Victor John and Dave Coles. Breakthrough Leadership. Beyond, 2025.

Breakthrough Leadership follows the authors’ book Bhojpuri Breakthrough, something even the title suggests. The original book described a widespread movement of God among the Bhojpuri people in northeastern India. This was a major change in the country and culture. Bhojpuri Breakthrough tells how it came about. Breakthrough Leadership focuses on the people who have led the movement. Their numbers run into the millions.

The important pattern for church growth here is that leaders make more leaders. It takes time to cultivate new leaders. This book shows the pattern. As with the first book, the emphasis is on Luke 10 where Jesus instructs 70 or 72 disciples. The emphasis on this relatively short book is that it is “quite simple.” John says, “If I offered something complicated, it would only hinder the reproduction of your ministry” (35).

Compared to Western churches, the method of raising leaders is not only less complicated, it is less formal. There are no titles, paid staff, or ordinations. Many of the leaders are illiterate oral learners. Indeed, the book spends quite a bit of time showing how those who learn the Bible orally can be as effective as those who can read.

A Christian leader can wield some authority through knowing Scripture and theology. But much more authority comes from tuning in to the Spirit of God and discerning creative ways to apply Jesus’ teachings in daily situations. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. But many times a situation changes, and we have to discern God’s best a moment’s notice. (402, emphasis in original)

A good leader can discern other potential leaders. They devote time to mentor them, observe them, and then release them to multiply the church. One leader, for example, had been working as a leader for fifteen years. In that time he had mentored about seventy others, who, in turn, were planting more churches and discipling new leaders themselves.

Some leaders are women. In the Indian culture where men and women tend to be more separated than in the West, men would not be able to effectively share with or counsel women.

It is almost a cliché that God loves variety and diversity. We see this from the vastness and variations in His creation. The same idea holds true for leadership. Not all leaders are the same. Still, there are some common characteristics: it bothers them that many people do not know about Jesus, and they are not merely planting churches, but developing more leaders to sustain them and share the gospel with even more people. Most leaders have learned to live or be sustained in God’s presence. (This actually sounds a lot like another book we recently read.)

The authors make a good pair. John is from India and has the direct experience. Coles is American, though he has spent many years overseas, and understands the typical Western outlook. Both are very careful in describing what the Bible calls spiritual warfare (see, for example, Ephesians 6:12-13). Westerners, even Western Christians, often dismiss or overlook this, or try to deal with it in the terms of psychology. With its background of multiple gods, people in India are far more likely to see and understand some things coming from the activity of spirits. Coles and John together wisely bridge the gap.

Many times, then, whether encountering a new village or neighborhood, a new person, or a government office, a good leader gets a sense of the spiritual atmosphere. This then will show how the leader should pray.

But I would ask, “Isn’t it possible for a Christian to carry strong drink or pornography or an illegal drug?” Of course that’s possible, though it’s not God’s will. If we believe it in the visible realm, why do we disbelieve it in the invisible realm?…How sad when Christians and their leaders don’t recognize Satan’s devices and miss the clues of evil, spiritual forces playing their tricks. (363)

They also note, however, how a positive spiritual atmosphere can influence others in a more godly way. For example, the Bible tells us that God anointed Saul as king. He was not anointed as a prophet. “But when Saul came into the presence of the prophets, the Spirit working in that atmosphere impacted him” (419).

One of the most important questions we try to answer is: What can we not see in this location, and what prevents us from seeing it? (1548)

We want to learn: “What felt needs does this community have that I could somehow address to help me stay here and better understand people? (1573)

One could argue that some of the specific traits which leaders should have should apply to all believers, but it is good to illustrate how things like self-denial and obedience are especially important among leaders. This means not only how a good leader obeys God but how they share and deal with such things in the lives of others (see Mark 8:34).

And as other books by Coles about overseas church growth such as Cabbages in the Desert and Living Fire, obedience is very important. Alas, this is something Western Christians often miss (your reviewer included) because of a sense that God will forgive me anyhow, so why focus on that? But if someone is your Lord (or lord, for that matter), you are obligated to obey him.

People don’t become transformed simply by acknowledging Christ, by just believing. That’s a first step, but a person has to apply and obey Jesus’s commands. (558)

Breakthrough Leadership also shows how leaders have to deal with certain problems such as the moral failures or departures of other leaders. Again, we see different examples. In some cases a separation may be necessary, but always the goal is restoration. And sometimes parties have to admit that perhaps someone was not truly meant to lead in the first place.

Ultimately,

We all have flaws and vulnerabilities; only by God’s grace can any of us bring forth good Kingdom fruit. And I love that God can always raise up new people. The Psalmist said, “It is God who judges:/ He brings one down, he exalts another” (Ps. 75:7). Our lives and ministries belong to him. (530)

The authors note that if we were to find a historical pattern for the church planters in more recent times,

The goal is not just Christians with sound doctrine. The goal is obedient disciples who make more disciples, people who begin to think and act as Jesus taught. (659)

Throughout the book, there is a sense that the growth of the church is organic. It grows, not by being programmed. The Holy Spirit creates a hunger.

As people come to faith, they see and especially experience new patterns, and the Holy Spirit enables them to grow into new patterns. They learn to come together and serve without having to instigate it. The gatherings reflect an environment of the Holy Spirit with everybody submitting to one another. (1045)

There is a lot more, but I would leave readers of this review with two thoughts. First, II Timothy 2:2 says, “[W]hat you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” This shows a “four generation” pattern of multiplication. Paul taught Timothy who is to teach “faithful men,” who are then in turn to teach “others also.”

Second, to sum up, John and Coles write:

As leaders we look forward to the day when we can say to those our ministry has touched, “I fought for you; first on my knees, and then with all I had, to bring you into fulness of life in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.” As the apostle Paul wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have loved for his appearing.” (2 Tim.4:7-8 [NIV]) (2545)