Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

by Eric Geiger, Kevin Peck

Most churches merely exist. Many churches do not develop leaders intentionally and consistently. When leaders emerge from some churches, it is often by accident. Something is missing. Something is off. Authors Eric Geiger (author of bestselling Simple Church and Creature of the Word) and Kevin Peckargue that churches that consistently produce leaders have a strong conviction to develop leaders, a healthy culture for leadership development, and helpful constructs to systematically and intentionally build leaders. All three are essential for leaders to be formed through the ministry of a local church. From the first recordings of history God has made it clear that He has designed creation to be led by His covenant people. More than that, He has decided what His people are to do with that leadership. Whether you are called to lead your home, in the marketplace, in God's church, or in your community, if you are called by God you are called to lead others to worship the glory of God in Jesus Christ.God has designed His people to lead.

Genres: Leadership, Christian, Church, Nonfiction, Discipleship, Christianity, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2024

About the author

Eric Geiger coauthored the multi-awarded national bestseller Simple Church and serves as executive pastor of Christ Fellowship, a large and growing multicultural church comprised of more than seventy nationalities near Miami, Florida. He and his wife, Kaye, have one daughter, Eden.

Reviews

[Barnabas Piper · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare to find a leadership book that is both biblically and theologically grounded and immensely practical. This is it. I haven't run across a book for church leaders like this one. It would be profoundly helpful for any pastor or staff member at any church.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book is okay. It's a bunch of business principles applied to the church. Not that this is a bad thing, but it often felt like the authors were trying to advocate for models that have worked in specific situations, but may not in others. The authors seem to bend Scripture to fit business models/principles, rather than vice-versa. It's also overwritten, pages and pages of redundant ideas, and includes a lot of theology and Biblical ideas of which the author's target audience should already be well aware. May be helpful to simply skim it and maybe pick out an idea or two.

[Cayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A Christian approach to leadership reaches into every sphere of life, because every sphere of life belongs to God."

Really solid book on Christian leadership. I probably would have never picked this up if I wasn't assigned it for a church group, but I'm glad I read it. It gives practical, encouraging, and convicting insight into what it means to be a leader in the church - whether in or out the church building.

[Tim Ogle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional book on the Bible's development of leaders.

The future of the church depends upon God.

The effectiveness of the church depends upon us following Jesus in the commission of making disciples.

Disciples are both leaders and listeners.

[Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book genuinely surprised me. At first I thought it was simply going to be a shallow how-to manual with some Scriptures thrown in at the beginning for support. But after the first chapter, I discovered that the authors were intent on grounding their vision in the storyline of Scripture and the Great Commission. Their proposals were very nuanced and continually went back to the nature and purpose of the church. They consistently emphasized the centrality of Scripture and sound doctrine, which I really appreciated. Not all of their exegesis is convincing, but it is overall a very thoughtful work with some great insights.

[Alex Dunkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Convictions. Culture. Constructs.

That’s the secret sauce to making leaders in your church. This book is a fantastic resource on Leadership Development. It isn’t a book on “how to be a leader,” but rather on “how to make leaders.”

Under that premise, the authors claim that the church ought to be the locus of leadership development because the church possesses the greatest convictions, that are necessary to building any kind of leader.

Highly recommended resource for church leaders looking to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

[Nathan Brewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not give a higher recommendation for a book for budding and current leaders. Remarkable attention given to the theology of leadership development(discipleship) and the systems needed in order to accomplish it.

[Ryan Rench · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished Simple Church a couple of years ago, and this book had a lot of original ideas in it without much overlap from the other. I appreciated that.
I’m still chewing on the idea that LEADERSHIP is this driving goal of the church. I understand what they were arguing in the book, and it was a compelling thought and highlighted some of my own weaknesses, but I’d never considered it with such intensity before.
I liked the emphasis on multiplication rather than addition, and I liked the point that we are ALL full time ministers, and pastors are equippers. I preached that last Sunday in preparation for our Vision Sunday, and it’s a good culture-building concept I try to trickle in when I can.
I pulled a few nuggets from the book, but it will take some more chewing to find a way to really implement it like they’re talking about. We do not have a full pipeline in place—far from it—but I see the value of that plan.
So much to work on!

