The Power of the Team
One of the most critical errors pastors make is when they try to do everything alone. The best pastors are the ones who can focus on developing leaders and deploying them according to their gifts, strengths and abilities. If you look at Christ, our model for leadership, he spent much of his earthly ministry life developing a team of leaders that when deployed changed human history.
Here are some suggestions for you to help you find, grow and deploy leaders:
1. Ask God to send you leaders for the harvest. One habit that I was taught by my friend, Right Rev. and Bishop Todd Hunter was to pray every day at 10:02 for God to send me leaders for the harvest based on the passage Luke 10:2 "He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." (ESV)
2. I see in you. Practice the phrase "I see in you" to your people that you suspect are future leaders. Every good leader has one thing in common, they were affirmed by a leader they admired. God has sent you the people to lead, take a moment to help them recognize how God is calling them to lead the Church.
3. Make developing leaders a top priority. If you have more meetings in your day about music, lighting, cameras or budgets...you aren't prioritizing developing the leadership in others. We make time for what really matters to us. Your calendar doesn't rule you, you rule your calendar. Set aside time every work day to pour into a leader.
4. Invest properly in leadership development. If you have money to signup for a workshop, consider making the investment in a leader. If you are attending a seminar in Classis, bring along a leader. Take your elder team through important leadership books (see Fredy Aviles or Chad for recommendations).
5. Spiritual gift Assessments and Personality Assessments are important. Find some good assessments for spiritual gift assessments and personality assessments to help your leaders discover who God has shaped them to be. Take the assessments and walk through them with your leaders. Help them find the area of ministry God has uniquely made them to lead.
6. Deploy early, assess and deploy again. Jesus regularly deployed his disciples for works of ministry and healing. They would return and Christ would assess how well they did. After another time of training, Christ would re-deploy his disciples again. Put your leaders in charge of ministry, assess their progress and then deploy them out again. If they are successful, praise them and re-send them to do the same thing. If not, show them their error and let them try something else.
Unless you crave burnout, you need to surround yourself with good leaders. By developing workers for the harvest, you will find a healthy harvest. Remember the saying, if you want to get there fast, go alone...but if you want to go far, go together." Learn the lesson of team.
Posted 12th November 2020 by Classis de las Naciones
