Kingdom Leaders! We need strong leaders driven with a mindset to unlock the saints into their full potential.

March 7th, 2022

By: David Hoskins

Is there Hierarchy in the Kingdom?

My short answer is yes but not the way you might think.

Our role as leaders is to equip, empower and assist people as they mature toward their ministerial callings and pursuits.

Two reasons why saints align with leaders and leaders with saints

1. Equipping and Development

2. Assignment and Deployment

Both of these levels of relational alignment require submission and placing ourselves under others on a spiritual level.

Alignment with leaders for ministry development and maturation tends to be ongoing and of a more permanent static nature. Alignment for assignment is not always as static for it often changes from assignment to assignment depending on which graces are needed for our greatest measure of success.

Wether we are aligning for equipping or for assignment, submission is a key part of that process.

Hebrews 13:17 (NASB)

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

There is no room for requisitioning in the Kingdom

As Kingdom leaders we should never requisition people, their grace or their gifting for our own purposes or ministries. Our goal should never be tied to money or how we can harness the strength of others. This is a slavery mindset and it must be abolished from our thinking and our practice.

Our job is never to take ownership of people. Stewardship is a much better approach. It is however our job to take ownership of the assignments God gives us in the earth. We align with people or they align with us to engage those assignments. Our goal is to bring the design and desire of heaven to earth.

Matthew 6:9-10 (NASB)

9 “Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

10 ‘Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Our assignments as Kingdom leaders should be about the land and bringing heaven to earth. We should never be about building ministries as an edifice to our success. Leaders equip and deploy. Our goal is not to gather the saints and call it a day. Our job is to equip and empower them to uproot darkness and establish righteousness peace and joy in it’s place.

Some leaders unfortunately have a hyper hierarchical/boss mindset when it comes to building. Jesus said we are better than that and that the Kingdom has a different standard. We are to serve the greatness in one another for the advancement of the Kingdom.

Beware of Boss Mindsets

1. We fall into a boss mindset when we start thinking the objectives are about our ministry alone. It is about a crescendo of visionaries coming into their potential

2. We fall into this mindset when we see those under our care as pawns on the chess board of our ministerial success. They are not. The objectives are about all of us engaging the enemy together for the common good.

Kingdom leaders are not bosses, they are equippers and facilitators of Kingdom advancement in and through the saints.

Kingdom Leaders

1. Lead by example and humility

2. Equip people in their ministry gifts and callings

3. Sacrifice for the strength and vitality of those under their care

4. Are true fathers and walk in honesty concerning the growth and development of those under their care

5. Refuse to retain the credit for corporate success. They give credit where it is due.

6. They are about empowerment and fruitfulness in the saints.

7. They delegate well but must be willing to get their hands dirty in the trenches of life with the saints

Luke 22:24-27 (NASB)

Who Is Greatest

24 And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. 25 And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ 26 But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. 27 For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

The fact that service is our mode of operation does not mean there is no order to our operation. Every objective we go for regionally requires leadership and strategic engagement. It requires maturity, patience and a willingness to press into the bigger picture reality. It requires saints who will give themselves to corporate assignments being released.

If the saints only look to their individual callings and fail to give themselves to regional Kingdom assignments then our cities will not gain much ground by way of transformation. Some principality and power structures take us all working together. We must learn to utilize the power of Synergy and Unity to uproot the embedded and entrenched works of the enemy within our cities.

Jesus was a very strong leader. He was clear with the directives He gave His disciples. The approach was not up for debate. Jesus led his disciples as if he knew where they as a company needed to go and be. He did this while also pouring Himself out for those under His care. He served each of them and their callings in humility and with intent to bring out the best in each one. He raised them up and empowered them to turn the world upside down in His absence.

Kingdom Leaders Let’s Keep it Simple

1. Engage the advancement of the Kingdom in the hearts of each one under their care by helping them discover how the King desires to operate in and through their lives

2. Provoke strategic alignments between the saints for Kingdom assignments.

3. Help the saints to engage the regions in which they live to release Kingdom Culture into every sphere which they touch and represent