Leadership Decisions Begin in the Presence of God

“In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles.”
— Luke 6:12–13

Jesus did something remarkably simple before making one of the most consequential leadership decisions of His earthly ministry.

He withdrew.

The crowds were growing. Opposition from religious leaders was increasing. Needs surrounded Him. His public ministry carried constant demands.

Yet Jesus did not allow urgency to determine His leadership decisions.

He stepped away from the noise and spent the night with the Father.

That order should challenge anyone responsible for identifying, developing, or releasing leaders.

We are often tempted to begin with resumes, availability, charisma, experience, personality assessments, or organizational need.

Jesus began with prayer.

This same leadership rhythm is explored further in Prayer That Leads: How Jesus Forms Leaders in the Secret Place .

1. Never Let Urgency Choose Your Leaders

Jesus had every reason to move quickly.

His ministry was expanding. Opposition was intensifying. The message would eventually need to move beyond His immediate physical presence.

Yet He did not respond to urgency with hurried appointment.

Leaders frequently get themselves into trouble when a vacancy becomes more important than discernment.

Someone is available, so we give them responsibility.

Someone is talented, so we assume they are ready.

Someone attracts people, so we assume they can shepherd people.

Someone produces results, so we give them authority.

None of those things necessarily reveal character, spiritual maturity, or calling.

Jesus refused to let pressure shorten the process of prayer.

This is particularly important when leadership decisions are being made during seasons of resistance, expansion, or instability. Pressure can make almost any immediate solution look like wisdom.

If you are leading through that kind of season, When Relief Sounds Like Wisdom is a helpful companion to this passage.

2. Prayer Is Not a Rubber Stamp for a Decision You Already Made

There is a difference between asking God to bless our leadership plan and allowing Him to shape it.

Jesus did not appear to come to the mountain with twelve names already selected and ask the Father to approve them.

Luke presents prayer first and selection second.

That matters.

Biblical discernment requires enough surrender that God is allowed to interrupt our preferences.

Sometimes the person we would have selected is not the person God is highlighting. Sometimes the person we overlooked has been quietly developing the character, faithfulness, and relational credibility necessary for responsibility.

This is one reason leaders in a relational network should be recognized rather than manufactured through a leadership pipeline.

We watch.

We pray.

We observe how people love, serve, respond to correction, carry responsibility, handle disappointment, and treat people who cannot advance their position.

Then we recognize what God appears to already be forming.

Personal discernment also requires learning to become quiet before God. For readers who need to develop that interior practice, Simply Organic Faith offers Hearing God in the Quiet: How to Listen and Know His Voice .

3. Jesus Did Not Choose the Obvious Candidates

“Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.”
— Luke 6:14–16

If we were forming the team responsible for carrying the gospel into the world, this probably would not have been our shortlist.

Jesus chose fishermen.

He chose Matthew, a tax collector associated with the Roman system.

He chose Simon, identified as a Zealot, from a movement fiercely opposed to Roman domination.

He chose Peter, whose impulsiveness would repeatedly surface.

He chose Thomas, who would later wrestle openly with doubt.

These were not polished professional religious leaders.

They were people Jesus intended to form.

That requires patience. It also requires us to resist confusing gifting with maturity.

Someone can communicate well and still need formation. Someone can attract people and still lack the character to shepherd them. Someone can produce results without yet being ready to carry authority.

Healthy leadership development keeps discipleship ahead of position.

That is why Disciple First: Why Discipleship Can’t Be Reduced to Models matters so much in leadership development.

4. Jesus Chose People Who Would Never Have Chosen Each Other

Matthew and Simon may be one of the most overlooked leadership lessons in this passage.

Matthew had participated in the Roman taxation system.

Simon was identified with a movement committed to opposing Roman domination.

Their backgrounds represented radically different loyalties.

Yet Jesus put them on the same team.

He did not begin by making them identical.

He gave them something greater than their differences: Himself and His mission.

Healthy Kingdom leadership does not require uniform personalities, political backgrounds, economic experiences, cultures, or temperaments.

It does require a shared allegiance to Jesus strong enough to keep those differences from becoming the center of the relationship.

The question is not, “Would these people naturally choose one another?”

The better question is, “Has Jesus called them to walk together?”

A relational network should be able to hold genuine diversity without demanding artificial sameness.

Leaders must learn to become students of the people around them rather than expecting everyone to lead, process, communicate, or respond exactly as they do.

That posture is developed further in Become a Student of the People You Lead .

5. Jesus Chose Disciples Before He Named Apostles

Luke’s wording is important.

Jesus called His disciples and chose twelve whom He named apostles.

Before they were sent, they were followers.

Before they carried authority, they lived in proximity to Jesus.

Before they represented Him publicly, they had to be formed privately.

Leadership becomes dangerous when the identity of “leader” outruns the identity of “disciple.”

The moment a person becomes more interested in exercising authority than following Jesus, something has moved out of order.

Titles cannot substitute for formation.

Platforms cannot substitute for character.

Responsibility cannot substitute for intimacy with Christ.

This is also why borrowed authority eventually becomes dangerous. A title can give someone positional influence that their character has not yet learned to carry.

For more on that distinction, read The Danger of Borrowed Authority in Kingdom Leadership .

In the Simplicity framework, leaders are not valuable because a system handed them a position. Guides and Shepherds become recognizable through their presence, faithfulness, relational maturity, service, and the way others naturally begin to trust their spiritual care.

6. Leadership Formation Happens Before Leadership Deployment

The twelve did not become mature leaders the moment Jesus named them apostles.

Luke 6 begins a long process.

They would misunderstand Jesus.