[Ryan Rust · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really solid principles on cultivating leadership in the local church. Much needed book for the contemporary church

[Drake Hyman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the books on leadership I've red thus far that concern the church in particular, this is currently the best. The authors layout a clear thesis from the beginning which they aim and arguably succeed in confirming. The church has a leadership development problem, and in order to multiply, it must reorient itself around a discipleship-based development of leaders. They tackle some key problems and how they've manifested themselves in the church, such as the idea that "anyone can be a small group leader". This mentality, they argue, considers leaders to be nothing more than facilitators of conversation, rather than the biblical shepherds they are called to be. To truly lead, leaders must be given opportunities to gain experience, taught the necessary knowledge and must be coached by more experienced leaders. Any church or organization that fails to train leaders will eventually either have to look outward for help (thus risking compromising their convictions and culture), or will fail to propagate their existence altogether.

They focus their solution around the 3 key components of a church that must be developed if leadership development is to be part of a church's philosophy. At the core of their method are Convictions- the foundational beliefs that motivate a church towards an end. Surrounding these convictions is the Culture of a church. Culture is a powerful force that affects how people think, talk and behave, and convictions are related to culture in that, when held and exercised consistently by leadership, they transform culture. Lastly there are Constructs, which depend upon an established set of convictions and a matching, healthy culture. If either of these are lacking, constructs will not help, but will rather be a tacked-on attempt at solving a much deeper problem. If convictions and culture are in place, however, constructs serve as the template for establishing systems in order to accomplish the stated objectives (convictions) of the church or organization. When leadership development occurs through a pipeline laid out by constructs connected to the convictions through the culture, a thriving environment of leader development will exist.

This book has definitely shaped my thinking about leadership development and how I will consider implementing it in the future. I have also grown to agree with their thesis- that leadership development is a critical problem in most churches that needs to be addressed if the church is going to grow, especially in places lacking established leadership or training, i.e. seminaries. I recommend this book to anyone involved in church leadership, or curious as to how the Bible teaches a systematic approach to discipleship/leadership development.

[Travis Lowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Designed To Lead” is a refreshing book on church leadership, and the mandate to develop further leaders within the church for the sake of the kingdom. Far too often, books on leadership development within the church read like manuals for corporations with an occasional Bible verse misapplied to support the stated framework.

Over and against this, “Designed To Lead” is rooted in the work of the popular thinkers and theologians in the so called, “reformed resurgence.” It leans heavily on a kuyperian approach to culture, and a baptist ecclesiology and polity. While it’s clear that the authors are firmly planted within this particular tribe, Christians from outside of this corner of evangelicalism will likely benefit from their work.

One drawback is the repetitive and theoretical nature of the book overall. There is more time spent convincing readers that leadership development is necessary than getting in to the nuts and bolts of the process. Well over half the book is devoted to grounding the imperative to develop leaders, while the final few chapters offer practical steps.

In spite of that drawback, “Designed to Lead” is a refreshing appeal to develop leaders on the church for the sake of the kingdom. But look elsewhere if you’re seeking practical advice for how to act on these convictions.

[Tim Goldsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A practical book looking at the need for all churches to be committed to growing leaders in their church, who in turn disciple new leaders. The whole book revolves around three core concepts, namely that Conviction, Culture and Constructs drive a healthy discipling church.
People need to have a sense of conviction that God is at work in their lives and that they can grow in their service. When a church holds a deep conviction and acts on it, this breeds a culture of servant leadership, which over time needs to be scaled through building constructs that create leadership pathways for individuals and a "pipeline" for the church as a whole.
This is a helpful book for anyone who wants to build a healthy church culture and avoid traps like personality-led churches (its only healthy as long as "X" is still with us)

[Nickolas Wingholt · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's rare to find leadership books that give dedicated attention to church leadership in particular, but Designed to Lead definitely delivers. The authors contend that compared with any other organization, business, or institution, the Christian church should stand above the rest as a locus of effective leadership development. I was pretty impressed by how Christ-centered their approach and models were, and the Gospel thread carried all the way through even to the more pragmatic chapters, which was refreshing. I may reference other leadership books in the future, but this is the one I will likely want to study with other leaders as development pipelines are brainstormed. 1st time read. 4/5.

[Chase Riebel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Geiger and Peck's Designed to Lead is a good seed planted in the ecclesiological space, that, unfortunately, does not sprout much further than that. The realization that many American churches are drifting into unhealthy apathy and burnout is an important topic to discuss. Geiger and Peck's solution to this epidemic is one that starts out with promise, but easily gets repetitive when it is reiterated over the course of 200+ pages with little to no elaboration. If you enjoy the same core points hidden behind different Scriptural warrants, analogies, and empirical evidence over and over again, Designed to Lead is your book.

