The Church Needs Leaders

By Doug Franklin January 29, 2010

Pastors across the county will tell you their greatest need is leaders. Old news, because everyone knows the problem exists but what’s weird is churches don’t seem to be doing anything about it. I am going to guess the problem is that churches don’t know what to do about it. They are just hoping more leaders show up but that’s not working. So whats the deal? Again I will guess but I bet pastors don’t know how to develop leaders. So the huge problem is we lack leaders yet hardly any people know how to develop leaders… what are we going to do? Either we just keep buying the books of the mega church pastors and hope more leaders show up, or we can take some action steps to develop more leaders.

1. Calling all leaders
Let’s start preaching and teaching about leadership in a positive light. Let’s be open about the need and talk about the benefits of more leaders. The church of Acts did this. They identified they didn’t have enough leaders so they put out the call and laid out criteria for leadership and men were found to fill the need. (Keep in mind: Leaders are not always men)

2. Church leaders need to get involved
Elders need apprentices. Why do churches need the same men to be elders over and over again, even in big churches? Because there are not enough men who are ready to be elders. So let’s start leadership programs and have our elders be developing the next group to come. I have a church do this and it works great. Along with their normal duties the leaders lead a group of 30 men in their thirties who are interested in church leadership. They have a special class that runs for 8 weeks every year and they teach the group about church leadership. They talk about confidentiality, the Biblical basis for eldership, the difference between elders and deacons, financial issues, prayer based leadership, and all kinds of other subjects that will help young elders prepare for eldership.

3. Mentor based development
The best way to develop leaders is to have them mentored by current leaders – this is not a class but it’s leading along side and having a more mature leader show the younger leader how it is done. This takes a huge commitment on the part of current leaders but it makes the best leaders.

How would your church look different if it had just 10 new leaders – would that make a difference? Don’t wait for them to show up; build them up and release them.