Building Better Leaders

A lot of leaders make their way up the ranks of leadership because of their ability to get a job done. If you can’t do the job, you won’t last long in leadership. But there is a next step for leaders – an essential and healthy step. That step is to move from being a “doer” to a “developer.” Once you know how to get the job done, you need to teach someone else how to do it. This multiplies your leadership team and creates the opportunity for exponential growth.

Jesus demonstrated this with His disciples. First, He spent a season teaching in front of them, modeling ministry and relational interaction. In the next season…He empowered them and sent them out to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Leaders who can do the job must multiply leaders by becoming developers of future leaders. And so this is the leadership challenge: church leaders must multiply disciples and raise up leaders through equipping and delegating ministry.

In the 1930’s Dawson Trotman began teaching and discipling young men in basic Christian beliefs. One student of his, Les Spencer, was deeply moved as he began reading the Bible, memorizing scripture, and applying Biblical principles. Les was a sailor in the US Navy and he knew that his shipmates needed the grace of God in their lives, so he brought a friend to Dawson and said, “Teach him what you taught me!” Dawson replied, “You teach him!” Thus began the successful Navigators discipleship ministry.

Christianity Today reported in 2023: Nearly four in five pastors (79%) agree that “churches aren’t rising to their responsibilities to train up the next generation of Christian leaders.” More than half of pastors disagree with the statement “My church puts a significant priority on training and developing the next generation of church leaders.” In 2015, just 32 percent disagreed with the statement. The trend wasn’t great before Covid…and it’s not getting better. Reversing the trend begins with giving meaningful ministry opportunities to people of faith and ends with equipped teams of leaders taking responsibility and owning the mission of the Church.

Each week will feature a blog post and a follow-up forum where you can share your ideas.

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