Produce a serious article on leadership and the numbers of those who at least have a look at it are quite amazing!

Now here is real dynamic powerful pioneering leadership of the highest quality. You will not find better anywhere, but if you do, tell me.

This section deals with a strategy which has lasted for 2,000 years and it works when properly applied. I am referring to that final section of Acts Chapter 14, in the New Testament, and verses 21 to 28.

It is all about the second half of this first missionary journey where Barnabas and Paul have been preaching and teaching and ministering, in Cyprus and right across central Turkey.

We learn of principles in these passages. A crippled man was seen to be receiving faith, and soon he received the ability to walk. People in Lystra are so impressed - so moved - by Paul and Barnabas, that they want to worship them. They get it so terribly wrong.

A gang arrives from Antioch and Iconium to upset and hinder the work of Paul, by winning over fickle people by their persuasive but negative reaction to the message Paul proclaimed - and to the powerful ministry he performed.

Paul is stoned - assumed to be dead - and he is dragged out of the city. This crumpled collapsed, colleague lying at the feet of praying Barnabas and the other disciples. The marked, motionless, scarred, wounded, bleeding body of Paul.

Who wants to enrol as an apostle when this is what might await you? Was this what they had been called to, and set apart for? It looks as if it is all over for Paul?

He begins to move - slowly recovers, arises, and goes back into the city. What courage! Such is the value of having a praying a group around you, showing real care and concern.

I think of one man in America telling me, that when he began his preaching and teaching ministry, a black grandmother came up to him and said that she was going to pray for him every day, and he spoke of how he sensed the power of her prayers. When she died, he made sure that someone else replaced her with regard to praying for him and his ministry.

We need people who will lift us up, and help us get back upon our feet when we are down, or when we are feeling weak or in some kind of need.

Paul has come almost a complete circle, but instead of making his way home, he says, “Let's go back and visit the disciples in all the places where we have preached - where there are believers. Let's go and confirm them in the faith, and encourage them to remain faithful. Let's return and strengthen them. Let's see if they are growing - maturing - enduring.”

Paul really cared for those who came to believe in Jesus under his preaching. Paul had a shepherd's heart, and he was concerned that they did not fall away. Now, he wants to teach them and feed them with the Word of God. He wants to put fresh heart into the disciples of Jesus.

They were his spiritual children. He was their spiritual father.

He wants to nurse them through their first struggles and difficulties, and deal with any anxieties which might be present. His longing is to see them growing.

His desire is to see them developing and maturing as believers and becoming stronger as the days go by. This is the other half of mission.

Any leader worthy of the word would want to see how those people he has influenced and affected, and whose lives have been totally transformed, are getting on.

Sandy Shaw