Leadership Development - Jesus’ Prayerful Selection and Selective Call

 

This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders.

Our topic for 2026 is Leadership Development. In my past several podcasts, I shared insights regarding leadership development from VCP Director Claude, Assistant VCP Director Peter, and Fidélité, our Supervisor for Dynamic Women in Africa.

Today and in a series of podcasts to follow, I want to explore Jesus’s approach to leadership development. We begin with the observation that when it was time to appoint his 12 apostles, he did so prayerfully. Related to this, his call was selective.

In Luke 6:12-13, we read, “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles.”

The selection of Jesus’ 12 apostles was an extremely important decision for Christ. These were the men with whom he would spend the next three years, the men who would be entrusted to carry on His work after His return to heaven. It should be emphasized that Jesus was fully God and fully human during His time on earth. And before selecting these 12 leaders, the Scripture tells us that he prayed all night.

The principle here is that, as leaders, we must be prayerful in selecting emerging leaders who will be invited to join the work. Over the years, too often I have seen these decisions in the church taken too casually. A person is needed to fill a ministry role, and a “warm body” (this is an idiom meaning someone who just happens to be available) is found and placed into the position without prayerful consideration. Such a selection process almost never works out well.  

Related to prayerful selection, a second principle is that Jesus made a selective call. The context in verse 13 is that Jesus was with a group of his disciples (or followers). From this larger group, Jesus selected 12 to be his apostles.

The leadership development principle that I see here is that as we consider the choice of emerging leaders, we must be selective. I refer here to my 24 April podcast in which I summarized some characteristics that I look for in potential leaders. You may have a list that is somewhat different; the key point is that we are selective based upon important qualities we desire in future leaders.

* An Identity firmly rooted in Christ  

* Humility

* Their history or track record 

* Areas of aptitude or competency

* Take Initiative

* A Strong desire to learn and grow

* A Teachable spirit

* Pleasant to be around

* Their reputation both inside the church and with outsiders

* A strong, Christ-centered marriage

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters and leaders.