4 components that must precede leadership training

Bud Brown Jan. 19, 2021

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There's an odd paradox my colleagues and I have often encountered in our decades of working with beleaguered churches and bewildered pastors. Stick with this ministry long enough and you eventually discover that there are only about a dozen or so problems that struggling ministries wrestle with. So, even though few things in life are certain, you can count on this: it's virtually certain that the church has no effective leadership training.

Invariably these churches want the quick fix. The pastor is ready to launch into leadership training straightaway. But, like most quick-fix moves, this will only make things worse.

Why? Because the anxiety ("we don't have leadership training!") usually produces a process that perpetuates the church's dysfunction. They assume that the other processes on which effective leadership development rests are working just fine. If those four foundational processes or symptoms are missing or deficient, you'll be training people how to lead a failing church.

There are four processes or components that have to be nailed down. Those are the systems that leaders are responsible for cultivating and improving.

1: The mission

It all begins with the mission. This is crucial. The mission is determinative; everything the church does should make a direct contribution to the mission.

Think for a moment what kind of leadership training is required in these two scenarios.

In scenario 1, the church is clear about its mission. The mission is to make (more and better) disciples. In scenario 2, the church is confused. The mission is a mashup of competing interests: providing a safe haven to shelter from the corrupt influences of the world, a place that will teach our kids to love and follow Jesus, a center of uplifting praise… you get the idea.

Take two minutes and briefly sketch out what a leadership training program will look like in each scenario. Just bullet points or a list of words.

If your church isn't crystal clear on the mission, leadership training won't move it off the plateau.

2: The vision

Once mission is nailed down, the next component must be vision. Mission and vision are related but they are distinctly different.

• Mission is given by revelation. Vision is discerned through prayer, assessing the mission field, and understanding the church.
• Mission is universal: it applies to all Bible-believing churches in all places and at all times. Vision is unique: it applies to a give congregation in a specific cultural and geographic location.
• Mission answers the "why are we here?" Vision answers the "how do we do it?"

If you don't have a vision statement—a declarative sentence—that states what this church is going to do in this community with these resources, then there's no need to train leaders because your church won't be moving off that plateau.

3: Evangelism and 4: Disciple making

Evangelism is part of the disciple making process, but most folks talk about these separately so I've adopted that convention.

Pastor, it is essential that the church has some system for recruiting, training, motivating, and encouraging the members to take personal responsibility for their daily witness. You've got to beat that drum incessantly and without ceasing. If not, it's time for a come to Jesus meeting: is evangelism an actual value in your church? Or is it something toward which everyone tips the hat but does nothing?

Then you've got to have a clear, easy-to-follow entrance into the spiritual journey toward discipleship that people can follow. It needs to be cultivated, undergo continuous process improvement, and produce measurable results.

Conclusion

Steve Smith at Church Equippers organizes these five items in a pyramid. Mission is foundational and forms the basis of vision. Mission and vision must lead to evangelism and disciple making that works in your current ministry context. Then, and only then, are you ready to crown the apex with leadership training that creates a pool of spiritually gifted, skilled people ready to step in and keep the system running smoothly.

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Bud Brown is an experienced ministry leader, writer and educator. He is co-founder of Turnaround Pastors and co-author of the ground-breaking Pastor Unique: Becoming A Turnaround Leader. He brings special expertise to change leadership in the local church, mentoring pastors to become revitalization leaders, training churches how to find and recruit the best talent, and training leadership teams how to achieve their shared goals. Learn More »

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