Developing Leadership

Spiritual leaders are the carriers of God ’s DNA in the church, the shapers of a church ’s vision and core values. They are influencers of what the church embodies. The key to radical discipleship is the development of trainer – coaches that carry the DNA to the edges of the movement.

—   Michael Slaughter

The first of the five circles in the Integration Model is leadership. How will you use vision to recruit leaders, develop leaders, structure people, and divide your attention among the right leaders? Take leaders out of the equation and the visionary is a daydreamer.

The implications of these questions are so huge for leadership development, we want the Vision Room content to focus beyond the good leadership books, principles and “Maxwellisms” out there. All too often the topic of leadership development is disconnected from your church’s unique vision.

As a starting point with leadership development, I encourage pastors to consider three basic principles:

First, when it comes to hiring, get people who get the vision.

Are you doing everything you can up front to ensure the chemistry and culture fit with potential staff?

Second, let strategy determine structure.

Once you have the strategy articulated and pictured, you must go back and revise your organizational structure.  If you don’t strategy becomes impotent. Why? Because no leader wakes up with a specific responsibility (and accountability) connected to your church’s strategy component.

Third, lead leaders.

Every church I know has people who do ministry. Some of the better churches I know grow leaders. But the best churches actually lead leaders; that is, they have a leadership pipeline that is continually filling and developing people.  They have a leadership culture.

May God bless your leadership development efforts.

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Mancini

Will Mancini

Will Mancini wants you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, Will has worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing megachurches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. He is the founder of Auxano, creator of VisionRoom.com and the author of God Dreams and Church Unique.

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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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