Leadership vs. Discipleship
As church attendance continues to fall, the number of pastors seeking out the latest and greatest leadership techniques is at an all time high.  My first taste of this was a few months after I was hired on at a church and the entire staff attended the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  The whole idea was new to me - measuring church attendance and activity, programs aimed at retention, the latest epiphanies from high level executives and political figures.  It was all very polished and very well done, and I was sold.  I wanted to be a church leader!  I wanted to be inspiring, effective, and admired.  I knew that, by practicing these leadership principles, I could "get people" motivated to serve in our church programs - it was all very well intentioned, I assure you.
Is the Congregation Really Satisfied?
Even with a clear path of service and "growth" laid out for the congregation, things were not well under the surface.  Our church decided to take part in Willow Creek's Reveal Survey (http://www.christiancoachingcenter.org/index.php/russ-rainey/coachingchurch2/).  To make a long story short, the survey revealed that, while our congregation contained a high percentage of "spiritually mature" Christians, they didn't feel like their local church was central to their growth.  The results showed that the most spiritually mature Christians were bearing the load of their own growth apart from the church.  Instead of seeker friendly messages, they wanted meatier talks with more substance and more education opportunities.  Instead of changing their vision to accommodate the congregation, church leaders threw out the results because they "didn't like the way the survey questions were phrased."

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to say that leadership principles and tactics are bad or unimportant - I think that, in the hands of a disciple, they can be very powerful.  As with everything, the intention of the heart is most important.

As a former lay pastor, I took pride in running programs with a large volunteer count.  At the time, I believed that it was a reflection on my good leadership skills.  During the month, we would have meetings that would discuss the direction a particular ministry was moving in and what we needed to do to recruit more volunteers.
Get With the Program
Here's how it works:

* Church leaders have a vision about the direction the church should be going.  They start programs to carry out the vision (this is usually announced to the congregation using a Biblical metaphor, words that rhyme, or an acronym).
* They need people in the congregation (volunteers) to help carry it out.  Lay pastors are put in charge of training volunteer leaders and to oversee the programs.  Once in place, the teaching pastors, the church bulletin, and the pre-service slides serve as the marketing materials for the programs - inviting enlistment or "buy-in".
* The programs are simultaneously used as the medium for working out the vision of the church leaders, and as the sole mechanism for discipleship.  That is, if a church member were to tell the leadership that they don't feel like they are growing in Christ, the remedies usually offered are 1) Read your Bible more 2) Pray more 3) Volunteer in one of the church programs.
* Sunday messages are designed to attract a larger audience to take part in church activities.

There's a lot to be said for this method - it is extremely effective.  But is this what Biblical discipleship looks like?
What is Discipleship?
To be a disciple is to be a student, just as being a Rabbi is to be a professor.  I've read more than a few leadership books that lay out Jesus' "leadership techniques" with his disciples.  But, in the context of the first century, Jesus was not trying to demonstrate leadership techniques with his disciples, the understanding was that he was their teacher and they were his students.  When the disciples began to follow Jesus,