there’s a conversation that they don’t want to have, they just won’t have it. Literally, they will just disappear off the face of the planet and you won’t see them again.

But as a team leader, I can’t do that. I had to learn to embrace the role of shepherd, and do the things that I wasn’t comfortable with doing. I need to mediate conflict and I need to hear people’s stresses and anxieties and problems, and try to shepherd them with the gospel. You serve by entering into difficult conflicts.

You also need to set the boundaries and expectations for your people. Be clear about what you want them to do, how they can thrive. Everything is new and tenuous overseas, but they need a semblance of structure and guidance from you. If something goes wrong — even and especially if it’s not your fault — you take ultimate responsibility for the decisions you make for your people.

So how are you empowering your people to succeed? Are you giving them tracks to run on? Is this vision about your success, your cool stories in your newsletter, or about God receiving glory and your people obeying him well? How are you humbling yourself to serve those that you lead?

Repentant in Sin vs. Hardened Heart

It goes without saying that Saul had a hardened heart. When he confronted Ahimelech about helping David, Ahimelech offered his defense – how was he wrong in helping David when he had done it so many times before? Saul is shown how hypocritical and arbitrary he is being. But instead of admitting his wrong, Saul reacts violently, and “solves” the problem by just killing Ahimelech and all the priests. He had a hardened heart.

As King, David was far from perfect. There’s several times throughout his life when David is about to commit some sin, but God gives him grace and saves him from guilt. But we know of David’s huge moral failure with Bathsheba, resulting in a fractured family and kingdom.

As I was reading 1st and 2nd Samuel, I knew this part was coming. I dreaded coming to this part in 2nd Samuel and reading about David’s sin. Because all throughout his life it’s about God’s favor in his life, and how he is a man after God’s heart! He was chosen by God to bring glory to himself and lead Israel. Why would God allow there to be this huge moral failure in his life?

We all want to be good leaders. We want to be above reproach, with a good reputation. We want our people to trust us and depend on us. We hear those stories of goers who had huge moral failures overseas and are sent back in shame. This is a real fear of mine, that my leadership will be disqualified because of some kind of sinfulness.

The truth is that we are all far from perfect. During our time in Thailand this year, the stresses and frustrations forced sins to the top that I didn’t even know I had.

And I can’t help but think, Jim Elliot’s life didn’t look like this.

One of the hardest points of the last year was actually Christmas Eve. We’re missing our friends and family, we have culture shock. We had just gotten there, no idea what we’re doing, no idea how to communicate, and it’s stupid hot. I’ve gotten sick 3 times in two months, and I was sick on Christmas Eve.

We were in this crowded mall, trying to buy presents for each other, and I hate malls because I’m an introvert. And I’m sick and just so frustrated and stressed, so of course that leads into my frustration turning against the only person it can, which is Jenn.

And we had a bad fight. Like worse than basically any we’ve had in the States. Of course, I don’t even remember what it was about.

And I just want to be done.

I don’t want to engage with Jenn, with Christmas, with Thailand, with myself. I just want to disappear, go find a hotel somewhere, let her do Christmas by herself – that’ll show her. (If you can’t tell, I’m the flight response in conflict.) And I was so close to just bailing, when the Spirit just softly said, “What are you doing? You’re not this kind of man.”

And so I stayed. We talked and apologized and repented and forgave each other. It was God’s grace that He gave us a great Christmas Day. But Christmas Eve was an ugly day, and showed the ugliness of my heart. It was a low point for me.

I’ve had to apologize to my wife so many times this year. But more than that, I’ve had to repent before God. It took David a big shock from Nathan after he committed adultery and murder, but when he realized what he’d done, his response was repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord.”

He pleads with God in Psalm 51, “Have mercy on me, wash away my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin!”

As a leader, as a goer, as a broken person: you will mess up. You will sin. You will lash out. The stress of going overseas is multiplied by the responsibility of leadership. I’ve heard it said that, “cross-cultural ministry is a crucible. It will either chew you up and spit you out, or you will be refined like gold.” Get ready for it!

The stress of going overseas is multiplied by the responsibility of leadership.

Your only response in the face of sin is to have a heart of repentance. Praise be to God that our pleading for mercy has been answered – Jesus has done it for us on the Cross.