They would argue about greatness.

They would struggle with faith.

Peter would deny knowing Jesus.

When Jesus was arrested, they scattered.

Yet Jesus continued forming them.

This should affect the way we work with emerging leaders.

Development is not simply giving someone information and then handing them responsibility.

Formation happens through relationship, correction, failure, restoration, observation, obedience, and time with Jesus.

Leaders need room to grow without being prematurely elevated.

They also need room to fail without automatically being discarded.

Failure may reveal an area requiring deeper formation rather than proving that a person’s entire calling was false.

That tension is explored in When Failure Follows You Into Leadership .

For the personal formation side of that struggle, Simply Organic Faith also offers When Past Failure Makes You Afraid to Obey .

7. Leaders Must Know Why They Are Being Sent

An apostle is a sent one.

Jesus was not simply assembling an inner circle for their own spiritual benefit. These men were eventually going to carry His message outward.

Leadership in the Kingdom is therefore never primarily about position.

It is about responsibility for the mission of Jesus.

That changes the question from:

“What position can this person fill?”

to:

“Where is Jesus already sending this person?”

Some will be sent into neighborhoods.

Some into businesses.

Some into pastoral relationships.

Some into church planting.

Some into international mission.

Some into ordinary workplaces where their most significant ministry will happen through presence, relationships, generosity, and faithful witness.

The purpose of leadership development is not to create positions for people. It is to help people recognize and faithfully respond to the places Jesus is already sending them.

Simply Organic Faith explores that individual movement from encounter to obedience in Here I Am, Send Me: From Encounter to Obedience .

8. The Mission Must Be Bigger Than the Leader

One of the most significant things happening in Luke 6 is succession.

Jesus knew His earthly ministry would not continue in its present form indefinitely. The gospel would have to move through people He had formed.

Healthy leaders understand that the mission cannot remain dependent on them.

If everything stops when the primary leader steps away, we may have built dependency rather than discipleship.

Jesus intentionally formed people who would carry the work beyond His immediate physical presence.

That means mature leaders ask:

• Who am I helping recognize their calling?
• Who am I giving room to grow?
• Who am I trusting with meaningful responsibility?
• Who is learning to depend on Jesus rather than depend on me?
• What continues when I am no longer in the room?

Multiplication that remains healthy requires more than reproduction of activity. It requires the preservation of spiritual and relational DNA.

See How to Multiply Without Losing Your DNA and How Missional Teams Stay Rooted, Reproducible, and Spirit-Led .

9. Conviction Makes Leaders Resilient

Later, Jesus would give the twelve a difficult teaching. Many disciples walked away.

“So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you want to go away as well?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.’”
— John 6:67–69

Peter’s answer reveals something essential about durable leadership.

Eventually, a leader needs more than enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm disappears when ministry becomes difficult.

Recognition fades.

Opposition comes.

Results slow down.

People leave.

Plans change.

Conviction is what remains when excitement is gone.

Peter essentially said, “Where else would we go? We have come to know who You are.”

That is much stronger than motivation.

Leaders who endure are not simply committed to a ministry model. They are anchored in Jesus.

That is why the Network must remain disciple-first rather than model-first, personality-first, or organization-first.

10. The Gospel Is What Makes the Assignment Worth Carrying

Why were these ordinary men willing to carry the message of Jesus into difficult places?

Because they had become convinced that the message was true.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
— Romans 6:23

The gospel is not that people can finally work hard enough to earn God’s favor.

The gospel is that Jesus has done what we could not do for ourselves.

He gave Himself on our behalf.

Grace is received, not achieved.

That message must remain at the center of leadership.

We are not developing leaders merely to keep organizations operating.

We are helping men and women faithfully carry the good news of Jesus into the places where He sends them.

Sometimes that mission happens in very ordinary places. Simply Organic Faith explores this beautifully in Faith in the Everyday: Living the Mission Where You Are .

A Different Way to Develop Leaders

Luke 6 gives us a very different picture from simply filling an organizational chart.

Jesus prayed.

He discerned.

He chose unlikely people.

He brought different people together around Himself.

He formed them through relationship.

He gave them responsibility.

And eventually He sent them.

That pattern fits the relational nature of the Simplicity Church Network.

We do not need to manufacture a class of professional ministry leaders.

We need to become attentive to the people Jesus is already forming around us.

Some will emerge as Guides.

Some will emerge as Shepherds.

Some will carry mission into businesses, neighborhoods, nations, and new communities of disciples.

The responsibility of existing leaders is not to control that process.

It is to pray, recognize, walk alongside, form, release, and remain attentive to the Spirit.

Practical Leadership Response

1. Slow Down One Leadership Decision

Identify one pending leadership decision and refuse to make it simply because the need feels urgent.

Create intentional space for prayer and observation.

2. Watch Before You Appoint

Pay attention to who is already serving without recognition. Watch how they treat people. Observe their faithfulness when nothing is at stake. Notice whether people naturally trust them.

3. Ask Formation Questions

Instead of asking only, “Can this person do the job?” ask:

• Are they teachable?
• Do they listen?
• Can they receive correction?
• Do they love people?
• Do they keep their word?
• Are they becoming more like Jesus?

4. Give Responsibility Before Position

Allow emerging leaders to carry meaningful responsibility in a relational context before giving them a title.

Let responsibility reveal both gifting and areas that still need formation.

5. Ask Where They Are Being Sent

Do not assume every emerging leader belongs inside an institutional ministry role.

Their primary assignment may be a workplace, neighborhood, business, mission field, household, or relational community.

Help them recognize the mission rather than simply finding them a position.