Leadership (LEAD)
Leadership Equipping and Demonstrating
Equipping and demonstrating faithful, gospel-shaped leadership in everyday life.
LEAD brings together Scripture, mentoring, shared meals, discussion, service, and practical leadership experience to help students grow in wisdom, character, and faithful presence.
Why LEAD?
Christian leadership begins before you have a title.
You don't have to be the president of an organization, lead a ministry, manage a team, or have a position of authority to be a leader.
Leadership begins much closer to home.
It begins with learning to follow Jesus faithfully, developing godly character, taking responsibility, serving others, using your gifts wisely, and becoming someone others can trust.
College is an important season for developing those habits. Students are already making decisions, influencing friends, working with others, taking on responsibilities, discovering their gifts, and preparing for places of service they may not yet be able to see.
LEAD exists to help students approach those opportunities intentionally as followers of Jesus Christ.
Through Scripture, mentoring, conversation, practical experience, and opportunities to serve, students explore what distinctly Christian leadership looks like—not leadership built around position, recognition, or personal success, but leadership shaped by character, humility, wisdom, courage, faithfulness, and love for others.
The Goal of LEAD
The goal isn't simply to produce better leaders. It is to help form faithful Christian men and women who are prepared to take responsibility, serve others, and use whatever influence God gives them for His glory and the good of their neighbors.
What LEAD Looks Like
LEAD—Leadership Equipping and Demonstrating—is an intentional opportunity for students to grow as Christian leaders through Scripture, mentoring, community, and practical experience.
LEAD isn't primarily about learning leadership techniques. It is about becoming the kind of person who can lead faithfully.
Students learn together through biblical study, guided discussion, mentoring, shared meals, service, and opportunities to take meaningful responsibility. Along the way, they are encouraged to grow in the qualities that matter most in Christian leadership: godly humility, character, wisdom, discernment, courage, and faithful presence.
Because leadership isn't learned only in a classroom, LEAD connects what students are learning with real opportunities to serve others, practice hospitality, contribute to the life of the House, lead discussions and studies, help with gatherings and events, and use their gifts for the good of others.
The goal is not simply to know more about leadership. It is to learn to lead by following Christ, serving others, and faithfully putting what you are learning into practice.
Scripture-Rooted Leadership
Leadership begins with learning to see leadership through the Scriptures. The Bible has much to say about leadership, but it rarely begins where our culture begins.
Scripture directs our attention first to wisdom and character, humility and faithfulness, service and stewardship, courage and care for others. Above all, it points us to Jesus Christ, who shows us what it means to lead by giving Himself for others.
Wisdom Literature
Discernment & HumilityProverbs and the other Wisdom writings teach us to seek wisdom, receive correction, guard our hearts, choose our words carefully, understand people, make sound judgments, and walk humbly before God.
Leadership requires more than knowing what to do. It requires becoming a person with the wisdom and discernment to know what faithfulness requires in different situations.
Pastoral Letters
Shepherding & CarePaul's letters to Timothy and Titus remind us that Christian leadership is deeply connected to character, relationships, responsibility, sound judgment, and care for people.
Before Scripture emphasizes a leader's abilities, it repeatedly draws attention to the leader's life. Christian leaders are called not simply to accomplish things, but to serve faithfully, care for others, guard what has been entrusted to them, and become examples worth following.
Gospels & Acts
The Leadership of Christ & the Early ChurchIn Jesus we encounter a radically different vision of leadership. He leads with truth and grace, courage and compassion, authority and humility. He welcomes the overlooked, confronts what is false, forms disciples, serves others, and ultimately gives His life for His people.
Acts then shows ordinary men and women learning to follow Christ's example as they serve, teach, make decisions, endure difficulty, work together, take risks, and participate in God's mission.
More Than Leadership Technique
LEAD is not ultimately about mastering leadership techniques. It is about leadership formed by Scripture—wisdom, character, discernment, service, and faithful purpose shaped over time before God.
We want students not merely asking, “How can I become a better leader?” but something deeper:
“What kind of person is Christ forming me to become, and how can I faithfully serve the people and responsibilities He entrusts to me?”
Leadership in Practice
Leadership is learned by doing. Christian leadership cannot be formed through study alone. Students need opportunities to serve, take responsibility, work with others, make decisions, solve problems, and learn from both successes and mistakes.
That's why practice is an important part of LEAD. Students have opportunities to put what they are learning into action through the ordinary life and ministry of Real Life House. Depending on their interests, gifts, and opportunities, that may include:
HOSPITALITY
Welcoming students, helping with meals, and creating a place where people are known and cared for.
DISCUSSIONS & STUDIES
Helping lead conversations, Bible studies, book discussions, or other learning opportunities.
GATHERINGS & EVENTS
Helping plan, organize, communicate, and carry out events and activities at the House.
SERVICE
Recognizing needs, taking initiative, and finding practical ways to serve others in the House and the wider community.
LIFE AT THE HOUSE
Taking responsibility for some of the ordinary things that help a community flourish and learning to work faithfully alongside others.
These experiences are not simply jobs to complete. They become opportunities to receive guidance, practice leadership, reflect on what happened, grow through experience, and increasingly understand how God has gifted each student to serve.
The goal isn't to give students impressive titles. It's to give them meaningful opportunities to become faithful, capable, servant-hearted people who know how to step forward when responsibility is needed.
Interested in LEAD?
You don't have to already think of yourself as a leader.
LEAD is for students who want to grow in character, learn to serve others well, take greater responsibility, and explore how God might use their gifts and influence.
You don't need to have everything figured out, and you don't need a leadership title to begin.
If you're interested in growing as a Christian leader—or simply wondering whether LEAD might be a good fit—we'd be glad to talk with you.
Come learn. Come serve. Come practice. Come grow.
Interested in LEAD? Let's talk.