My bold prayer after reading 1st and 2nd Samuel – make me a better man and better leader than David. Which is really an outrageous prayer. But it’s possible because of Christ in me. The stress of going overseas is multiplied by the responsibility of leadership. But Jesus gives us grace in the midst of our weakness.

It’s been a hard year, with a lot of forgiveness and a lot of prayer and communication, but one of the things we’re most thankful for is how God has strengthened our marriage.

We know God is making us more like Jesus through sanctification. He’s getting us ready so He can use us more. Being a leader isn’t about being perfect or never being wrong. It’s about owning your mistakes, learning from them, and pushing forward. Being a leader is about constantly growing.

When I began studying the leadership of David and Saul, I thought I’d be finding attributes or character about David that differentiated him from Saul. And that’s partly true: David is humble and after God’s heart. But really, the difference is the grace of God in his life. David also messes up several times, but God delivers him out of grace, and doesn’t remove His Spirit. All of David’s victories and successes are solely because of God’s grace.

It’s been the same for us. As much as this year has been about us being sanctified from our sin, we’ve also enjoyed seeing God work in ways that we had very little to do with.

We have a healthy, thriving team of 9 people (soon to be 13), fluent in Thai, partnerships with local networks, and we’re on track to start our first training groups next Fall. We have a clear strategy moving forward, and God is doing more than we could have hoped.

We’re meeting Thais who want to give their lives to reach their country. Several Thais we know have said, “I want to move to the South to reach Muslims,” one of the most unreached groups in Thailand. Or, I want to share the gospel with those who don’t know, please train me!

We’re seeing God work in ways that we’ve only read about. For several years, we’ve been praying that God would appear to Thai Muslims in dreams and visions. Just a few months ago, Jenn and a teammate were invited to southern Thailand to a Muslim wedding.

At the wedding, Jenn and our teammate are sitting at a table when a lady named Feyda approaches them and just starts chatting up a storm. They talk about hijabs and Thai language and weddings and such. As they start to broach the topic of Islam, Jenn asks – “Have you ever had a dream from God?”

Feyda lights up and says, “Yes, I’ve had 2. In one of them, I’m at a big worship festival, and everyone is dressed in white and worshipping. In the second one, there is a huge snake on top of my chest, oppressing me; I can’t breathe. Then, a shining man in white with a beard comes and takes it away.”

Jenn and our teammate asked, “how does that make you feel?” She motions up and down her arms, like goosebumps. It’s the first story we’ve heard about a dream of Jesus among Thai Muslims, and we know without a doubt that God is at work. We are praying that God would reveal himself through dreams and visions to more and more Muslims.

Even though this year has been messing up and making mistakes, this conviction and vision we have for reaching the lost in Thailand is now ingrained in us deeper than ever. We know God is working. We know all the people groups in Thailand will be around the throne. We continue to be weak people used by God.

I want to end with the Amy Carmichael poem that I talked about at the beginning. This is my prayer for all of you current and future leaders – that God would be our sufficient grace in the midst of our weakness. That you would be leaders that inquire of the Lord and obey, be humble in service, and be repentant when challenges arise.

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.

From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified)
From all that dims Thy Calvary
O Lamb of God, deliver me.

Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God

Jenn and I (Steven) fought nearly every day for our first year on the field.

At the end of our first term of 2.5 years, we did a debrief and noted that second only to learning union with Christ, both of us said our marriage, and our co-leadership of the ministry and team together, was the thing we were most grateful for. It was nothing short of a miracle that the Lord did to bring us to that point from how fragile, disunified, and hostile we were to each other.

To us, men and women leading together is a critical element in seeing missions teams and ministries thrive and be effective. We’ve seen many husband and wife units that were not on the same page strain in their marriage and leave the field. We’ve seen solo male team leaders struggle to lead without the gifts that women leaders bring. We’ve seen many gifted, passionate women goers be underused and underappreciated on teams where male leaders did not know how to empower them, who have eventually left the field. Many of those situations would have greatly benefitted from a woman leader’s voice along with a male leader to bring guidance and resolution.

As Jenn contends in her post on Women in Leadership, the Great Commission needs women leaders, and missions teams and ministries are not realizing their potential when they fail to empower women to operate in their gifts and leadership.

