Leadership Matters

“Everything rises and falls on leadership development.”    I am quoting Dale Galloway here but this is a church health principle that I have come to appreciate after more than three decades of pastoral ministry and almost a decade assisting unhealthy churches move toward health and growth.   Quoting Galloway again:  “It is my firm belief that the only way we will see the Great Commission fulfilled will be through the multiplication of leaders.   Contagious ministry multiplication happens through intentional leadership development.” (Innovative Transitions, Beacon Hill Press: 2007)   Leadership matters!

You read the gospels and you notice quickly how Jesus spent the vast majority of his public ministry pouring his life into his 12 disciples.   He didn’t focus on the crowds, but on a small group of followers.  This investment was key to the gospel expansion of the early church.   The disciples were trained by Jesus and after his ascension into heaven, they went out throughout Jerusalem and beyond proclaiming the good news they had received from Christ.   The result was a massive number of conversions and the early church “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching….”  (Acts 2:42)  When Paul and Barnabas starting planting churches, they trained up men to raise up elders in every town (see Titus 1:5).   Paul writes to his ‘son in the faith’ Timothy:   “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” (2 Timothy 2:2)  Gospel expansion will only effectively happen when churches are intentional on leadership development.

Currently I am assisting a small struggling church to move into increased health.   Here is a church without a functioning eldership.   The members of this church find themselves at a quandary as to what to do in this situation.   Where can they find leaders they need?   The solution often suggested is to simply scour the eligible men in the church to discover if any are qualified according to the criteria for elders given by Paul in Titus 1:1-7 or 1 Timothy 3:1-3.   These lists are viewed as a litmus test for qualification.   But I view these lists in a more pragmatic way!   I see these lists as targets that we use as we engage in leadership development.   As we raise up a whole generation of new leaders in the church, we need to structure our training to reach these godly marks of leadership and spiritual maturity.   This is what I am doing with this struggling congregation.   I have gathered a number of men, of varied ages, to engage in leadership development.   The goal is to raise up a functioning eldership.   And if leadership development is an ongoing priority, the church will never be for lack of qualified men for spiritual leadership in the church.  

What does this leadership training look like?   In part it involves passing on the leadership principles taught in God’s Word.   But it is more than that.  It is assisting up and coming leaders to engage in the practices of godly leadership.  For example, the apostle Paul points out that an elder “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.” (Titus 1:9)   Part of the training up of elders needs to include spending time weekly in the study of God’s Word.   The early church leaders insisted that their key responsibility was to the ‘ministry of the Word.’ (Acts 6:4).   In the training I am doing now, I have the future church leaders pair up together for ‘One-to-One Bible Reading’.   Weekly they spend time in the Word together, encouraging each other to read and apply God’s truth in their personal lives.   Or take for example Paul’s instruction to Timothy that elders need to be “hospitable” (1 Timothy 3:2).   So another part of the training will include the practice of hospitality – the opening up of their homes and lives to others (see also Hebrews 13:1).  And so on with all the leadership marks given in Scripture.

But these principles of leadership development does not only apply to elders, deacons, and pastors.   It applies to all leaders in the church – Sunday School teachers, Small Group leaders, Youth leaders, Worship leaders, the Board of Management, those involved in the Audio-Visual Ministries, the Welcome and Hospitality people, and every other key ministry area in the church.   We need to set the pattern given in Scripture of multiplying leaders in every key ministry area.   Every person in a key ministry area needs to have an apprentice that they can pass the baton of ministry on to.  As leaders are multiplied in each key ministry area, the door of opportunity opens for expanded outreach, multiple services, increasing the number of Small Groups, planting new churches.   Everything rises and falls on leadership development.

Who are you raising up?   Who are you training?   Do you have someone you can pass the baton of ministry to?