Jesus' Approach to Leadership and Delegation

We can learn a lot from Jesus' approach as a leader to delegation of ministry in this passage:

* This is *very* early on in His ministry, the disciples have only been with Him a short time
* What He is asking them to do is something He very recently modeled for them
* As newbies, the disciples got some very detailed instructions - Ken Blanchard in Lead Like Jesus points out that leadership style should be situational - motivated new folks do need directions
* But notice he gave details instructions on boundaries - overall approach, who, where, resourcing, nuts and bolts things that they would otherwise have no idea what He wanted
* He gave very little direction on the HOW of the ministry itself - He did NOT give detailed instructions on what to preach, how to heal the sick, and how to get rid of demons. They had seen the Master model all of this, and were free to rely on this, and to use their own judgment and be who they are
* Imagine how much more eager they would be to learn on their return! Telling stories, asking a ton of questions, really connecting the dots. This is Deploy-and-Debrief form of ministry training, as opposed to training them for years on every hypothetical situation before letting them try it.
* Mk 7:1 - he gave them *authority* and power - this is key for delegation
* Also, he sent them out in PAIRS - huge benefit to never doing ministry alone
* He reminded them to stay focused, it's about them and their message, not fancy tools or equipment
* He reminded them the results are not up to them; shrug it off if no one responds
* This is not an isolated incident - He repeats this when He sends out the 72 in Luke 10
* We will find out later in Scripture that they had a lot of great success with this method... except when they forgot one little thing... prayer!

Created about 2 years ago