This is not to say that missions teams with male team leaders will necessarily fail to be healthy or effective. Good leaders will learn how to shepherd, direct, and develop their teammates regardless of gender. We’ll write a future post about tips for men leading women. However, we’ve found it most effective when there is a level of men and women leading together for multiple reasons.

This post will generally be about men and women leading together on missions teams, whether as a married couple or as non-married co-leaders. We’ll have some guidelines specifically about husbands and wives leading together in the future.

Our Story

Jenn gives a pretty thorough version of her experience of discovering her leadership identity in the midst of navigating life overseas and being in our first year of marriage in her Women in Leadership post.

We were 6 months married when we launched to the field – not recommended. From my (Steven) side, the feeling I most experienced during that first year was overwhelmed. I had heard from experienced goers how difficult the field could be on a marriage, and wanted desperately to establish healthy foundations between me and Jenn.

But at the same time, I was completely in over my head with our transition to the field, leading a team, and starting a new ministry. On top of the ‘normal’ field transitions like learning language and dealing with culture stress, I had innumerable team leader responsibilities piled on as well, including finding visas, opening ministry opportunities, detailing crisis plans, and approving 9 units’ ministry expenses.

The stress and burden of all of that hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I had always expected and desired Jenn to be a ministry partner with me, but I didn’t know what it could look like, didn’t know how to communicate that, and didn’t know what types of barriers and insecurities she was dealing with. It took us about a year of getting through culture-stress and learning to communicate as a newly married couple before we began understanding each other. 

Since we are both incredibly stubborn, we were missing the truth that God had given each of us exactly the thing we needed in each other. I needed someone to help carry the vision and responsibility of the team. And Jenn wanted to be empowered to use her giftings according to her calling. Jenn met the women on our team 1-on-1 and was in charge of their development and shepherding. I looked for more opportunities to invite her into areas of leadership according to her gifting and clear the way for her as a leader within our sending organization and our church.

10 years later, we couldn’t imagine working in a different way. We debrief nearly every ministry thing together, even if it’s something that we’re doing completely independently. We include each other in every ministry partnership, and we elevate and complement each other’s strengths. And perhaps from the example that we’ve set, it’s standard for men and women on the teams we’ve raised up to partner and lead together in ministry.

Along the way, as we’ve figured out what works for us and coached other ministry and team leaders, we think that men and women leading together leads to the healthiest and most effective outcomes.

Theological Considerations

Before we jump into reasons why we think men and women leading and working together is important, we want to quickly address the theological considerations around this topic. We aren’t trying to convince anybody towards or against a theological stance on women in leadership.

What we do want to encourage you to do is to study the Word about what it says regarding women in leadership, women in ministry, and men and women working together. From that, form a position that can be communicated clearly to your team. Jenn gives her view in her post on women in leadership, so I won’t state that here. But I will reiterate that once you have established your biblical view on women in ministry, explicitly empower women towards everything that they CAN do. Even though it may not be vocalized by the women on your team, it’s likely that some are wondering about where they can fit in, and being clear and empowering will be appreciated. Encourage discussion with your whole team about where men and women can collaborate and team together.

We find the Coworkers Bible Study and Developing Female Leaders by Kadi Cole as helpful supplementary resources.

Why Is This Important?

Ultimately, why is this topic of men and women leading together important? The bottom line for us is that missions teams that fail to empower both the women and men on their team towards their most effective role in ministry and leadership are missing out. They are missing out on seeing the fullness of the body of Christ at work. They are missing out on ministry opportunities that are available when both men and women are fully empowered.

Here are some of the key reasons why men and women leading together on missions teams is extremely valuable. The first three points are from Steven and the last two are from Jenn.

Increased Access in Ministry Opportunities

Over 50% of unreached people are women. Whether through direct disciple-making ministry or in partnering with local believers towards movement, having women in ministry leadership together with men will multiply your team’s ministry opportunities.

One of the major steps in pursuing movement is finding a National Apostolic Visionary to partner with towards multiplication. In many locations in the 1040 window, societies tend to be patriarchal, with men commonly in leadership positions. It’s good and strategic for movement practitioners to try to partner with local male Christian leaders. But because these local leaders are already very busy, there can be barriers with their availability. And given that there are usually few fruitful believers to work with, other expat workers may desire to partner with them as well.

