October 1, 2026
As church leaders, we must be careful not to treat leadership development as an add-on. For example, we may program discipleship in one space and leadership training in another—different rooms, calendars, and expectations. It’s common, but it creates a quiet problem: when formation and responsibility are separated, neither grows the way it should.
Scripture never presents discipleship as an isolated activity. Jesus’ invitation, “Follow me, and I will make you,” already contains direction. Following Him was never meant to stop at personal growth; it always moved toward participation in God’s work. Leadership formation is not a program layered onto church life. It is a natural extension of following Jesus in community. At our church, it flows from the same pathway that shapes all disciples: Meet, Make, Mobilize.
At First Baptist Church Duluth, the Technicolor Leadership Cohort clarified this truth. The aim wasn’t to launch something new but to recover something biblical: leadership development is discipleship with responsibility attached—the same path, just with greater weight. Built around the vision in Pastor Mark Hearn’s book, Technicolor: Inspiring Your Church to Embrace Multicultural Ministry, the cohort prepares emerging leaders to serve faithfully in multicultural ministry contexts.
Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of Life. Church often says on his leadership podcast, “Everyone is a leader. When the leader gets better, everyone gets better.” This principle reflects a biblical reality. Growth in a disciple’s life never remains contained. It spills into relationships, ministry, and witness. When leaders are formed spiritually, the whole church is strengthened.
Discipleship That Moves Somewhere
One challenge in church culture is that discipleship can become defined by activity instead of transformation. People attend studies, read books, and join groups, yet still struggle to connect growth with responsibility. Leadership is treated as something for later—after maturity, after readiness, after confidence.
The New Testament shows the opposite. Jesus entrusted responsibility while formation was still happening. The disciples preached before they understood everything. They served before they were polished. They were shaped not only by what they learned, but by what they were trusted to do.
The Technicolor Leadership Cohort was built on that conviction. Participants met once a month from February through August, studying Canoeing the Mountains alongside Scripture, dialogue with church leaders, and practical reflection. The greatest impact didn’t come from the curriculum. It came from the posture. Participants were treated not as observers but as disciples entrusted with responsibility for the good of others.
That shift matters. When leadership training is separated from discipleship, skill can outpace character. When leadership development is discipleship, competence, and Christlikeness grow together.
Formation Under Responsibility
A common assumption is that people must be fully formed before they can lead. However, formation often happens through leading. Responsibility reveals motives, exposes weakness, and deepens dependence on God. Leadership practiced in community and grounded in Scripture becomes one of God’s primary tools for shaping disciples.
During the cohort, participants wrestled with real challenges—local demographic shifts, cultural complexity, and ministry decisions that required wisdom rather than formulas. These weren’t abstract discussions. They were real challenges we entrusted to those in attendance.
This is where discipleship becomes visible. It is one thing to discuss humility or courage. It is another to practice them when others are looking to you for guidance. Leadership does not interrupt formation; it reveals it.
Formation in a Multi-Ethnic Church
Technicolor was also our first cohort intentionally designed to develop leaders across generations and ethnicities. That choice was not cosmetic. It was formative.
In fact, this emphasis grew out of another fellowship within our church family—a Cross-Class led by our senior pastor that meets in his home. That smaller, relational environment became a proving ground for what we would later expand through the cohort: discipleship that crosses cultures, generations, and experiences in shared life together.
When believers from different backgrounds lead together, assumptions surface. Communication styles differ. Expectations about authority vary. Without discipleship, those differences feel like obstacles. With discipleship, they become instruments God uses for growth.
In a divergent learning environment, diversity is not a problem to solve but a means God uses to shape His people. Leaders are not only trained for a multi-ethnic church; they are formed through one. That kind of formation cannot be rushed. It requires shared life, shared learning, and shared submission to Christ.
Leadership Is a Shared Stewardship
The cohort also reinforced that leadership development belongs to the whole church, not one department. Pastors and ministry leaders contributed wisdom, stories, and perspective. Participants saw how faithfulness looks across roles and seasons.
Leadership is best learned in community. Watching mature believers pray, repent, and persevere gives a living picture of discipleship. People don’t just learn what leaders do. They learn how leaders walk with Jesus while doing it.
That kind of learning cannot be downloaded. It must be witnessed.
Discipleship With Purpose
One quiet danger in church life is aimlessness. People grow spiritually but don’t know where that growth should be expressed. Leadership development names direction. It shows believers that God shapes them not only for their sake, but for the sake of others.
Not every disciple will hold a title. Yet every follower of Christ is called to faithful responsibility somewhere—home, church, workplace, or community. Leadership development recognizes that calling and nurtures it intentionally.
A Core Conviction, Not a Side Project
If leadership formation remains a side effort, discipleship will stay shallow, and leaders will stay tired. But when leadership development is embraced as discipleship with responsibility attached, something healthier emerges. Depth replaces busyness. Calling replaces pressure. Community replaces isolation.
The Technicolor Cohort didn’t solve everything. No single initiative can. What it did was remind us of something essential: the church does not need more programs as much as it needs more disciples willing to carry responsibility together under the lordship of Christ.
That vision isn’t an innovation. It’s a return.
Leadership development is not a side project. It is the work of discipleship itself.
An Invitation to Join a Georgia Baptist Discipleship Regional Cohort
Many Churches across Georgia may be wrestling with these same questions in very different settings. This spring, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board will host six regional discipleship leader cohorts designed to bring leaders together from rural, suburban, and metropolitan contexts.
I’ll be joining as a learner, not an expert, and I invite others to consider doing the same. Not to replicate a model, but to sharpen convictions and practices alongside leaders serving in different places.
When leaders learn as disciples in community, leadership development stops being a side project and becomes part of the work God is already doing through the local church.
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To join an upcoming Georgia Baptist regional discipleship cohort, register here, and you will be added to our group to receive updates and communication. You can also contact Dr. Scott Sullivan for more details, ssullivan@gabaptist.org.
Jason Thomas is a Louisiana native and a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity in Church Planting North America. Before joining First Baptist Duluth, he served several years with the International Mission Board (IMB) of the SBC as an African American Church Mobilization Strategist, and before that, as Baptist Collegiate Ministry Director with Louisiana Baptists.
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