Surrender to Jesus: Leaders, This Starts with You
This is an excerpt from Jeff Vanderstelt’s newest book One-Eighty: A Return to Disciple-Making © Exponential. Download the free e-book here or order a physical copy from Amazon.
Every great move of God seems to begin with repentance and surrender.
Whenever I meet with leaders who want to bring change and transition to their context, I remind them that, in most cases, people faithfully followed them to where they are now. Your church or ministry, if you’ve been leading it for a while, is where it is because people followed your leadership and your example. So any change that is going to happen must first begin with you. You need repentance, and you need to surrender.
Unfortunately, we have given the word repent a bad rap. The word repent in the Greek is metanoia, which means having a change of mind. I hope as you have been reading [One-Eighty], some things in your mind have changed. Maybe you have a different view of God. Maybe your thoughts about what a disciple is has shifted. Hopefully, your perspective about yourself and the work God has for you in the future has changed. I hope you see more clearly than ever before.
Repentance is a gift. It’s not about groveling in guilt and shame. Repentance is about God giving you new thoughts, new dreams, new visions that help you see that God is doing a new thing in you and wants to do a new thing through you. Without repentance there is no change. We don’t do a 180 return to disciple-making without personally doing a 180 return to God and His ways for building His Church.
Before God will do something through you, He first does something to you. He wants to give you the gift of repentance and then call you to surrender your life to Him afresh.
Surrender Personally
Let’s start with you and God. Are you lovingly attaching to God in life-giving ways? Are you making space for God to meet with you and remind you of how deeply loved you are by Him? Do you need to repent from wrong thoughts or beliefs about God? Do you have any other gods before God in your life that you are entrusting yourself to or looking to for your ultimate hope? Are there any practices that you need to re-engage in afresh? Do you need to block out a regular time for silence and solitude?
Years ago, I recognized that these were not regular practices in my life as a leader. To kick-start my heart in these practices, I set aside one night and day every month for six months where I would go away the night before and then wake up to spend the entire day in silence and solitude. Eventually, I began to integrate shorter but regular segments of silence and solitude into my weekly rhythms and then engage in one to two days of silence and solitude a quarter. I also began the regular practice of fasting and prayer one day a week with longer times (several days) when needed. The practices of abstinence (silence, solitude, fasting, sabbath) can also help us confront areas of unhealthy consumption in our lives.
Do you need to address any areas where you are over-consuming or consuming things that are destructive? Are you walking in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit? Do you know the Father’s love for you experientially? Are you submitting to the power of the Spirit to overcome sin and temptation throughout your day? Are you experiencing the anointing of the Spirit to proclaim the good news of Jesus? Do you believe and walk in the power of the Spirit to pray for others’ healing or deliverance?
How about your emotional and relational health? Are you attending to your heart? Do you have trusted friends or counselors you can truly show up with and not feel the need to hide or perform? Are you aware of your feelings, needs, and desires, and are you going to God and others in healthy ways to get what you need and want? Or have you been going to unhealthy places or sources instead?
This starts with you. Locate yourself and pay attention to the story you are believing. Consider what you’ve been doing to address your needs. Repent. Turn to God and surrender to Him. Get help where you need it. You can’t lead people to a place you have not been or are not presently in.
Surrender to Make Disciples
Next, are you leading by example? Are you engaging in the relational spaces to grow in attachment to God and others? Are you spending time with the people you’re developing as well as with people who don’t yet follow Jesus? Are you actively sharing your faith? Are you making disciples who make disciples?
Most leaders who report that disciple-making is a weakness in their church or ministry also admit being weak at it personally—because most were never discipled to make disciples themselves. Bible schools and seminaries don’t usually equip people to be disciple-makers. They equip us to be good theologians, teachers, and caregivers. And the method used in most schools is nothing close to D.E.E.P.E.R. So be kind to yourself. There is a reason you may not yet be effective at this. However, the invitation of Jesus stands before you… Will you follow Him in the ways He’s leading you to shift how you make disciples?
