As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Leadership development is one of those things that churches frequently talk about but rarely plan for or actually do. According to Ephesians 4:12-16, every church is responsible to train its members for gospel-advancing, church-building ministry. But how do we do that? Below is an example of the process our church uses to develop leaders for ministry:
The Three Step Process of Ministry Leadership Development at Community of Grace
“The youngest pastors (ages 18-44) are most likely to say they deal with stress in ministry (78%), while the oldest pastors (ages 65 and older) are the least likely (47%).” - C.Index
“Balance matters, because if you only deal with what’s in front of you, you’re not necessarily a leader – you’re a manager. However, if you get so distracted by your big ideas that you take your eye off what’s in front of you – you’re not a leader, you’re a failure.” - Phil Cooke
“Leaders should be readers. Here are some ways for busy Christian leaders to do more reading” - Chuck Lawless
“In this modern era, this is all the more reason to stop ourselves, be ‘slow to speak’ and ‘slow to anger,’ and perhaps go to a trusted friend and ask, “Should I send this email/post this blog? How would you recommend I change it?’” - Alcorn
“Chances are, your emails never go away. If you use Gmail for instance, Google has stated that they still keep the emails you delete. With other email apps or servers I don’t know, but if I was you, I would think about email as something that lives out there beyond my ‘delete’ button.” - Cooke
“How a leader sees people will impact how a leader leads. If a leader sees people as tools for an overarching vision, you will get one approach…. If a leader sees people as potential pain in their lives, you will get a very different approach…. But there is another way, a better way.” - Geiger
“One can imagine how difficult (not to mention discouraging) it might be for women who are repeatedly called to submit to see their husbands and church leaders refuse to submit to the authorities over them.” - TGC
“Nice dictators exist, at least in the leadership sense. I refer to these types of leaders in the church as amiable autocrats. Friendly church dictators rule from their positional authority. They order everyone around because their title enables them to do so, and they do it with a smile.” - Sam Rainer
“I’m sure more lessons will unfold as time goes on, but the important lesson is that during moments of crisis, there is always something for leaders to learn.” - Phil Cooke
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