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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Eric Geiger
Read between
January 21 - February 4, 2021
Constructs without Conviction = Apathy. The reason that many people in churches give blank stares to leadership development initiatives is because an overarching sense of conviction has not been fostered in the church. The reason many churches settle for enlisting people to “fill necessary slots” to pull off programs is there is not a conviction for developing leaders. The pastors, the people, everyone has given up on the grand idea of discipling and deploying leaders. If a shared sense of conviction that God wants to raise up and release leaders in His Kingdom through His Church is lacking,
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After Moses died, immediately God’s people were ready to move to the land the Lord had given them. After Joshua died, a generation rose up who did not even know what the Lord had done for His people. Why the stark contrast? There is no record of Joshua investing in anyone.
In a healthy culture, people are continually reminded who they are, that they are His people, rescued by Him, a royal priesthood, and a people belonging to Him. If people are not reminded of their identity, they will be burdened with lists of tasks and responsibilities without their hearts being refreshed and renewed by the Lord who loves them.
Not only were God’s people to understand their unique identity, but also they were to receive instructions on “how we live around here.” They were given a sense of mission as God’s people.
Michael Goheen reminds us that “the Great Commission is not a task assigned to isolated individuals; it is an identity given to a community.”
You can’t have a strong culture without a strong sense of mission.
Biblical leadership development is to “find the faithful who will be able. Not the able that might be faithful.”
The beauty of the body of Christ is that we need one another. For a pastor, or the people in a church, to view a pastor as omni-competent is to insult the body of Christ. “The body is not one part but many” (1 Cor. 12:14). All of God’s people are part of the body of Christ with an important function, an important role.7
Sadly many churches do not recognize or act on the assignment God has given pastors. For example, peruse the typical job descriptions churches give for their pastors. In many churches, you will likely find little emphasis on equipping people for ministry. According to the job descriptions, programs will be run and budgets will be managed but people may or may not be developed. As another example, notice the list of responsibilities a church that is looking for a pastor will offer potential pastors. You can understand how the lengthy list is developed. A team tasked with the responsibility of
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Leaders are called to reflect God’s glory. God-centered leadership is expressed by leaders who embody the character and nature of God in their own lives as much as a pardoned sinner can. Leaders are called to replicate. God-centered leadership is rightly employed when it aims to fill the whole earth with other renewed image bearers by spreading the gospel and multiplying children of God. Leaders are called to cultivate. A God-centered leader strives to cultivate an environment where others will flourish in light of the glory of God.
Our churches are suffering, as are our leaders. While the following statistics don’t offer commentary as to why leaders are challenged in their character, they do provide a context for the necessary conviction for character. Thirty-eight percent of pastors said they were divorced or currently in a divorce process. Thirty percent said they had either been in an ongoing affair or a one-time sexual encounter with a parishioner. Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.8
Actual beliefs are what the group collectively believes, not merely says they believe.
Developing and implementing a leadership pipeline is not as overwhelming as it sounds. It really takes two disciplines: intentionality and intensity. You must intentionally think about how your church or ministry will develop leaders, and you must continue down that path with great intensity, intensity expressed in persistence and not just being loud. Building a pipeline is not easy. If it were easy, churches would be excelling in developing leaders. But many are not. It takes a deep-seated conviction that will keep your intensity for development burning.
“Decline begins when the growth of an organization outpaces the organization’s ability to have the right people at the table.”9 Leapfrogging your own pipeline is one sure way to ensure you get the wrong people at the table.
One way to determine if a value is actual or aspirational is to look at the budget. We fund whatever we value the most. You can learn a lot about what a church culture values by looking at the budget. If you want to move “developing others” from an aspirational value to an actual value, budget decisions will need to be made. Financing the development of people will look different from context to context, but if development is important then finances will flow that direction.
