Jack De Vries

Here is my take.   Leadership begins with discipleship.  And discipleship begins in the home (Deut 6).   So often we focus on leadership development, but I strongly believe that we must begin with discipleship.   Throughout my years of ministry, and especially during the latter half of my work among CRC churches, I have come to appreciate the importance of discipleship.   For example, when we moved to take up work about the CRC churches in Australia, one of the first questions I asked our senior pastor in the CRC church we are part of was:  "What program of discipleship do you have in the church?"   I was not asking about the educational program, since the Sunday School and Catechism instruction we provide for our children is for the most part simply focused on imparting knowledge and not focused on transformation.  I was refering to 1-1 discipling of immature believers and new converts.   Well, there was no intentional discipling going on. 

So I started.   I began with a couple young men and spent a year discipling them in leadership essentials.   After a year, they started to do the same with other young men and youth.  I then began discipling two other young men.   Both were in leadership in the church so I thought I would disciple them in the essentials of leadership.   We followed material published by Greg Ogden, a book entitled Leadership Essentials.  This book deals with the character, convictions, and competence of a leader, spending about 1/3 of the material on each area.  But it soon became apparent that both of them needed much more basic discipling.  The one young man, a father of three, was in a de-facto or common law relationship.  The other was in a marriage that was on the verge of separation.  Bible knowledge was minimal with both, and one did not know how to pray.   So we soon went to Ogden's other book, Discipleship Essentials.  We are now in our third year.   And I have noticed such growth in both of these men.  They understand God's Word better, they pray regularly, they have memorised scores of Bible passages, and we rejoiced in the one man being convicted that he needed to get married -- and were there for the marriage celebration.   But it all began with intentional discipling.

I am convinced that discipling must begin in the home.   Parents must not simply do devotions or read the Bible, a common and good tradition with in the CRC.   But they must train up their children in the things of God.   They must pass on to their children the practices of the Christian faith, so that their children know how to pray, how to read and study the Bible, how to share their faith, how to practice the various disciplines of the Christian life, how to be good stewards, etc.   This requires more than observation.  It requires teaching, demonstration, accountability, practice -- all the stuff of discipleship.   I am very pleased that the  CRCNA will continue this discussion on discipleship, as reported at Synod 2011.

One of my deepest joys this past year has been the discipling of my 7 year old grandson.   We utilise the wonder of technology, and even though he is North Carolina, USA and I am in Australia, each week he gets up early and I stay up late and we spend an hour in going over Scripture, talking about spiritual disciplines, and learning heaps from the Bible and church history.  We use a VOIP video phone; Skype would work just as well. This past July I took him to the Jaars Centre in Waxhaw, NC, the aviation arm of Wycliffe Bible Translators.  We made this road trip since he had done a study on John Wycliffe and the importance of Bible translation during the years pre-Reformation.   I hope to continue discipling not just this one grandchildm, but also my other grandchildren, as the opportunity arises.  There is no better heritage to pass on than this -- our faith.

But discipleship must continue in our churches.  Every believer ought to meet regularly with other believers in a 1-1 relationship, where we continue to disciple one another in the way, the truth, and the life which is found only in Christ.  I am appaled that so few ministers of the Word actually do this -- that is, disciple weak or new believers.   It is essential for the health and growth of the body.   When church leaders engage in discipleship, this is when they recognise those who have the gift of leadership.   Once those gifts are discovered, then as leaders it behooves us that we engage in leadership development (Ephesians 4) -- equipping the saints for ministry.   Leaders need to be developed in their character, convictions, and competence.   They need to grow in spiritual integrity, in knowledge, and in ministry competence -- knowing the how-tos of ministry.  

So this is my take:  churches must engage in both discipleship and leadership development.   You can't have one without the other.   It begins in the home with parents and grandparents.  It continues in the church.  If we are serious about discipleship, then leaders will surface, and the church will become healthy.   And healthy churches grow.

God bless you Chris as you raise the bar in your work of leadership development.