However, there can be abundant opportunities found in partnering with local women believers who may be more available and perhaps even emerging leaders that are underdeveloped and open to pursuing different methodologies. Naturally, these local women believers will feel more comfortable interacting in ministry with outsider trainers and coaches who are also women.

We’ve learned from other movement practitioners that women oftentimes are the earliest adopters of movement approaches and can be quicker to enter into pioneering spaces and endure persecution. These local women are then naturally able to access non-believing women who can be in highly inaccessible or even oppressive situations in patriarchal cultures. If we are failing to empower and create opportunities for the women on our teams to enter into ministry, we are potentially cutting in half the pool of laborers and leaders that could be equipped to engage the harvest.

This is anecdotal to our teams in Thailand, but of the different partnerships with Thai networks that we have, the most fruitful ones are with Thai women leaders. And to no one’s surprise, it is the women on our team that run point with those leaders – planning strategy, training believers, coaching leaders, and walking side-by-side with them. If we didn’t have women leaders on our teams, just as empowered and committed to the vision as the male team members, we would be greatly missing out on seeing more people hear and receive the gospel in Thailand.

In contrast, one male leader that I coach in the Middle East acutely felt the cultural gender barriers that exist in his country. Although there were local women that voiced their interest in knowing more about Jesus, it would be culturally inappropriate for him to invite them to a male or even mixed-gender Bible study, and there were no known women Bible studies in his city that he could invite them to.

When there are both men and women leading together and empowering the team, teams can appropriately seize the opportunities to interact with both men and women in ministry settings.

Plurality of Leadership and Improved Decision-Making

We’ve mentioned before that the multiple roles of the team leader can feel impossible – shepherd, manager, administrator, strategy coordinator, developer to name a few. In our experience, having multiple leaders share the burden can be a huge benefit to your team and ministry.

It’s generally understood that single women greatly outnumber single men on the missions field, with some ratios cited as high as 7-to-1. It’s extremely likely that you have more women than men on your team. However you structure it, having at least one woman leader will maximize the benefits of leadership plurality. Women leaders will better represent the perspectives and needs of the women on your team and in your ministry, helping the leaders make better decisions.

Increased Collaboration and Empowerment

Our initial team had 6 men and 7 women. I grew up with most of the guys on our team. I knew their strengths and weaknesses and knew what roles would maximize their giftings. I didn’t know the women as well and healthy boundaries kept me from knowing them as well as the male teammates. After Jenn began investing in the women teammates and getting to know them, it was much easier to empower them to their best roles and set them up for strong collaboration with the men on our team. Having Jenn step into a role of leadership catalyzed greater empowerment of the women on our team and fostered stronger collaboration between the male and female teammates.

Just by seeing me and Jenn model leading and working together, our teammates felt permission to do the same. The women teammates saw Jenn in leadership and were more willing to step into leadership and ministry opportunities they might have assumed were for men. Our teamwork increased as everyone was more fully enabled to operate in their best roles.

A critical responsibility of a team leader is to empower their people to operate to the fullest extent of their giftings and strengths. When we can do this for both men and women, a team is able to harness and operate in the gifts of the full body of Christ. When leadership is able to model both men and women working and leading together, this creates a culture that releases team members to take risks, practice their giftings, and to learn from and help each other as well.

Shepherding Without Crossing Boundaries

The intensity of cross-cultural living and ministry can stress those we lead to the point where deep sin tendencies begin to emerge. In these situations, people naturally become discouraged, lose vision, or can even fall into moral failure. Before they reach this point, leaders need to step and help them identify and address sins they are struggling with, and to find freedom and healing. 

Everyone may have different thresholds and boundaries when it comes to cross-gender leadership, but generally we would consider it inappropriate for leaders to cross genders in addressing deep sin issues, or even some relational or marriage issues. Additionally, the pitfalls when it comes to cross-cultural, cross-gender shepherding are even more risky. We have heard many stories of male missionaries who have talked directly to a wife in a local family and ruined the relationship with that family for bypassing the husband, or vice versa with female goers. So regardless of what tradition you come from, it’s important that you know your personal, team, and host culture’s boundaries and communicate them clearly so no one is left in an awkward or potentially dangerous situation! 

