Designed to Lead: The Church and Leadership Development

by Eric Geiger

Meaning, the motivation was not merely for Moses to have a lighter load, but also so the people would be better served.

A leadership construct provides a framework for leadership development, a pipeline for future leaders, and a path for people to walk in their own leadership development.

But conviction, culture, and constructs are all required.

Both parenting and pastoring must focus on equipping.

These are the two problems: (1) many churches are not healthy, and (2) churches, in general, struggle to equip people for ministry.

Quite simply, a failure to equip people for ministry results in an unhealthy church. A lack of conviction for equipping results in an immature body of believers.

A healthy church is not a perfect church, but she is a church that is being collectively formed more and more into the image of Christ.

Equipping is the work of leadership. Equipping must not be something that is seen as optional, something seen as for “other churches.”

The reality is we all fall woefully short, even if we focus on only one thing. And thankfully Jesus does not and will not shame us.

the one job emphasized by Paul in Ephesians 4:11–12 is seldom “a job” and rarely “the job.”

The biblical approach looks very different:

All believers are ministers.

Thus those selected by the Lord to be pastors are to invite all believers to engage in ministry and view themselves as equippers of all the ministers, all of God’s people, within the Church.

He personally involves Himself in the process of setting apart pastors, not to do the ministry, but to prepare God’s people.

The term actually applies to all believers who are “qualified . . . to share in the inheritance [the kleros] of the saints” (Col. 1:12 esv).

All Christians are ministers, and all Christians will share in the inheritance.

In the Scripture, the term lay comes from the Greek word laos and simply refers to God’s special people.

those He has adopted as His own. All of us are “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people [laos] for His possession” (1 Pet. 2:9).

Biblically both terms apply to believers. We are all laos, people of His possession, and we all enjoy the kleros, the inheritance, as children of God. Literally, your pastor is a layperson and you share in the clergy.

We are only qualified to stand before Him in His righteousness, which He has freely given us. And it is His righteousness that unites us and tears down divisions.

They are not divided from the people of God, but they are distinct. The Lord has given them to His Church so they may equip and prepare God’s people for ministry.

discover, develop, and exercise their gifts.

Ned has built the sound system around himself, for himself. In the same way, some pastors build ministry around themselves, for themselves. And they do so for at least four reasons.

Job security.

a Kingdom-minded pastor loves the idea of “working

himself out of job.”

Insecurity.

It takes a secure leader to prepare others for ministry, a leader who realizes he/she is already approved by the Lord, already accepted by Him.

perfectly and permanently fixed on the leader, the leader is liberated to prepare and equip others.

P...

A prideful leader typically does not think in terms of development because, after all, the team is there to serve the leader and “the leader’s vision.” Prideful leaders fail to see themselves as servants of the team with a responsibility to develop others.

Idolatry.

Seeing the Lord transform lives and bring people into a relationship with Himself provides a buzz that nothing in this world can provide. And because we are prone to replace God on the throne of our lives with something else, something less, ministry can easily become the god of a church leader. There is a temptation to love ministry more than God, a tendency to rejoice more in the ministry God has given us

than in God Himself.

In other words, be careful of what ultimately causes you to rejoice.

If we only rejoice in God because of what He is doing through us and not because of what He has already done for us, we cherish our ministry more than Him.

So why do some churches perpetuate the typical approach to ministry rather than the biblical approach to ministry? Three reasons stand out:

Ignorance.

many churches are filled with people who are ignorant to the biblical approach to ministry.

But His Kingdom often feels very counterintuitive. Such is life in the upside-down Kingdom of God where the last are first, the weak are strong, and the poor in spirit inherit the Kingdom.

Comfort.

Selfishness.

for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ,

And the Scripture teaches that as people are developed for ministry, growth occurs in unity and maturity—maturity even measured by Christ’s fullness.

When people are taught to sit and watch, murmuring and evaluating increases.

Without equipping in a church, people are likely to unite on criticism instead of around mission.

Equipping changes a church from a mere consumption center to a gathering of people who serve one another and the world around them.

As people are equipped in the Word, Christ is more fully formed in them.

The longer that people attend a church that values equipping, the more they grow uncomfortable with only comfortably attending. When developing people is a visible reality in a church, people are able to see that “this church expects me to grow.” They are able to see that their faith should consist of more than “attending church a few Sundays a month.” They are able to understand that the Christian faith has deep implications for all of life.