Tag Archives: leadership

August 7, 2012 · 11:47 am

Good & Bad Messiness in Missional Communities

Every community faces messy seasons where things are not perfect in the community. This is true in group therapy, where they call this the storming phase of group development, and this is true of every small group in the church. This is an important phase for a community and especially for a missional community in the church.

For the church, when messiness arises in the missional community, there needs to be an assessment of whether this is the result of good or bad messiness. Identifying the reasons for messiness guides the response, whether celebrating messiness for good reasons or seeking to change things for bad reasons.

Below are 3 good reasons and 3 bad reasons for messiness in missional communities.

The Good, Gospel-Centered Reasons

Gospel-Centered Confession & Transformation

Yesterday, I outlined the majority of this idea. When a community is centered on and celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ, people bring out past hurts, current sins, and struggles to the community to seek transformation and change. This is to be celebrated, but can be difficult to recognize as good because of a false understanding that morality equals spirituality.

Raw Questions from Exploring & Potential Believers

Another good reason for messiness comes from people exploring Christianity, either new to the faith or exploring it for the first time. This typically leads to raw questions that are unfortunately uncommon in church settings, but must be dealt with as people explore how Christianity truly affects life. These questions can cause messiness because they confront people’s beliefs, their values, and way of life.

This is what missional communities are intended to be. The best place to explore Christianity amongst people that love God and seek to live for Him. One thing we encourage our leaders to be aware of is the desire to always have the “right” answer. We encourage our leaders to be comfortable in saying “I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out.” It’s better to seek out the gospel-centered scriptural truth, than feel pressured to share personal advice. Missional communities have the best opportunity to cultivate this type of messiness as people from all walks of life are invited to explore Christianity.

Inter-Generational & Racially Diverse Convergence

This has been common since the establishment of the church as you see this type of convergence in the book of Acts and later Paul explains to the Ephesians church the benefit of racial diversity as a celebration of the gospel. This type of messiness results from misunderstandings and pretenses that can arise from interactions between different races and generations.

It can get messy as pride, ignorance, and poor understanding come to light that most of us can be unaware of. The gospel of Jesus Christ invites us to put down our preferences (conscious or subconscious) to value everyone based on God’s value of them, not their contributions, life stage, or race. Paul celebrates this in the church at Ephesus that their unity is based on faith and not racial preferences or similarities. It’s a mark of the gospel because the greatest treasure in a community.

The Bad, Avoidable Messiness

Undefined And/Or Unshared Leadership

Missional communities demand that shared leadership and defined leadership exist. A community needs multiple voices to guide the aspects of their community to insure that the community is cared for and the gospel is extended. It cannot be on one or even two people to accomplish all that a missional community is made to do.

When there is unclear leadership, things get messy. Despite some people’s ideas of organic-everyone-lead missional community life, a community naturally recognizes who is the leader over time and needs direction to be centered on the gospel. When leadership is not shared, it gets messy because it can feel as though the leader is simply inviting people to accomplish their ideas, instead of the community forming around a collective vision.

Unclear Vision & Direction

Another bad reason for messiness comes from a missional community that has not set the direction or vision. For some communities, this is about setting the aim for honoring God as Christ followers through the lifestyles that we choose to live while others involves setting the direction in extending the gospel so that the community is on mission together rather than a collection of individual missionaries.

Lack of Mission & New People

The last, but certainly not final, reason I want to highlight for bad messiness occurs from a lack of new people and mission. This typically results in a inward focus, trying to perfect the community, and eventually plays out in cattiness between people in the community. When new people come into a community, they can break up some norms that result from dysfunctional relationships that have formed.

Often people are nervous about including new people that come with new ideas and questions, but these new people often bring the community into a healthier life stage. Lacking mission will eventually be the death of the gospel-centered community because the gospel was intended to move outward to the rest of the world. It was not intended to be hidden and much frustration can result from a lack of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

What does a missional community do with all this messiness?

These are simply a few of the reasons messiness exists within missional community and each community could likely expand on these and tell specific stories. As each community faces this type of messiness, they must return to the gospel of Jesus Christ to explore how to respond.

On Thursday, I’ll take a look at how I have and would recommend missional communities respond to messiness.

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June 6, 2012 · 10:06 am

To Lead Well, Share Well

I was meeting with a leader of one of our Community Groups who was exhausted. He was ready to give up, discouraged by the lack of participation from the rest of the community and felt like he was doing too much. He thought the best answer was to quit leading and end the Community Group. After a good conversation over lunch, it became clear that one of the biggest issues facing the Community Group was that he was trying to lead everything. This seemed counterintuitive to him and to most of us. “If I’m the leader, shouldn’t I be leading everything?”

The biggest issue I see in leadership is hoarding responsibility. It comes from a great place, but does not serve the leader, nor does it serve those being led. It burns out leaders, frustrates those being led and rarely mobilizes or develops other leaders.

This is a major issue for gospel-centered communities on mission. To lead well, leaders must share well. Leadership is not about doing everything, being the superhero who plans every event, meets with every person, or finds every opportunity for mission for the community.

