12 Leadership Competencies to LAUNCH Your Church

Churches Multiplying Churches

LAUNCH helps local churches form area networks to identify, train, and send out new leaders. These cooperative efforts, called Hubs, consist of multiple churches committed to a holistic approach of leadership development. Our process is not built on cookie-cutter programs but rather on personal relationships, nurturing 12 Leadership Competencies in the church-planter.  LAUNCH partners and planters are working together to multiply impact and transform communities.

The 12 Leadership Competencies

As LAUNCH was first forming, we interviewed a host of church planters, indentifying the common denominators among a variety of healthy leaders. In pinpointing key traits, we endeavored to reverse-engineer the success of a healthy plant. While fully acknowledging that the “success” of a church is ultimately in God’s hands, we also recognize that as leaders we have been entrusted with the responsibility of being faithful stewards of His calling. Too many “good guys” with noble intentions, solid theology, and popular ministry models flounder. The need is too great to not be fully prepared for the task. So, with this in mind, we took our research and boiled it down to the 12 LAUNCH Leadership Competencies. We teach leadership competencies rather than a specific church-planting model because most church plants seem to fail not because of the model but because of poor leadership. The competencies are:

  1. Identify and confirm a passionate sense of calling
  2. Master the discipline of leading yourself
  3. Cast a clear and compelling vision
  4. Lead from a bold faith that takes prayerful risks
  5. Identify the needs of your community and develop a specific strategy to meet them
  6. Effectively raise and manage money
  7. Develop measurable systems and structures to fulfill your vision
  8. Identify key leaders to execute the vision
  9. Think strategically and execute for results
  10. Empower leaders to execute the vision
  11. Evaluate your values and integrate them into the DNA of your church
  12. Persevere through difficulty in order to get to the next level

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To read more from Mac, go here.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mac Lake

Mac Lake

Mac is a pioneering influence in the church planting movement. In 1997, he planted Carolina Forest Community Church (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina). In 2004, he began serving as Leadership Development Pastor at Seacoast Church (Charleston, South Carolina) where he served for over six years. In July 2010, Mac Lake joined with West Ridge Church to become the Visionary Architect for the LAUNCH Network. In 2015 Mac begin working with Will Mancini and Auxano to develop the Leadership Pipeline process. He joined Auxano full time in 2018. Mac and his wife, Cindy, live in Charleston, South Carolina and have three children, Brandon, Jordan and Brianna.

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comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Amen!!
 
— Scott Michael Whitley
 

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