Where Does True Fulfillment Come from in Ministry Leadership?

Breakthrough ideas with Barrett: 

  • How can a church reach Christians who live in the city, from within the city, not just the suburbs?
  • True fulfillment as a Christ-following leader comes from a deep sense of two key understandings.
  • Why it is important to bring yourself back to your calling as a leader, not someone else’s.
  • It is hard to truly rest if people are constantly in contact, and what to do about it.
  • Every leader needs to know their symptoms of exhaustion and unkempt health.
  • The importance of every small group having direct contact with this person.
  • Marry Biblical Gospel rooted purpose with a vocational dream and people are not just looking for a job after school, they are being sent into a calling.
  • The big problem of never really casting vision beyond week-to-week ministry engagement.
  • How does the horizon storyline work and why is it important?
  • Learn the art of “purposed nothingness” and how this makes room for the Holy Spirit.
  • The one big idea to having a church of deep maturing disciples who are loving caring people reaching the lost.
  • Three things that, together, are the source of life and effectiveness in ministry.

Breakthrough resources from this episode:

Island Community Church

Zeal Without Burnout by Christopher Ash

M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

God Dreams by Will Mancini

Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp

New Morning Mercies by Paul David Tripp

Barrett Bowden is the pastor of Island Community Church, a young and thriving congregation in downtown Memphis. Barrett has a heart for leading the church to invest in its unique, urban context and to cultivate missional leaders with a heart for the nations. Barrett is married to Michelle, an adolescent pediatrician in the Memphis area, and they have one adorable daughter, Caroline Jane.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryan Rose

Bryan Rose

As Lead Navigator for Auxano, Bryan Rose has a strong bias toward merging strategy and creativity within the vision of the local church and has had a diversity of experience in just about every ministry discipline over the last 12 years. With his experience as a multi-site strategist and campus pastor at a 3500 member multi-campus church in the Houston Metro area, Bryan has a passion to see “launch clarity” define the unique Great Commission call of developing church plants and campus, while at the same time serving established churches as they seek to clarify their individual ministry calling. Bryan has demonstrated achievement as a strategic thinker with a unique ability to infuse creativity into the visioning process while bringing a group of people to a deep sense of personal ownership and passion.

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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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