Leading like Christ leads us takes an empowering approach, especially to a community. This kind of leadership reflects the gospel of Jesus Christ. Believing in the gospel of Jesus Christ requires people to believe that we have flaws and only Christ was truly perfect in every way and sphere of life. A leader who is a follower of Christ does not assume that they can do everything the community or group needs accomplished.

Missional communities desperately need leaders who humbly seek to share responsibility for leading the community. The question we need to answer is why do we typically hoard leadership?

We View it as Scriptural Expectation

For many of us, we view this type of leadership as very scriptural. Aren’t we supposed to lead like Christ? Doesn’t this mean we sacrifice most and take on most responsibility, not demanding from others? This is a view of leadership doesn’t think a leader is ever supposed to share responsibility.

The good news for every leader: they are not Jesus Christ. Christ alone could fully embody every perfect gift and bear the burden of us all. The scriptures that follow Christ’s life, death, and resurrection point the need for communal leadership that seeks to empower every Christ follower for the work of ministry.

This is the point of passages in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4 that speak to the reality we see everyday. We are all gifted uniquely, which leads us to need one another to accomplish the mission that God has placed in front of us. We cannot do this alone and the community can lead through individuals taking leadership in a variety of ways.

This how the scriptures speak of leadership and how it is demonstrated for us in the stories of the Bible. A community led by a community of people.

We Fear Losing Control

For some of us, if we’re honest, we fear losing control of the outcome. This could be born out of fearing that quality will suffer or that it won’t get done or done perfectly.

The gospel of Jesus Christ can free us from this. Christ’s gospel reminds us that we couldn’t accomplish salvation on our own and we were in need of Jesus to do it right for us. It frees us from thinking so highly of ourselves that we think we need to do everything or it won’t be done well.

Quality tends to suffer most when people hoard leadership most. Sharing leadership may result in a dip in quality, but part of good leadership is coaching and empowering those you share with to better than you were.

This sounds that a nice ideal, but it may actually be what is preventing us from sharing leadership in the first place.

We Fear Others Being Better Than Us

There are some leaders who don’t share responsibility and if they were really honest, would admit that some of it has to do with fear of others doing it better than them.

When we look at Jesus and His leadership, once again we are encouraged to move beyond this fear and make it a hope. Jesus says that His disciples will do greater things than what they saw Him do. He didn’t have a fear that they would accomplish more and do greater things, it was His hope and plan! Isn’t that amazing?

We see this same mentality in Barnabas in the book of Acts. If you follow the story of Barnabas, you see that he was the one who took a risk on Paul and discipled him. Over time Acts tells the story of how the discipler (Barnabas) takes a back seat to the disciple (Paul).

Great leaders don’t fear others being better than them, they aim for it. Sharing leadership can be the best way to empower and develop leaders that will take the community to greater places. It will redefine success for leaders who tend towards wanting credit and seeking glory, to wanting the same for others.

Leader who seek the glory can tend towards using people to get their own ends, instead of being for people, wanting greatness for those they lead.

We Don’t Know How

For others, and specifically for the Community Group leader I had lunch with, they don’t know how to share leadership.

Over lunch, we discuss the various aspects of his Community Group. They were seeking to be a healthy missional community. A community that prayed and discussed the scriptures together, ate meals together, served together, had accountability and incorporate non-Christ followers into the community. The main problem was that he was the only one initiating all of these things.

After discussing the people in his community and what they are passionate about in the community or naturally gifted in, it became apparent that the next step in his leadership development was to help them and given them ownership.

The first step in sharing leadership is personal invitation as opposed to mass messages of requesting help. This means identifying the potential gifts of those in the community, encouraging them in those gifts and personally asking them to use their gifts for the benefit of the community.

I encouraged the leader to work with them to get started and follow up with them after they began leading, but then to give them the freedom to lead. Eventually, a leader has to move from directing to coaching to fully trusting those with whom they share leadership.

The biggest transformation that takes place through shared leadership is the death of a consumer community and the birth of a contributing community. An entire community that seeks to contribute to the overall health of the missional community based on the gifts God has given them.

Only when this happens can the community truly display Jesus to one another and their neighborhood.

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June 5, 2012 · 11:02 am

To Lead Well, Pray Well

Continuing what has become a series of posts on leading missional communities, those who lead well also pray well. While this is primarily about missional communities, I see this in my own life when it comes to my marriage, family, work, or anything I’m in charge of, the more I consider these things in prayer and declare my dependence on God in prayer, the better leader I am for those things.

A praying leader builds a prayerful community. Jesus’ instructions to His disciples when He had compassion the crowds and saw their needs, was to pray. The typical thought of the leader of a missional community is to rush hard into meeting needs, but Jesus’ call to us is to pray, seeking God who has the power to change the world.

As I consider prayer’s affect on leadership, I see its influence in 2 predominant ways.

 1.    Prayer Changes The Leader Who Prays Often

The Pattern of Praying Leaders in Scripture

In the story of Daniel in the Old Testament, we find a leader who is under authority that does not honor God. He faithfully serves the country and his authority, but also faithfully prays. Daily he seeks God and it becomes such a pattern that when his heart is burdened by needs as it is in Daniel 9, his first impulse is to pray and God responds.

