LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY PRACTICES AND CONGREGATIONAL VITALITY IN BAPTIST ECCLESIOLOGY: EVIDENCE FROM THE LAGOS WEST BAPTIST CONFERENCE, NIGERIA

ABSTRACT: This study examined how leadership capability practices operate within Baptist ecclesiology and shape congregational vitality in the Lagos West Baptist Conference, Nigeria. The analysis integrated adaptive leadership, Ancona’s four-capabilities framework, and Baptist commitments to congregational autonomy, shared governance, and the priesthood of all believers. An explanatory sequential mixed-method design was used. A total of 195 questionnaires were distributed across 39 churches selected from the 13 associations in the conference, and 185 usable responses were analyzed. Pastor responses (n = 39) assessed sensemaking, visioning, inventing, and relating, while the wider congregational survey assessed organizational supports and perceived vitality. The qualitative phase comprised key-person interviews and four focus group discussions, including youth-focused groups, to explain the survey patterns. Quantitative results showed a high overall leadership capability mean of 4.41 on a five-point scale. Relating was the strongest domain (M = 4.69), followed by visioning (M = 4.43), sensemaking (M = 4.23), and inventing (M = 4.14). Organizational and leadership supports for growth were also rated positively (grand M = 3.89). After reverse-scoring the negatively framed survival item, perceived congregational vitality was high (composite M = 4.06). Qualitative findings showed that biblical and doctrinal grounding strengthened sensemaking, collaboration, visitation, listening, and pastoral availability supported relating, repeated communication supported visioning, and ministry redesign, technology, and transformational discipleship expressed inventing. The findings also showed that the vitality-producing effect of these capabilities depends on congregational ownership, youth inclusion, continuity of vision, and decision processes that convert shared governance into timely action. The study proposes an ecclesiologic ally congruent capability model in which Baptist polity functions not as a barrier to leadership but as the participatory mechanism through which leadership capability becomes spiritual maturity, numerical growth, and missional engagement.

KEYWORDS: adaptive leadership, Baptist ecclesiology, congregational vitality, inventing, leadership capability, relating, sensemaking, visioning