If we want to do a good job as spiritual leaders, it's important to know what we're actually supposed to do! As obvious as that sounds, many people who are being promoted by God to accept a role of kingdom leadership in the lives of fellow believers neglect to think through what, exactly, that means. Because we are sincere in our desire to do what God wants us to do for the sake of others, we bravely launch into spiritual leadership, but most of us have a nagging suspicion that we do not know what we're doing.

We start off the job feeling inadequate to the task, and it doesn't take many days before we realize the unspoken doubt we had about ourselves is true. Subsequently, our thoughts run down a predictable path: Somebody made a mistake in asking me to be a leader … should I wait until I'm found out as a fraud, or should I quit before I do real damage in someone's life?

Add to this feeling of inadequacy the fear of failure—that we'll be blamed for our mistakes—and most ...