Leadership
The Leadership Task
The first step of leadership is growing as a Christian by understanding the ABC of Christian Growth. Christian leaders need to know the ABC of Evangelism so they can share their faith.
Take the Spiritual Health Assessment to know your current spiritual health status. Use Spiritual Health Suggestions to grow spiritually and become a more godly leader.
God tasks Christian leaders with making more and better disciples. Christian leadership development is part of that (Matthew 28:19–20, 2 Timothy 2:2). That includes developing people to become increasingly like Jesus in a way that glorifies God. They depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to do that.
Motivation matters a lot. I’ve often done the Lord’s will out of duty. That’s better than not doing it.
What’s best is doing our assignments wholeheartedly. Eagerly. Willingly.
Love is the Manufacturer’s recommended fuel to serve Him and others. Duty fuel tanks often run dry during prolonged, strenuous service.
Christian leadership isn’t about self-advancement. Yet, many clergy members play the ladder game and want to climb to more prominent churches, higher salaries, and more prestige. Lay leaders can get caught up in self-advancement too.
Christian leadership isn’t about exercising power over others but what we do with power. Jesus said, “But among you, it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.” (Mark 10:43–44 NLT).
Christian leaders must demonstrate how to live for Christ. "Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your good example" (1 Peter 5:3, NLT).
They’re not perfect, but by God’s grace, they are making progress. Therefore, they can’t wait to lead until they feel adequate. They learn to lead by leading and serve by serving.
Leading by example is like moving a piece of string in a straight line on a table. Pushing it doesn’t work. But pulling it does.
Leaders pull the string when they use their money, time, talents, and knowledge as resources to develop others. How they lead matters.
Christian leaders must give an account of their leadership to the Chief Shepherd. He’ll reward them for faithful service performed with the right motivation. He’ll recompense them with righteousness, life, and glory when He returns.
God calls Christian leaders to be humbly submissive, and they demonstrate it by serving others, taking orders from them, and fitting into their plans.
As leaders go, the church goes. Healthy churches have spiritually healthy leaders and unhealthy churches don’t. As a church’s leaders become healthier, so does the church.
These free Christian leadership resources are dedicated to helping make that happen.
Leadership Resources
Leading a church is an ongoing spiritual battle. The stress of leading often drains emotional tanks and makes leaders feel like quitting. Ministry Fatigue enables them to reduce the risk of service burnout by remembering God's call to His service.
They must unload emerging anxieties one by one on Jesus. They spread the weight of ministry to many shoulders. They recognize their limitations. They quit trying to please everyone.
They learn to laugh at and not take themselves so seriously. They learn contentment despite not being happy, successful, skilled, or satisfied. They restore themselves weekly with a Sabbath.
They carefully refuel their souls through God's word and prayer. Finally, they do not use people's responses to them as a mirror of their self-worth.
One of the challenges of growing a church is preventing the people who walk in the front door from walking out the back door sooner or later, never returning. Use Church Assimilation Strategy to help people feel at home in your church.
Learn the nine characteristics of assimilated biblical believers. Take advantage of the increased holding power that becoming a healthier church supplies. Learn to communicate simply without theological jargon.
Develop practical need-meeting ministries with an intentional outward focus to bring a steady stream of newcomers to your church. Create practical ministries that meet their needs when they arrive.
Learn how to make worship experiences welcoming and inspiring. Open your arms wide to visitors. Develop and implement a follow-up strategy.
Discover how to assimilate new members into the church intentionally. Develop a discipleship track to help believers move toward spiritual maturity through the free books at Discipleship Books Free Download.
Learning to Lead covers a leader's skills, character, and knowledge and is a resource for Christian leadership development in the church. You can use these brief Christian leadership lessons for leadership training as part of the regular leadership meetings of the church. It contains eleven lessons about the character of a leader, 32 studies about the knowledge of a leader, and 22 lessons about the skills of a leader.
God Heals Relationships offers two practical strategies for harmonizing and peacemaking within the church. It emphasizes that although disagreement isn't conflict, conflict is inevitable, and God uses it to shape the church while He gives conflict-resolving grace.
The enthusiasm level of lay leaders in churches that took Natural Church Development surveys in more than 30 Eastern Pennsylvania churches consistently predicted their health. Church health and enthusiasm are joined at the hip. Healthy, enthusiastic churches meet the needs of those inside and outside their walls. Becoming an Enthusiastic Church is a book on Christian leadership dedicated to helping you improve your church’s health.