Servant-Leader Discipleship: Equipping People to Grow in Love for the Work of Service
Servant-Leader Discipleship: Equipping People to Grow in Love for the Work of Service
Juan M. Vallejo | 2021
Abstract
This book begins by examining Jesus Christ’s life and ministry as revealed in Scripture, with particular attention to references about God’s love, the incarnation, the great commandment, the great commission, and being, doing, and the fruit of the Spirit. The biblical analysis findings demonstrate significant similarities between Jesus Christ’s disciple-making leadership style and servant-leadership theory. He lived His life on earth as a servant-leader, exemplifying the fruit of the Spirit, Patterson’s seven virtuous constructs of servant-leadership, and Spear’s ten servant-leader characteristics found in Greenleaf’s writings. Jesus reproduced Himself through an infinitely reproducible disciple-making system, which consists of learning to love God, learning to love people, and learning to make servant-leader disciples. He helped people grow into mature servant-leader disciples through a highly relational developmental process that is learner-centric and experience-based. This approach is what the author coins as servant-leader discipleship.
The book also examines the art of making servant-leader disciples by focusing on servant-leadership theory, servant-leader discipleship, and ecclesial leader development. The author highlights servant-leadership principles in Jesus Christ’s disciple-making process to explain servant-leader discipleship. This servant-leader discipleship system involves the Holy Spirit, the servant-leader disciple-maker, and the potential servant-leader disciple. With the Holy Spirit’s help, the disciple-maker equips the potential servant-leader disciple through instruction and modeling, creating “learning by doing” opportunities with a follow-up time of debriefing between them. This five-step process incrementally advances the servant-leader disciple from observer only to practitioner. The servant-leader discipleship system proves to be an excellent approach to disciple-making that equips people to grow in love for the work of service.
The author presents plenty of content that someone can implement within the framework of servant-leader discipleship, including the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit, Patterson’s seven virtuous constructs, and Spear’s ten servant-leader characteristics. Each servant-leader disciple-maker or disciple-making organization can integrate them as they see fit. The servant-leader discipleship system offers great flexibility to customize the content according to each servant-leader disciple’s context.
The author recommends a threefold guideline for implementation. First, the person must become a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Personal conversion is the priority. Second, the person experiences transformational development. The Holy Spirit helps the person become to behave and behave to become. Third, the person makes a missional commitment. The person’s commitment to God’s mission must not become distorted or diluted into a personal mission that hurts people rather than helps them. Christian ministries can apply these steps to produce an ongoing talent pool of servant-leader disciples and servant-leader disciple-makers.
Keywords: Servant-Leader, Discipleship, Servant-Leadership, Servant, Leader, Disciple