By Chad Hershberger

This article is part of our Leadership of the Disciples series.

When we look at Jesus’ disciple Philip, we can learn a few things from him about leadership style. Philip was well-versed in scripture and was seen as practical, helpful, literal, and sometime confused. Let’s look at how his reliance on just facts was a character benefit and defect.

Philip was very matter of fact. When the disciples were with Jesus at the feeding of the five thousand, he can no consideration that a miracle would happen. He was only interested in the fact that they didn’t have enough supplies for that many people. Surely, they couldn’t meet their needs.

What Philip neglected to do was bring faith to the table. With God, anything is possible.

As leaders, I believe facts are important. There is a practical side that is important to look at in decision-making. But you also must have some faith. In my role as a camp director, we decided to take a leap of faith and do a major construction project. If we had just looked at the facts, we may have postponed the decision or not done it. But we had faith to take out a loan and get started. When we made that decision during a summer thunderstorm, we knew God was giving us a sign when after the decision was made, a rainbow appeared above camp. God keeps God’s promises, and we knew God would be with us and was in our decision making.

Take the facts but mix in a little faith. It’s something we can learn from Philip. Five thousand people can be fed with God’s help!