The Making of a Biblical Leader: 10 Principles for Leading Others WellSample

A Leader Has: Direction

Frank Turek

If you want people to follow you, you can’t just speak to their minds but must also speak to their emotions and will.

As Blaise Pascal put it, “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.” Christianity can be a hard sell because most people don’t find denying yourself attractive. On the other hand, the person of Christ, who sacrificed Himself to save us (see Mark 10:45), is enormously attractive.

So, what does this mean for leading Christians? A leader must recognize that our minds, emotions, and wills contribute to every decision we make. That’s why direction, trust, and desire—which address a follower’s mind, emotions, and will, respectively—are three of the most important fundamentals of leadership. For people to follow you consistently, they must know where you’re going (direction), trust you to help them get there, and have a desire to go in the direction you’re going.

If you’re not going in a particular direction, how can you lead anyone? Without direction, you may end up leading people to accept the status quo, and not really lead them anywhere.

The direction I want to lead people is toward Jesus—not the Jesus we may have invented in our minds, but the Jesus of the Bible who lived a perfect life, took the punishment due us upon Himself on the cross, and rose from the dead to prove He is God. The primary way I try to lead people to Christ is through evidence. I want to make a case for the facts that God really exists, Jesus predicted and accomplished His own resurrection from the dead, and the Bible is the Word of God and can be trusted as the guide for life.

What you win people with, you win them to. If you win someone to accept Christ through emotion alone, you can lose them to emotion alone. But if you win people with facts, their faith can withstand any emotional changes they experience because facts never change.

Because there is excellent evidence that truth exists, God exists, miracles are possible, and Jesus rose from the dead, you can show beyond a reasonable doubt that the basics of Christianity are true. But even when you, as a leader, provide this clear direction, you will discover that some people will reject your message on emotional or volitional grounds. Those objections involving trust and desire are difficult to overcome, which will leave you feeling as though you’re pushing a rope. That’s why you should ask, “If Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?” If they hesitate or say no, they have desires that incentivize them to say no. So pray, love, ask questions, plant seeds, wait, and leave the results to God.

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We hope this plan was helpful to you. You can read more from Robert L. Furrow in his book, The Making of a Biblical Leader, available here.