[Nicholas Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confession: I really dislike what I perceive to be a gospel-lite leadership obsession in the broader evangelical movement. Thankfully, this book is not in this stream. The gospel is here and plenty of Bible! Yet, there’s also plenty of really helpful practical wisdom about leadership. I think that there’s also lots of transferable stuff here as well that will work in contexts that aren’t Austin, Texas.

[Trevor Winsor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book focused on equipping the church to do one of it's primary missions: develop leaders. Geiger and Peck made a good case for leadership development as a mission of the church. They also got practical in how to create constructs that reinforce leadership development. While I believe the book was longer than it needed to be (expanding at length on some topics), I still appreciate the heart and words in this book. Recommended for anyone in ministry leadership (church or not).

[Jack Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Designed to Lead at first glance sounds like a self-help book! But when digging into the thesis, the book’s focus is on the universal Church and how it should produce more leaders than any other worldly organization.

Very insightful for church leaders and learning how to evaluate and create healthy church culture!

[Mark E. Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’d give this book a 8.5/10.
The writing wasn’t great and the arguments were difficult to follow at points. Theologically, it was as if someone had heard of reformed theology but didn’t know much about it. Some things were heterodox on the nature of man.
Overall the content was good and helpful; showing the importance of leadership conviction, culture, and constructs within the local church.

[Tami · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our Church Council read this book over several months. The authors do a great job of defining what's required to develop leaders within a church context. It provided our group with some great perspective on what is needed for the future.

[JT Stead · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a phenomenal book. The authors were super helpful and how to create a leadership development pipeline within any organization or church. Reading this alongside deep discipleship by Jt English is definitely a paradigm shift. I recommend this book to any pastor or leader of a ministry.

[Eric Durso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some helpful practical stuff toward the end.

[Josh G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful (re) read of a book I was first introduced to years ago in seminary. Geiger and Peck provide the biblical foundation, practical orientation, and clear terminology needed to understand how the church can integrate discipleship and leadership development. I especially appreciated their emphasis on character formation, theological precision, and the practical importance of prioritizing leadership development. This book is especially helpful for those in ministry seeking to better understand the organizational and structural dynamics to developing people in the church.

Apprehensions:
• The authors do not say or imply this, but trying to make the church into a “locus of leadership development” could potentially make a local church culture feel like its ultimate aim and value is the development of leaders. While such an aim is good and biblical, it should not eclipse the greater Scriptural values of things like the knowledge of God, personal union with Christ, biblical literacy and theological formation, missional engagement, apologetic competence, and the cultivating of other Christian virtues. In the end, the greater aim is the gory of God in our hearts, homes, and everyday lives. Yes, we need better Christian leaders, but we need these leaders to be men and women of spiritual depth who know how to navigate the contours of the Christian life as they seek to lead and manage people.
• Related, there are massive cultural challenges in our world today that, without specific training, even the most robust leadership pipeline will not typically address. This is sad, because our churches need leaders who are not just well versed in the worlds of good leadership theory and practice, but who are also competent to “encourage, comfortable, and exhort” (1 Thess. 2:11) Gods people amidst the challenges we face today. In other words, we need leadership development to coincide with the theological, philosophical, and apologetic development of our people. We need leaders who know how to speak into the spiritual, theological, and cultural crisis’ of our generation. A naked focus on leadership development could potentially miss the greater substance and character of one’s leadership needed for the challenges of our day.
• Finally, I’ve seen what happens when a church places a lot of emphasis on leadership development without the guiding controls of a robust theological vision. One major (unintended) consequence is the Bible’s authority is reduced and becomes an instrument to serve the priority of leadership development. Passages of Scripture are often utilized, but often without a broader understanding of their historical, theological, or canonical context (see: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articl...)
This can open the door for forms of the Christian faith that are shallow, sentimental, and theologically inconsistent. It can also impress upon the lay person that their maturity in Christ is to be equated with their “growth as a leader” — as long as that growth is defined by religious activity and serving in the church’s ministries.

Again, the authors do not state or imply their advocacy of any of these things. Rather, these are the unintended consequences that *could* occur in a church culture that advances an agenda for leadership development that is untethered by a more robust vision for biblical, theological, and spiritual formation. Outside of these hesitations, I think the ideas and strategies offered in this book could be very helpful mechanisms for developing great, well formed, Christian leaders who see their leadership development as *a* feature of their ongoing maturity in Christ.

[Pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was given to me by our Women’s Ministry director when I was asked to lead Women’s Bible Study. It’s a theologically sound book for developing leaders in the church through discipling, coaching, and creating a culture for this in the local church. I learned, was challenged and convicted by this book. At times I was bothered slightly by the business principles throughout because the church is not simply an organization to be run like a corporation, but I also know that at times the church can learn from what the world does as long as we keep our focus on the Head of the church, Jesus Christ.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because the church staff that I am part of was assigned to read it. A few years ago I also read Simple Church, of which Eric Geiger is a co-author. There were several similar themes in these books, notably the emphasis on having a process that people in a church can follow to become more mature in the faith - not leaving it to chance, but showing and leading through constructs designed to develop disciples and leaders.

This book seemed to be like a helpful article that took a performance-enhancing drug - it was longer than it needed to be to get the point across. There were also some typos and other technical mistakes that were at least distracting, and at worst made me, as a careful reader, wonder whether the writing was as careful as it deserved to be for the topic.

Content-wise, though, I thought that the book was pretty good. Biblical evidence was given for the conviction that making disciples is important for the church because these people would be leaders not only in the church but in the world; culture that supports or undermines these convictions were discussed, and a few constructs to actually implement a leadership pipeline were discussed. Much was left to the reader to apply to his/her own context, which is appropriate.

Anyone reading this review to decide whether to read this book should keep in mind that I prefer fiction over non-fiction, I am critical of mistakes in published material, and I am suspicious of generalizations and broad statements of "fact." If you don't suffer from those maladies you will no doubt find more to love in this book than I did.

[Kory · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biblical premise of this book, that everyone in the Church is designed to be a leader, is simply incorrect. Geiger attempts to wed the notion of leadership and discipleship, or leadership and parenthood, but none of these roles are synonymous merely because some of their responsibilities may overlap. This conviction leads to some ludicrous interpretations of Scripture, for instance, that Cain killed Abel because Adam was a bad leader (p.60).

Consider how much weight Jesus put on service/obedience/following in his teaching and in his demeanor:
"But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26b-28
This would be a much more accurate prescription of Christ's call on the Church: that we are designed to serve.

Leadership is not meaningless, useless, or unbiblical. The strategic tools in the last 20% of this book would be useful for churches to behave deliberately in leadership structuring. Still, you cannot biblically construct the systematic theology of leadership that is advocated in the other 80% of this book. I hope that D2L does not discourage those in the Church who do not have the Spiritual gift of leadership (Rom 12:8). You are not less of a Christian if you lack this gift. All believers can rest assured that they are useful to Jesus simply by being servants of Christ, His Church, and others.

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the best chapters, Geiger and Peck's book is convicting, challenging, and insightful; in the worst chapters, their book functions as an overly-generalized, bland re-hashing of basic theology. I understand that they have to make a foundation before they can give practical advice on discipling disciples or leading leaders at the local church level, but this just means that for the first 150 pages of the book I kept thinking, "When are they actually going to offer a challenge or insight? When will they get to defending their book's actual thesis?" Others may feel differently about the first half of the book, but for me it was such a general overview that it really failed to be engaging or gripping. I can see myself re-visiting the helpful portions of the final three chapters in the years to come.

[Despond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am enjoying this book and agreeing with it (like "yes!", "write on"...laughing that Jesus wouldn't get hired because he was single...silly but prob would be true). There are some parts that uses particular language to describe leadership and for me it's hard to keep up with all of it. I am getting to the practical part so we'll see.

The book is a great resource for anyone who is interested in leadership development. The practical is a bit technical for me but the concepts are great. From what I can tell Geiger has been doing this as pastor of Mariners. They have launched 4 new congregations since he became Senior Pastor.

[Robert Sutherland · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on Leadership, specifically in the church, Geiger and Peck work through the framework for developing leaders. The organization must have a strong conviction to develop leaders. It must also have a culture that fosters and values leadership values. And it must have constructs (systems) to develop those leaders.

The book is inspirational and actionable and provides a good reading list for further study. Everything you would want in this type of book. Highly recommended.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me think!! Authors suggest that the local church should be the locus for leadership development because leaders developed can impact businesses, hospitals, schools, etc. in an impactful way!

Also, this made me appreciate the people who have invested in me and my spiritual formation. I want to be thoughtful about how I mentor/disciple/develop others!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly comprehensive in scope of theology, leadership, and application.