What Is Prophetic Leadership?

Discover the kind of leadership Jesus calls excellent!

You likely have shelves of leadership books, but what if Jesus wrote a leadership book? What standards and definitions would he use?

In a Prophetic Leadership cohort, you can be encouraged and refreshed with other leaders in a shared journey. 

Discover the kind of leadership Jesus calls excellent.

Understand clearly how to partner with Jesus' transformative work in your life, workplace, and community.

What You Get

Weekly Training

Be empowered by content refined over a decade of research, fueled by prayer, and rooted in biblical insight for your leadership context.

Weekly Discussion Cohorts

Get to know other professionals, unpack the content further, pray together, and work out specific applications with the help of your cohort.

Community Interaction

Access our growing online community of new and former members.

Intro to Prophetic Leadership

Become a prophetic leader.

1. Leadership Jesus Calls Excellent

When it comes to leadership, there are so many options. Multitudes of models fill bookshelves in offices worldwide, even your pastor's office. In all the noise, there is a model of leadership that Jesus calls excellent, filled with heavenly insight, and empowered by heavenly resources. It's a model none of us can achieve alone, but He deployed the Helper as our personal escort. Welcome to leadership that will restore the world.

2. Jesus Set the Standard

Jesus opens his final and greatest teaching on leadership in dramatic fashion. Let's explore simple steps for prophetic encouragement that you can utilize anytime, anywhere. These simple steps are the kindling for the Helper to move. More than that, groups of leaders who learn to cooperate with the Helper as Jesus modeled are how communities are transformed!

3. Love Letters From Heaven

As Jesus describes the power of prayer for greater works, his first example is not blessed circumstances, a bigger platform or promotion, or even new ministry opportunities. Yes, Jesus wants to talk to you about your work, decisions, employees, and your family. Jesus said, “Whatever you ask...” and “If you ask me anything...” and then His first example is the power to love.

4. Living a Prophetic Life

There is only one place where Jesus clearly emphasizes, “Without this one thing, you may as well quit.” To say those words, Jesus must really believe in this one thing. It’s not a new skill to develop or a system to implement. It's a gift that changes everything.

5. Your Greatest Advantage

Jesus said, "It's to your advantage that I go away," but what could be better for you than having Jesus in the room with you right now? He understood there is something better than God with you; it’s God in you. Let's explore the transformative power of the Helper!

6. Joel's Victorious Army

Joel’s prophetic message personifies a consistent biblical principle. As the disciples began to practice the humility of John 13-17, they inherited the promises of Joel. This radical humility, empowered by the Helper, will become the predominant expression of the church.

Building With Prophetic Leadership

Lead prophetic teams.

1. Catalytic Leadership

By nature, leaders aspire to be catalytic agents; meaning leaders initiate change. Most of you probably became a leader because you want to make a positive difference. That is catalytic leadership, but narratives vary on what the change entails and how it occurs. Jesus spent considerable time instilling his motives, values, and practices in his disciples as catalysts of a very particular kind of change.

2. Attributes of Prophetic Leadership

As we prepare to unpack prophecy in more detail, I’d like to clarify how God judges prophecy, meaning the basic criteria for authentic prophetic leadership. God's people have a checkered past regarding prophetic leadership. Jesus intends to reclaim the authentic prophetic ministry of his people. These are the attributes of the fruit of prophetic leadership that Jesus taught as his rubric, at least the top 3 points prioritized in sequential order.

3. Power to Lead

Jesus modeled a leadership style of radical, relational cooperation. He deemed it fit, even essential, to lead with voluntary submission and continual relationship that validated and empowered his leadership. This decision was not solely driven by reverence or duty, but also a genuine strategy to achieve the best results. This is how Jesus, the most qualified leader, chose to lead and commanded his followers to lead in the same way.

4. Prophetic Teams

Jesus’ invitation to seek the shalom of our communities applies not only to individuals but to our teams. The way your team behaves tells a story. Jesus promised to use the behavior of prophetic leadership teams to vindicate the gospel to the world.

5. The Path to Victory

We each have mountains ahead of us in the form of daunting challenges. You are well aware of the challenges of your workplace, perhaps even too well. Our community also faces daunting challenges, many of which preceded us, yet here we are. We found ourselves in these mountains not by poor circumstances but by design. We were made to be conquerors and shalom-makers. 

6. Commissioned For ALL

What is the goal of prophetic leadership teams? Most of our discussions over the past weeks have focused on how we build with prophetic leadership. Now, let’s shift our attention to the intended outcome. Jesus provided a “BHAG” for prophetic leadership.

Overcoming With Prophetic Leadership

Victorious leadership for the end of the age.

1. Discussing the Future

Demand for speculations and opinions about the future is at an all-time high. That’s the funny thing about Jesus: he never speculates about the future. He authors the future. Jesus doesn’t post an opinion for public consideration. He does not guess or hedge in his plans. His leadership is perfect in its precision. Over the next six weeks, let's learn from the One at the helm of history.

2. Perspective

We have discussed seeking Jesus’ perspective for our lives and community, and now our search extends to Jesus’ perspective for the restoration of the world. The challenge given to every prophetic leader is not to discern truth among all the world's narratives, but to remain constantly oriented to Jesus.

3. Prayer

Jesus’ playbook for the end of the age incorporates prayer as a key component to complete the Great Commission. There is, perhaps, no clearer example of how prophetic leaders engage heaven’s influence and begin to reflect heaven on earth than through prayer. When Jesus returns, He returns to heaven's prayers reflected on earth among leaders who reflect His leadership.

4. Proclamation

Communities around the world are desperate for the gospel to be proclaimed. How will the gospel be proclaimed to all nations? Conventional wisdom treats the Great Commission like any other logistical project or campaign. Jesus doesn’t work that way, and neither does the Great Commission. Jesus will orchestrate the end of the age into an unprecedented opportunity to proclaim the gospel to the world.

5. Perseverance

Jesus loves us with an everlasting love. His love motivated him to make the ultimate sacrifice for us, and he taught his disciples to embody the same selfless love. God will orchestrate the end of the age to give us the greatest opportunity to show Jesus’ love to the world and inherit His kingdom the same way.

6. Preparation

When thinking of the signs of the times, what do you think of? Wars? Famines? Earthquakes? The Prophet Isaiah observed that he and his family embodied a prophetic sign of the times in his generation. Imagine that! The Prophet Zechariah also described groups of leaders that God would use as a sign of the coming Messiah. Let's look at what it means to become a sign of Jesus' return with the ministry of preparation.