Jesus launched the greatest worldwide movement in history. The question is, how did he develop his leaders?
Surprisingly, Jesus didn't create a leadership manual or conduct formal training courses. In fact, he dodged the use of many leadership terms that were a part of his culture's dynamics of influence.
When you get to the core of Jesus' influence through language, it really boils down to the dominant metaphors he used to shape his follower's expectations.
The first part of the day with Crusade leaders I covered the material from my book Building Leaders on this topic. I think this is some of the most important stuff on leadership we can reflect on, which is really a distillation of William Bennett's work, Metaphors for Ministry. Below is a summary chart of 15 metaphors that Jesus used to create expectations of his followers. Brilliantly, Bennett arranges them by community and cause. The cause metaphors he distinguishes into images of people and things.
There is more than meets the eye to these images.
One recommendation: Take a look at these images with your leadership team. What insights and patterns do you see? How are the metaphors in each column the same and how are they different? I'll continue to post my reflections on these 15 but I highly recommend you fast forward to the book.