Healthy Leaders | Issue 27
The center of healthy Christian leadership.
Welcome to Issue 27 of Healthy Leaders. In this issue, we begin to explore what it takes to be a healthy Christian leader, starting with inward fellowship with Jesus Christ Himself.
Hello friends,
Welcome back to our ongoing conversation1 on healthy Christian leadership and leader development.
Our last video series focused on what leadership actually is: helping someone move from where they are now to somewhere else. We’ve talked about everything from where leaders come from to the kinds of power leaders use.
But what constitutes an effective, healthy Christian leader?
In the next series of videos, Malcolm will unpack the answer to this question, starting with the absolute core of them all: Christ Himself.
It might be a bit too easy for us, as Christian leaders, to claim that we are centered on Christ. What do we mean when say this? That we believe in Him? That we trust Him for salvation? That we do what He says? All of these things relate to being centered on Christ, of course. But true, daily centering of our lives in Christ requires continual fellowship with Him – not just a one-time statement of belief or commitment, or a formula for following rules.
And how we do we know what continual fellowship with Jesus looks like? We have an example in how Christ related to His Father.
Here’s Malcolm with more:
This fellowship with Christ is the cornerstone of all healthy Christian leadership. It is at the center of our work in the nations, and we encounter many examples of this around the world:
“The teachings on centrality of Christ and dependency on God helped me to completely surrender to the Lord. I would read the notes from our past trainings with you and meditate on the Scriptures that were taught to us. Slowly but surely, the Holy Spirit took hold of my life.
I used to be a very timid person and never had the boldness to even go out alone. Now I feel the fire of the Spirit burning in my heart and I cannot help but share the Gospel wherever I go. My family is shocked to see the change and is trying to stop me from preaching the Gospel – they have even stopped me from going out on my own but I am filled with a divine peace and I know that the Lord will make a way for me.” (Sister P)
In To Enjoy Him Forever, Malcolm says this about the dangers of “fellowship-less” living.
We do new Christians the gravest of injustices when we teach them to how to “play the part” of a Christian without giving them the inward reality of experience of Jesus Christ. We teach them how to act “holy,” how to live “righteously,” and how to talk “faith,” and then require it all of them.
But unless we have in truth actually led them to Jesus Christ who will be the only true inward Source of all these fruits, we have only succeeded in teaching them how to imitate the Christian life, and have not at all helped them to become real Christians. We have taught them how to display the outward forms of godliness all the while neglecting the inward power thereof. We have done little more than to bring them into religious captivity.
What then is the remedy?
My brother or sister, if you know you lack the fruits of the Spirit in your life, then the answer does not lie in “trying to grow them.” The remedy does not lie in greater discipline, increased resolution, more self-control nor just plain trying harder. The answer lies in coming to God. The fruits of the Spirit will spontaneously issue from a heart that has been changed and restored to fellowship with God. COME TO GOD! Give Him your heart! That is what your need really is.
Today is the day to do this, not just for the sake of your leadership or your followers, but for the sake of your soul! Let us all say with the Psalmist: “I spread out my hands to You; I thirst for You like a parched land.” (Psalm 143:6)
In our next letter, we’ll see how Jesus experienced inward fellowship with God throughout His life – the source of everything in Jesus’ life and ministry!
Until next time, we’re with you!
— Chris
Recommended Resources
Book: To Enjoy Him Forever
Audio Teaching: What Does It Mean to Abide in Christ?
Article: “Jesus Is the Fountainhead of All True Christian Leadership”
For more resources, visit our website.
Thanks to our friends at Fifty-Four Collective for putting together a comprehensive set of video courses for growing healthy organizations, starting with this series of courses on leadership by Malcolm. We’ll be using some of their videos and some of our own. Be sure to check out what they’re doing!