"No, bro, it’s not a course. It’s a lifestyle."
The Connection | July 2026
Welcome to The Connection, a round-up of fresh stories of transformation and resources for spiritual growth and healthy leader development. Visit our website to learn more about our work at LeaderSource. Thanks for reading!
A Word from Malcolm
“If you knew a great battle was coming, what would you do? You would prepare, build yourself up, eat and rest and gather strength. The last thing you would do is starve yourself for 40 days right before the fight!
But God did the opposite with His Son. He led Him into the wilderness, had Him fast for 40 days and let the devil come at Him at His moment of greatest physical weakness.
This is because, in the Kingdom of God, the path of strength is the path of weakness – dependence, looking to the Father for what we cannot do ourselves. Our own strength keeps us depending on ourselves; weakness drives us to depend on Him. The Holy Spirit led the Lord Jesus into a place of profound weakness because that is where the Father, not His own human strength, would be the Source of His victory.”
Brother Zoe: Trailblazing in the Philippines
“People need more… They need more training and leadership and leader development than what we have for them.” While Zoe could work with larger church networks (he is in a major denomination that has churches all over Southeast Asia), he prefers to build emerging leaders from the beginning in life-on-life leader development. This grassroots mindset mirrors how Jesus built leaders – holistically, with a few people, in the midst of real life.
When he shares with pastors he knows, they often ask what course he has used with the people he ministers to. He just smiles and says,
“No, bro, it’s not a course. It’s a lifestyle. I invite them into the journey. It’s life discipleship. It’s not just people going to listen, sitting and going home. In the past we have idolized Western church role models, discipleship methods, and leader development. But this is what we really need.”
More Stories
Discipling Children and Youth Using the ConneXions Model: “After receiving training with LeaderSource, this pastor was inspired to change the way they worked with children. He first shifted the discipleship responsibility by requiring that the children discuss what they were learning about in their Bible study with their parents. Then he and his team divided the young people in the church into small groups based on their age and engaged their parents in the small groups. He knew that just teaching concepts was not effective in the long run. His church needed to go deeper…”
Fourth Generation Leader Development: “At the end of the ConneXions training program, Linda and Sarah couldn’t wait to get back to their own people and start serving. When they returned to their people, the first thing they did was to gather their friends who at different points had acknowledged that they were willing to believe in Jesus. There were seven of them, all in their late teens. Together they became the very first church in their people group and began meeting and training together regularly.”
Creation: Transformational Theology 7
For centuries, the world and even parts of the Church have debated the origins of the universe. Many today attempt to accommodate the shifting theories of modern science, suggesting that the early chapters of Genesis are merely symbolic stories, extended metaphors, allegories or myths borrowed from ancient pagan cultures.
They are none of these things. They are the true, historical, eyewitness account of how our loving, personal and sovereign God prepared the earth to be a home for humanity and a theater for the display of His glory.
God formed you, He knows you and He has designed you to know Him and to live in joyful and eternal union with Himself.
In this volume of Transformational Theology, Creation, we embrace the magnificent truth of God as Creator, so we may rest in His sovereign care, trust His infallible Word and be transformed by His glory.
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