4 Reasons the Local Church Is the Best at Developing Leaders

God uses a multitude of environments to develop leaders, but there is nothing like the church. Because the whole world is His, the Lord can use any environment to develop and mature His people, but the church is the best at developing leaders for at least four reasons

1. Divinely Designed

The church is divinely designed to endure and develop others. Christ started His church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome her. Nations, organizations and institutions will come and go, but the church will endure. As the church endures, the church will disciple and develop others. God has designed and commanded His church to make disciples. Developing others is in the church’s DNA. We are not reverse-engineering development into who we are. 

2. Heritage of Development

We are a part of a long and beautiful lineage of God-followers multiplying. Moses developed Joshua, Elijah trained Elisha, Paul invested in Timothy and Jesus focused His ministry on His disciples. The church was birthed in a discipleship paradigm, a culture where rabbis invested in their disciples. God’s people have always multiplied. The faith has always, by God’s grace, been transferred from one generation to the next, from one person to another. Developing others is deeply connected to what it means to be a Christ-follower. We are Christians because others have shared the gospel with us. We have matured because others have helped develop us.

3. Focused on Character

Research continually shows that character matters. For example, the recent leadership book Return on Character is based on research that reveals better performing companies are led by leaders who are seen as being filled with integrity, compassion and forgiveness. While some business analysts push for ROI (return on investment) metrics, the authors believe that a case can be made for ROC (return on character).