Bible Study

As we work with our students to develop their leadership skills, we should take a holistic approach. While I believe that laying a foundation of leadership principles is important in the development of every young person called to leadership, I believe just as wholeheartedly that they must lead out of their character.
Leaders lead from their character. They can’t lead if they don’t have anything to lead from. This character is developed primarily by the Word of God. It is developed by God over our lifetime through the reading of and meditation on His word.
What this means to us who develop leaders is that we can’t merely teach leadership principles when you teach your students. We have to incorporate spiritual disciplines, especially the reading and study of the Bible.
In my leadership group, we mix lessons on leadership with a Bible Study. Even if we have a lot of things going on and don’t get to the leadership lesson, we definitely get to the Bible Study. Right now we are going through the book of Revelation. We have camped out in chapters two and three studying the letters to the seven churches.
What a treasure trove of leadership lessons there are there! And that’s not beginner’s stuff, either. That’s hard-core boots-on-the-ground leadership lessons. That brings the leadership principles we are imparting face-to-face with real life scenarios in a local church setting.
By incorporating a Bible study into your leadership time, you can accomplish many things, and here is a list of the things that I think are very important:
• It gives your students a base of biblical knowledge, and encourages them to read the bible for themselves.
• Through the Bible, God builds our character, from which we lead.
• The Bible allows our students to see real leaders at work.
• The Bible gives the students historical situations with which to apply the leadership principles they are leading.

Get your students into the word. In the end, that will be more productive than just teaching them leadership principles. If you want to round them out well, teach them both.

In the Trenches,
Matt