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God is at work in you, not only because of what you do, but even more because of who you are becoming. After all, what matters the most to Him—what you do or who you become, especially as you become like Christ?

Isn’t what you do as a leader important to God? Of course it is, but if you think it through carefully, you realize that what you get done is God’s means to make you like Christ. He uses the experiences of your life to make you into His image to accomplish His purpose and fulfill His will.

So, God is at work in you, forming you to become the kind of person He wants you to be, a ministry or business leader like Christ, a man or woman who does what Christ would do if He were the leader of your church or your business or your movement or your mission.

Therefore, everything He wants you to accomplish has another major aim besides success. He not only wants you to get a deal completed, a building built, a business organized, or a successful ministry established, He wants you to grow on your way to become like Christ. He is growing you to be the kind of man or woman He wants you to be so you can make a difference for Him—the kind of difference Jesus would make, since He is the One doing it through you. That means that your church, your career, your position, your marriage or your children can be His means of transforming you from who you are to becoming who He wants you to be. It is true that He wants things done through us, but that’s not the end in itself. His ultimate intent for every one of us is that we should become like Christ through the issues we face in life.

Only God’s kind of person can be God’s kind of leader. There is only one way to become God’s kind of leader and that is to serve as well as to live His way.

How can you live God’s way? Only by understanding the Jesus way to live which He taught in the Gospels. Don’t just study information. Study how to live, and then learn to depend on Him because that’s the only way you can live the Jesus way. It is not only a matter of performing miracles as He did, but a matter of truth and love, endurance and patience, sacrifice and trust, shame and glory, death and resurrection.

We take His place in the world today. Are you ready for this? Who could possibly be ready for this? That’s why God is putting you in situations that can be carried out only through resurrection resources.

This is why you must grow to become God’s kind of leader—a Christ-like leader. A real leader.

Quite a task, isn’t it? A real task to make you a real leader.

At Leader Formation we focus on the leader rather than leadership.

Effective leadership is our aim, but we have learned that leadership collapses when competent leaders lack godly character. God has used leadership from the beginning of time, but time after time we see leadership fail because leaders fail. Look at Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Peter, Mark and on throughout history, and you will see that leadership is flawed because leaders are flawed.  As one of our board members, Dr. Gary Wood, declared, “Skills are essential but not sufficient.”

Leader Formation exists to strengthen leadership by forming leaders. As we see it, the heart of the leader is the heart of a leadership and our aim is to form the hearts of leaders through the Holy Spirit. That’s why we call ourselves Leader Formation.

We accomplish our aim by focusing on the Scriptures. We are not interested in exporting American solutions to problems global leaders do not have, but we do know that biblical solutions to problems leaders around the globe do have will make them effective in leadership. The first of our emphases is the four heart factors of a leader, four factors that determine whether a leader serves God or self, found in

I Kings 11-12.

The Four Heart Factors of a Leader (I Kings 11-12)

The Power Factor—Leaders who pursue their power rather than God’s power achieve much but lose everything (I Kings 11:1-43).

The Accountability Factor—Leaders who have Nathans in their lives become Davids because they are transformed from shame to success (I Kings 11:4).

The Flip-Flop Factor—Leaders who rely on God for their convenience and on themselves for their accomplishments trade His greatness for their smallness.

( 1 Kings 12:1-15)

The Fear Factor—Leaders who strive to overcome fear by trusting themselves rather than God always fail (I Kings 12:25-33).

What role do these factors play in you as a leader? All of us long for power, seek to avoid accountability, use God for our own advantage and ourselves for our own advancement, and promote ourselves to advance our cause. This means at least some of the time we strive for our cause in Jesus’ name. If any of these four factors influence your leadership, God will do the same thing with you that He did with Solomon, David, Jeroboam, and Rehoboam. He will cause your drive to take down your leadership. Still He will take your repentance to restore your leadership. Repent early and often and God will restore you constantly and permanently.