Spiritual Life and Leadership
Ministry leadership is about more than just growing your church or organization. It’s about participating in God’s mission in the world. But how can leaders know God’s mission or their unique place in it? Faithful ministry leadership is rooted in a life of deep and abiding faithfulness to Jesus. In “Spiritual Life and Leadership,” Markus Watson and his guests explore what it means to be faithful leaders whose ministry flows from their ever-deepening relationship with God.
Spiritual Life and Leadership
185. From Sunday Services to Real Transformation, with E.K. Strawser, author of Centering Discipleship
•
Markus Watson
Send me a text! I’d love to know what you're thinking!
E.K. Strawser is a co-vocational pastor of Ma Ke Alo o in Honolulu and the author of Centering Discipleship: A Pathway for Multiplying Spectators into Mature Disciples.
We've got a lot of discipleship programs in our churches. But how effective are they? Are they leading to real transformation in people's lives? In this episode, E.K. Strawser discuss how churches can cultivate real transformation in their people's lives.
THIS EPISODE'S HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
- E.K. Strawser is a co-vocational pastor of Ma Ke Alo o in Honolulu and the author of Centering Discipleship: A Pathway for Multiplying Spectators into Mature Disciples.
- Discipleship, according to E.K. Strawser, is imitating Jesus so that our spiritual confidence increases and our social competence as Christians increases.
- Discipleship without mission is discipleship without Christ.
- Discipleship has to be local.
- When discipleship is peripheral in a church, three things tend to be true:
- Resources and energy are poured primarily into a weekly teaching time.
- People are being moved to a weekly worship service.
- Leadership has a vision for the church (as opposed to a vision for the community).
- But when discipleship is central in a church, these three things tend to be true:
- Resources and energy are poured into imitation, providing tools and pathways to help people enter a life of discipleship.
- People are being moved to the community around them.
- Leadership has a vision for renewal in their local community.
- E.K. Strawser describes what centered discipleship looks like in her church.
- In looking for leaders in E.K. Strawser’s church, they look for “a discipled disciple-maker who has a heart for the community around them and have identified a space of mission and who are inviting others to do this with them.”
- Mission-oriented discipleship requires lots of experimentation.
- E.K. Strawser says that every discipleship pathway ought to look different in every community and neighborhood, but all of them should reflect the likeness of Christ.
- Churches need to look for certain developing marks of maturity in the people engaged in their discipleship pathways in order to know that the pathway they have chosen is actually working.
- Four marks of spiritual maturity:
- Character – Are people actually becoming more like Jesus?
- Christlike theology – Are we actually borrowing from Jesus how to think about God and the world?
- Christlike wisdom – Are we becoming people who can navigate the complexities of life well together?
- Being sent – We understand that we are a people sent by God into the world.
- As leaders who long to lead people into deep discipleship, our first job is to love the people God has entrusted to us.
RELEVANT RESOURCES AND LINKS:
- E.K. Strawser:
- Website – www.centeringdiscipleship.com
- V3 Movement
- Books mentioned:
- Centering Discipleship, by E.K. Strawser
- Church Leadership Institute
Click HERE to get my FREE online course, BECOMING LEADERS OF SHALOM.