Start by admitting your struggle. Invite the Holy Spirit to be your teacher and guide. Surrender to the Spirit, and invite Him to lead you to others who are equipped and effective at making disciples. Then ask them for help.1 Don’t stay alone, and don’t try to do it alone.
Several years ago, we created one-year disciple-making learning communities for church leaders in the Seattle area. We called the initiative Saturate the Sound. We had over 100 leaders participate in 10 different cohorts (one for each region we were working in). We started by making sure we had created a safe place where leaders could be honest about their personal struggles and their church challenges. We made it safe to tell the truth about what they didn’t know or couldn’t do. We first helped them learn some basic disciple-making practices to personally implement. We wanted them to be able to lead their churches by example, not just through explaining. As they led by example, we also helped them to bring change to their church through equipping their people to become disciple-making disciples. One pastor admitted to his church that he had never personally shared his story with an unbeliever. He went on to share it in front of the whole church, and he let them know they were going to train everyone to share their story with Jesus as the hero. Each week they had another person come up front to share their story. Eventually, he and many others in his church had the opportunity to share their stories with unbelievers. He reported that they saw many come to faith in Jesus as a result.2
Like these pastors, you won’t lead people to do what you are not doing yourself. First, you won’t have the ability to, and second, you won’t have the integrity to. Start by surrendering to the Spirit to be a disciple-maker. Then you will be able to surrender to the Spirit what you are leading as well.
Surrender the Ministry
I hope that after having read this book [One-Eighty], you will have some clarity about the things that need to change in the church or ministry you lead. Start with a prayer of surrender to the Holy Spirit. Surrender the ministry you lead to the Spirit’s leadership, empowerment, and direction. Invite the Spirit to show you what needs to change, how the Spirit wants you to change it, and when you are to bring about change.
Commit yourself with those around you to fully surrender to the Spirit to lead a ministry that leads people to truly attach to God and others in disciple-making spaces through the spiritual practices. Commit to holistically equip people in the diverse expression of who Jesus is, for ministry in all of life. Invite the Spirit to teach you how to lead others in spirit-empowered ministry. Confront any culture of emotional or relational unhealth, and go get help if needed (like I wish I had when I started Doxa Church). Change your scorecard to represent the heart and call of Jesus.
Do this with those you lead, but start with your own posture of surrender before you call others to join you. You may even want to publicly do this as a church. People are often resistant to change. However, humble leaders who can admit they’ve been wrong will create an environment of grace and courage in which others can step forward in new ways. When God’s people repent and surrender together, they put themselves in a posture for God to do remarkable things through them.
Surrender Your Future
Some of you are being prepared to be sent. God has been getting you ready with a fresh vision for a new work. For some of you, that is a new ministry, a new non-profit, or a new business venture for the Kingdom. Others of you are being prepared to sow the seeds of the gospel in a new place so that a new expression of the Church will spring up there. This book is one of the many things that God has put in your life to stir you up for what He wants to do through you.
Surrender your future to Jesus. Invite the Spirit to lead you to take next steps. Get plenty of counsel, assessment, training, and coaching. Don’t do it alone. Reach out to others who have gone before you, and learn from them. Ask God to give you partners, so you do it together in community on mission. Connect to a reputable organization with a track record of the things I’ve written about, especially the fourth shift from striving to thriving.
I pray you will find strength in surrender. May the Spirit anoint, fill, and empower you to be a disciple who makes disciples and a leader who leads disciple-making movements.
I pray as you take new steps forward that you will stay in a posture of surrender to the Father’s love, Jesus’ leadership, and the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit as you return to disciple-making in your own life and ministry.
This is an excerpt from Jeff Vanderstelt’s newest book One-Eighty: A Return to Disciple-Making © Exponential. Download the free e-book here or order a physical copy from Amazon.
Saturate provides coaching, training, and intensive learning environments if you would like additional help in making disciples. Go to the “Training” drop down menu at the top of this page and consider one of our offerings that might serve you. ↩︎
If you would like to start similar learning communities with those in your city or region, check out the Leader Cohorts videos and guides available through Saturate membership. This is part of the content we created for Saturate the Sound’s leader cohorts. ↩︎