In our first few years on the field, the women on our team wrestled with suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, depression, marriage issues, and frustration with role, just to name a few. Each of these issues are extremely personal and requires careful handling. Unfortunately, no matter how well intentioned Steven was, there were certain boundaries that he couldn’t cross when it came to shepherding. But simply by being a woman, I was able to more naturally empathize with the woman on the team. To them, I felt safe, which allowed me to foster trust in order to ask the hard questions and be received as a source of help. However, while I was often “in the trenches” with the women, Steven’s strengths and gifts were also needed. He coordinated with professionals to create shepherding / health plans, building a framework for accountability and holistic healing. He advocated for them to our org and created spaces where they felt permission to work on their own health without shame. Steven and I were able to work together in ways that felt appropriate for the people on our team, and by God’s grace, many of these women have found freedom and continue to persevere in the work!

Generally, women leaders are able to build deeper relationships with national women and with women on their teams, and speak into heart issues that a man might not be able to as easily. Being able to shepherd a team deeply is critical to keeping people persevering in the work as they find freedom from “everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1).

Emotional Intelligence and Rapport

Both men and women image Christ in different ways, which often expresses itself in different ways in leadership. Corporate research also understands this dynamic. Multiple Harvard Business Review studies have concluded that women leaders generally excel in collaborative spaces, rapport-building, emotional intelligence, and empathetic thinking for others. Women are also often turned to in times of crises, trusted to exhibit more self-control and navigate difficult relational dynamics. But in some ministry leadership rooms, women can be more excluded and under-leveraged.

At its core, ministry centers around people. We team with people, we work with national partners, we try to love and serve people in a way that allows them to receive the gospel. In all these things, emotional intelligence, empathy, and collaboration are a strength that women tend to bring to the table. How many opportunities are we losing when we don’t harness the strengths of women leaders? How much more unified could our teams be? There is so much to gain through harnessing the unique contributions of women leaders.

Worth the Cost

From Adam and Eve to Priscilla and Aquila to Paul and his coworkers of men and women, we see in the Bible that there is a precedent of men and women leading and ministering together. In seeking this type of leadership dynamic, challenges will emerge. It might feel slow at first as you figure out new structures, new ways of communication, new ways of teaming.

But it’s worth the cost.

Men and women leading together allows for teams to realize the full potential of the body of Christ in order to access anyone who God has prepared to hear the gospel or be trained to make disciples.

Discussion Questions

Here are some questions you can use to discuss and pray through how you might be able to empower the men and women on your teams toward greater co-leadership and collaboration with one another.

• What feelings arise when you think about men and women leading together? What excites you, and what tensions do you notice? Why?
• Looking at your current leadership context, are both men and women represented in leadership roles and decision-making spaces?
• What roles do men and women play on your team? How does cross-gender collaboration and teamwork currently function?
• How might empowering both men and women leaders expand your access to the people you are ministering to?
• Are team members and national partners positioned to thrive in their callings, strengths, and gifts? Why or why not?
• Is there someone you sense the Spirit is inviting you to intentionally elevate and develop as a leader?
• What specific changes could you make to strengthen collaboration and teamwork between men and women leaders on your team?

This is one of the lessons that God has impressed on our hearts over the last decade of ministry on the field. Scripture tells us that apart from abiding in Christ we can do nothing, but our pride, our selves still default to being self-dependent in trying to achieve success in ministry. For some reason, we think that our intelligence, hard work, strategies, and skills can make a dent in winning entire people groups that have been resistant to the gospel for 2000 years. It’s ludicrous!

The nature of the work of disciple-making and church planting among the unreached is spiritual! Meaning, it is not a physical or mental problem – for people to turn from darkness into light, for the Enemy to be pushed back, for believers to obey the Great Commission – it requires the Holy Spirit to move! We cannot do a supernatural, spiritual work without supernatural, spiritual power. The good news is that we have been promised and given this power!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Acts 1:8

How much clearer can it be? Now the question is – will we by faith receive this power? Do we know how to receive this power?

In this series of posts, we’re going to address what we’ve learned about spiritual gifts and missions – on missions teams, in missions work, and an overview of the term ‘apostolic.’ It’s a critical topic that we feel many cross-cultural workers are under-experienced in, especially when  they come from theologically conservative backgrounds. But it’s one of the questions that comes up the most when cross-cultural workers come to the field because of the prevalence of the spiritual world in different cultures and the necessity for guidance and empowerment from the Holy Spirit in an impossibly difficult work.

