It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Spiritual leaders are formed by the Spirit. Simple. Easy. Take one new Christian, add a dollop of the Holy Spirit, and you’ve got a Christian leader set to do battle for God’s Kingdom. Right?

Yes … and no.

Urban Connections - July 2008 1.  On our street: Together growing into maturity – Us? Leaders? Sometimes we're no more than 12-year-old kids. 2. Once periphery-bound, a push led to pastorate – Megan Ramer could tell the story of her emerging call a million different ways. And each would be true. This version stars a medium-sized urban congregation on the West coast, guided by a wise and inspired minister, sustained by a hearty cache of lay gifts and energies, empowered by the Holy Spirit of life, compassion and justice. 3. Development takes right people at right time – It took hospitality and trust to push Hugo Saucedo out of his comfortable place and into positions of leadership. Now, Saucedo writes, it is up to the church to provide that same level of welcoming and faith to the next generation of leaders. 4. Spiritual leaders are formed by the Spirit – A person of prayer. A student of scripture. A decision-maker. A disciple-maker. These are the qualities of authentic, long-haul, life-time ministry. But attaining those qualities is not easy. The process involves hard work. 5. Tips: How to grow our next leaders – To grow the Mennonite church, congregations must first work to grow leaders. Current leaders offer tips on how to identify and develop the church's next generation. 6. Tools will help leaders grow – Do you want help identifying leaders in your community and helping them grow? Urban leaders and Mennonite Mission Network staff members offer the following leadership development tools and resources. 7. Registration open for October Urban Leaders Network gathering – The October Urban Leaders Network meeting will help urban practitioners break through structures of hierarchical power that can impede ministry. 8. Urban briefs: News from your street – What leadership stories are making news across the urban church world? 9. Letters to the editor – Readers respond to the Urban Connections issue on small churches.

Of course, the Holy Spirit can do anything the Holy Spirit chooses to do. So someone can come, fresh off the shelf, and be the messenger of God’s word with no preparation … in theory.

The problem is the sticky fact of the Bible. Leaders took time for preparation. Years. Decades… Moses spent forty years in the wilderness, just so he could take the People of God back through the very same wilderness for another forty years! According to the letter of Galatians, Paul spent time in Arabia and three years in Damascus before seeking out the apostles. Jesus spent time in the wilderness, and trained His disciples for three years.

There is a common thread here: Spiritual leaders are formed by the Spirit through a process. In the investment of time and study and reflection, the Spirit helps emerging leaders gain wisdom and insight. Spiritual leaders are formed by the Spirit, but that process of formation is not the same as an MP3 download. That process involves hard work. It requires wrestling with temptations. It involves learning to pray.

I was asked once how I would restructure my seminary education. I replied that I thought my first year should be entirely devoted humbly to learning to pray. The second year should be entirely devoted deeply to the study of scripture, in Hebrew and Greek. The third year would have only two requirements –to complete baseball umpires school, so that I could learn to make a decision…even if I knew it would be unpopular, and finally, I could graduate when I Ied one person to faith in Christ, walked them into a life of discipleship, and participated in their baptism. A person of prayer. A student of scripture. A decision-maker. A disciple-maker. These are the qualities of authentic, long-haul, life-time ministry. And the Holy Spirit just doesn’t dump a load on us and pronounce us fit for gospel ministry. We live into this kind of ministry. We make mistakes. We let pride get in the way of prayer. We replace the study of scripture for some radio preacher’s cliff notes. We learn to please people instead of make decisions. We steal someone else’s sheep instead of making disciples for Jesus. We cut corners, and the Church of Jesus Christ suffers.

One of the great spiritual movements of the last century was the explosion of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. Powerful streams of social justice, personal transformation, and authentic praise were unleashed in the Welsh revival in 1904 and the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906. The echoes of those revivals are still ringing in Nigeria, and Indonesia, and Guatemala, and literally everywhere the church of Jesus is alive and well in this world. The twinning of historic Anabaptist understandings of discipleship as walking in the way of Jesus, church as radical community, and God’s mission of peacemaking, coupled with a Pentecostal understanding of transformational conversion, breaking down the barriers of race, class, and gender, and celebrative worship and prayer is a powerful combination of Christianity’s most radical revival movements.

Our challenge today is to work to create this form of Christian expression. But we are confronted with the temptation to the easy way. But there is no easy way. No cheap grace. There is only our willingness to humble ourselves for the long haul of learning, in and out of classrooms. That’s why Shalom Ministries has created various forms of leadership development, such as the School for Urban Mission, in association with Hesston College and the Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. That’s why we embrace a conversation between Anabaptist and Pentecostal expressions of the Jesus Way. It’s hard, and cutting corners is for wimps. Spiritual leaders are formed by the Spirit. The hard way. In the school of Jesus’ costly, free grace.

Jeff Wright is president/COO of Shalom Ministries and conference minister for Pacific Southwest Mennonite Conference. He is an urban ministry director for Mennonite Mission Network and a former editor of Urban Connections. This column was originally published in the March 2008 Shalom Champion.