Our posts on spiritual warfare address why cross-cultural workers can be generally unaware of spiritual realities. Spiritual realities for goers can cover a wide range of topics, including but not limited to spiritual gifts, spiritual warfare, and listening prayer.

What Are Spiritual Gifts?

Type in ‘spiritual gifts’ in google and you’ll be inundated with spiritual gifts inventories and articles breaking down each gift. It’s almost too much information! The blog posts we’re writing aren’t trying to be an exhaustive study around spiritual gifts but more so how spiritual gifts are applied in the missions field and on missions teams. However, we’ll give a quick definition and some key points so that we can be clear about what we mean for the sake of application.

“A spiritual gift is any ability that is empowered by the Holy Spirit and used in any ministry of the church.” – Wayne Grudem

Our best suggestion in understanding spiritual gifts is to study what the Word says about gifts as there are several key passages about them! I think we can get overly fixated on ‘what is my gift,’ which is important, but miss the general purpose and essence of why gifts are given. Here are some of the key passages concerning gifts, and at the bottom of the post we’ll give a few resources that have been helpful to us in understanding gifts.

• 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.
• Romans 12:3-8
• 1 Peter 4:7-11
• Ephesians 4:11-16
• 1 Timothy 4:14-16
• 2 Timothy 1:6-7
• Exodus 31:1-11
• Acts 2:1-21
• Acts 6:1-7
• Hebrews 2:4
• Matthew 25:14-30

From our study of these passages and in practical usage, here’s what we would conclude about spiritual gifts:

1. Every believer is given at least one gift from the Holy Spirit, but you can have more than one.

Paul says explicitly in 1 Corinthians 12:7 that each person is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. This means that our question is not, “do we have a gift?” But, “what gift have I been given and how should I use it?”

A gift has been given explicitly by the Holy Spirit to you! We can and should desire other gifts (1 Cor. 13:31) but it’s also critical for us to be content with the gift we’ve been given because it means the Spirit has good works prepared for us to do with that gift! It means that He has a vital role for you in the body of Christ to play. Don’t ignore the gifts you have been given!

In terms of having more than one, even in Paul’s breakdown of tongues and prophesying in 1 Corinthians 14, he basically admits to having at least both of those gifts. Robert Clinton concludes that leaders in particular are given a cluster of giftings, where a core leadership gift is supported by other supplementary gifts (e.g. a faith gifting to accompany a missionary gifting, or an exhortation gifting to support a prophetic gift). One of our mentors, Char, also notes that gifts can potentially change according to the season of life or ministry assignment that you are in, and the Holy Spirit equips you for those new works appropriately.

2. We know we are operating in our giftings when we sense supernatural empowerment and see supernatural fruitfulness.

We learned this key point from Matt Carter’s sermon on 1 Corinthians 12. He shares his own story about how he identified that his spiritual gift was prophecy exercised through preaching. For him, most ministry activities were draining, but his first time preaching he felt empowered and energized. Not only that, people were impacted by his preaching and there were supernatural results.

We’ve seen these two aspects of supernatural empowerment and supernatural fruitfulness affirmed over and over again in our own discovery of our gifts and helping others to find their gifts. Some people describe the empowerment aspect almost like an ‘out-of-body’ experience, where the Spirit is the one speaking, moving, acting through them and they are simply being used by him.

For me, I started to discover that I had a teaching / training gift in college. Soon after I started following Jesus, I began to volunteer at our old church’s youth group. I had just learned about Inductive Bible Study and how the Word had so much to offer when we are willing to dig deep and learn. I would facilitate a Saturday night IBS with a bunch of high schoolers that would go for 2+ hours. If you’ve ever been in youth ministry, you’ll know that getting the attention of high schoolers is like herding cats. Their attention span, even before iPhones, usually lasted about 20 seconds.

But the Spirit impacted our time in such a way that we had all these easily distracted teenagers deeply studying the Word, with earnestness, curiosity, and passion. It would get to the point where their parents would be there to pick them up and they would shoo them away or ask for more time so they could get to the end of the Bible study for that day. For me, I would receive so much energy and excitement, and as a person who normally wasn’t great at public speaking, I would feel the Spirit give me not only the words but the passion and wisdom to say the right things in the right moment.

I started to say yes to more opportunities to teach and train, and ended up leading our campus ministry’s weekly large group gathering of 300 students during my senior year, which required giving some kind of teaching at least 2 out of every 4 weeks. I repeatedly saw a pattern of the Holy Spirit empowering me with the right words, energy, and authority during opportunities to speak, and by God’s grace, saw the supernatural fruit of people being impacted by the things the Spirit was speaking through me. That has continued even to our time on the field, even being empowered to teach and train in another language! My Thai language ability is 10 times worse when I’m in normal conversation compared to when I train, which is normally the opposite for most people. That is undoubtedly the Holy Spirit!

3. Spiritual gifts are not to be used for personal pride, but to serve others in a spirit of unity.

Repeatedly throughout these passages about gifts, there is an emphasis on humility, serving, and unity in one body. It’s like the writers know there is a potential for the Enemy and our pride to twist this wonderful gift from the Holy Spirit into opportunities for comparison and dissension. Any usage of a spiritual gift that results in pride, comparison, and dissension is a misuse of that gift, and achieves the very opposite of what the Spirit intended in giving it to you.

Any usage of a spiritual gift that results in pride, comparison, and dissension is a misuse of that gift, and achieves the very opposite of what the Spirit intended in giving it to you.

The point of this post is that the gifts given by the Spirit are wonderful and should be used with joy. But there’s a dangerous line when we start to be identified by our gifts instead of identifying with Christ. On his teaching about gifts, Paul emphasizes unity in the body of Christ and then inserts a teaching on love right in the middle with 1 Corinthians 13. We often use this at weddings because it sounds good, but it’s a teaching given in the context of unity in the body among diversity in the gifts. In some ways, it’s the litmus test of if we are using the gift correctly: patiently, kindly, not envying or boasting, not arrogant or rude, not insisting on its own way, not irritable or resentful.

When we say, I have a certain gift and therefore shouldn’t waste my time on menial serving tasks, we’ve missed the point.

When we say, our doctrine and beliefs about how we should use the gifts is different from that group so we can no longer fellowship or work together, we’ve missed the point.

Whenever we are elevating our gifts and our preference over the oneness we have in Jesus, over unity in the body, over love that serves others – we’ve missed the point.

If we are approaching the gifts appropriately, it should create immense humility in us. Firstly, because the gift is not your own – it’s literally given by the Holy Spirit! When you’re using your gifts, God is the one to be glorified, not us! And secondly, knowing that we have a gift but not all the gifts means that we need other members in the body. If the church is working correctly, all the different members of the body should be operating in their gifts together to make the body grow!

…from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:16

4. The purpose of the gifts is for the edification of the church and expansion of the Kingdom.

Lastly, the second litmus test of our usage of the gifts is whether or not it’s being used for others. The gifts were not given to edify ourselves, but to “strive to excel in building up the church” (1 Cor. 14:12), for “the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7), for “building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12), and “to be witnesses… to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

We are given so much by Jesus for our own growth and edification. We are given the free gift of salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross, we are given the Spirit to be comforter and helper, we are given the Word to guide our steps into daily obedience, we are given the community of believers to receive encouragement and love. But the gifts are not given for our own growth or desires. The gifts are given to be others-focused.

It can be exciting and make us feel special that we’ve been chosen specially to be given a gift! And we should joyfully receive it and be thankful to use it! But Paul gives a warning in 1 Corinthians 14 against using the gift to “build up” ourselves. He specifically calls out tongues, that it needs to be paired with interpretation so that it is beneficial for others around them. Not coincidentally, tongues remains one of the more controversial gifts in the current day.

Use your gift to serve others in the church or to bring others into the Kingdom!

Application

Now we have some clarity around spiritual gifts – you have at least one, it is accompanied with supernatural empowerment and fruitfulness, it is not for pride but for serving in unity, and gifts are meant to edify the church or expand the Kingdom. What next?

Gifts need to be identified, practiced, and developed.

Identify your Gifting

The first step in identifying is knowing what the gifts are. Study the passages in the list above! Certain resources can give you an idea of what a certain gift looks like – we recommend Robert Clinton’s resource “Understanding our Giftedness Set.” Inventories and surveys like this can help but only as a way to understand what you’ve experienced in ministry that you’ve already done.

Secondly, serve in a lot of different types of ministries! Whether at your local church, on a disciple-making team, or on a field missions team, volunteer and initiate to serve in multiple ways. As you try different things, be on the lookout for where you feel supernatural empowerment and see supernatural fruitfulness. Do ministry in team and community so that others can give you feedback about where they see your gift!

Lastly, identify by praying, asking, and listening to the Holy Spirit! If the Spirit is the one who has given you the gift, he can most surely tell you what gift you have and how to use it. Ask others to pray for you to receive gifts and help you discern! We see in the New Testament that the laying on of hands leads to imparting the Spirit and gifts (2 Tim. 1:6), and we’ve also had people pray over us to awaken certain gifts!

Practice your Gifting

Now that you know what your gift is – practice by using it! Paul encourages Timothy repeatedly to “fan into flame the gift of God” (2 Tim. 1:6), and to “not neglect the gift that you have” but to practice, immerse himself in it, and see progress in it (1 Tim. 4:14-15).

One disclaimer is that receiving a gift is not an excuse to disobey other parts of the Bible. Too often we hear “I don’t have an evangelism gifting’ as a reason to not share the gospel. This should go without saying but practicing your gifting can never supersede obedience to the Word and to the Spirit. That’s just our pride making an excuse.

Develop your Gifting

Develop your gifts through practice, but also by learning more specifically about them. Study the Word concerning specific gifts, and look for examples of people in Scripture with those giftings. Find and read books about these giftings. Find mentors that have those giftings and ask about their story and experience.

Often we see people begin with somewhat of an immature usage of their gifting, and over time as they gain experience and knowledge, they’re able to use their gifts more proficiently. For example a young prophet could see someone living in unbelief and desire to call them back towards the Lord but may be overly blunt and lack the wisdom for how to do it tactfully and graciously. A young apostolic might be sensing God call them towards a big vision and starting something new, but trample over everyone else on the way towards that new thing in a posture of judgment and criticism. More than developing the practical skill of your gift, the focus should be on the development of our Christ-like character and humility in using our gifts.

As a general guideline, we’ve heard that developing your gift can be a lifelong endeavor. In your 20s and 30s as you try lots of different ministries, you begin to identify your gifting. In your 30s and 40s you’ve learned what your gift is and begin to practice and use it more. And in your later life you become more proficient with your gift, and ideally, can align your ministry and leadership role primarily with your gifting and experience.

Conclusion

Now that we have a better idea of what spiritual gifts are, and how to identify, practice, and develop them, our next posts will address how these play out on the mission field and on missions teams. Below are some questions for personal reflection and some resources we’ve found to be helpful on the topic of spiritual gifts.

There’s plenty of reasons to learn and use your gifts. Beyond the fact that the Holy Spirit has specially given you one, and that Scripture repeatedly tells us not to be ignorant about our gifts or to neglect them, we’ve found that using our gifts results in our joy! There’s something amazing about being used uniquely by the Spirit, to experience that supernatural empowerment and to see supernatural fruitfulness. It is God being pleased to use us! It’s like trying out a bunch of different sports or extracurriculars as a kid and struggling and failing in them over and over again. And then, all of a sudden, you pick up the violin or dive into the pool or throw a football for the first time and it feels natural. Like you were born to do that thing. Don’t miss out on what He has uniquely created and designed you to do!

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10

Questions For Reflection

1. Do you have personal or theological barriers that keep you from studying or embracing spiritual gifts? 
2. Have you identified your gifting? If not yet, what steps can you take towards identifying your gift?
3. If you have identified your gifting, how can you grow and develop in the usage of your gifting? How can you create more opportunities to practice and work out of your gifting in your ministry? 
4. Have you observed any aspects of pride, comparison, or dissension emerge in the usage of your gifting? Why do you think that is? Are there certain situations, people, or contexts that trigger and bring out pride? If yes, then repent and surrender these things to God.  
5. How can you create a culture and space for your teammates to grow and develop in their giftings?

Additional Resources

• Unlocking Our Giftedness is Robert Clinton’s booklet on spiritual gifts detailing how leaders can develop in their giftedness and help develop others. Understanding Your Giftedness Set is a spiritual gifts assessment that goes with the booklet.

• Systematic Theology (chapter 52-53) by Wayne Grudem – an overview of spiritual gifts and addresses continuationism v. cessationism
• Get in the Fight! – Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12 by Matt Carter