You see the same reality in the story of Nehemiah. A leader who is burdened for those he loves and his first response is prayer. In the midst of his daily work, you see this leader pray and God provide for him in prayer.

It’s no surprise then that Christ follows the same pattern of seeking God privately and also publicly in the midst of everyday life. Prayer is not something only reserved for the closet and is not something only reserved for the midst of everyday life. The apostles and Paul in his letters continue to pray for those they lead.

It transforms them as leaders, bringing them in line with God’s heart for others and bringing them in dependence on the power of God, not their own strength.

To Be a Praying Leader, Pray for Others

All of these mentioned spend much of their time praying for other people. It’s fascinating to look at the prayers recorded in scripture, to see many of them follow a similar pattern of thankfulness to the character of God and asking for God’s work in others.

Leaders who pray selflessly, fixed on God providing for others become the selfless leader the community needs. Daniel & Nehemiah pray for the restoration of the nation of Israel, Jesus prays for his disciples and those who believe in Him. Paul prays for the churches he helped start. These men all have personal needs, found them met in God and spent their prayers asking for God to meet the needs of others.

Not surprisingly, they become the best models for leadership because they sacrificially serve those they lead. This is the result of praying well.

2.    Prayer Invites God to Change Those You Lead

The content of the prayers recorded in scripture show the belief of the leader in the power of God to change any situation and any person.

Daniel believed in the power of God to change an entire nation to return to following God. Nehemiah believed in the power of God to restore the city where God’s people lived. Jesus knew the power of God to establish His followers in His ways and His joy. Paul believed in the power of God to reveal His goodness to His people and to move them to know and follow Him with their lives.

Leaders can easily become prideful thinking they are the ones with the power. This is usually quickly dispelled by their inability to change people or situations on their own. The counter to the prideful leader is the dependent leader, who trusts not in their own power, but entrusts their efforts to God through prayer.

God has recorded many prayers for us in the Bible that teach us how to pray. As leaders, we must recognize that God has given us direction in prayer, it is not focused inward, it is focused upward in praise to God and outward in requesting great things for others from God.

A prayerful community can change the world because it is a community dependent on the power of God to change the world. Their prayers change them into selfless people seeking the welfare of those around them and not seeking the provision of their wish list.

Leaders have the opportunity to join in God’s efforts, to develop God’s heart, and to see God answer our prayers. The great leaders are the ones who seek God in prayer.

This is a challenging reality. It has changed the way I walk to work, spending less time trying to be updated on the world news and spending more time asking God for great things for the people I love and have been asked to lead. It has changed the way I go home, praying for my family as I seek to enter the home to love my family and not just seek rest. It has changed the way I go about work and conversations, making me more willing to stop and pray in the moment as opposed to promising to pray later.

The strange thing about prayer is you never feel like you can do it enough. This can be a cause for guilt and a joyful invitation to find more time to be with God. I recommend the latter for leaders, so we remember it is a joyful and a joy-filling opportunity to talk with God and pray for others.

Pray well, lead well.

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June 4, 2012 · 10:40 am

To Lead Well, Love Well

Last week, I wrote about leading well by being faithful after I read a Michael Hyatt article that got me thinking. As I continued to think about the leaders in our church and the expectations we place on them, I couldn’t help but consider writing about other aspects of leading well.

I’m blessed to watch 60+ leaders care for and model Christ to their community groups at Apostles. The consistent thing I see for these leaders who lead well is that they love well.

I’ve seen many people shy away from leadership, describe is as a daunting task and excuse themselves as not the leadership type. Many of those people I see taking the initiative to cook for someone in need, bless someone on a random day, and pursue people out of the blue simply because they care. The most amazing missional community leaders I’ve seen are the ones that love people well by modeling the love of God to them.

This is just another reason why it is so essential for every leader to be rooted in the never-stopping, never-giving up, unconditional, and consistent love of God for them in Jesus Christ. Our love can either be hindered or enhanced depending on our grasp of the love of God towards us.

Love Pursues People

One of the primary reasons this is so key in leading is because love causes leaders to pursue people in their community and those outside their community. This is how God loves us. He pursues us, not because we deserve being pursued or we have made ourselves interesting to Him, but because He loves us. He even pursues when we do everything in our power to run away from him.

For leaders, entering into a community aiming to love people tends to result in them pursuing those people to join and contribute to the community. There will also be times when people who have been a part of the community tend to drift away, but love pursues, not demanding they stay, but communicating their value and extending the invite back into the community.

If leadership isn’t based on love, but on creating a great mission, there’s no reason to pursue people that “aren’t on board” since they left, but thankfully the love of God transforms our whimsical ways. To lead well, pursue the people in your missional community well.

Love Rejoices & Grieves Alongside People

One of my favorite verses recently is Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” There  are few things as powerful in leading than celebrating with those in your community who are celebrating and hurting with those who are hurting.

This is the result of loving someone like Christ loves you. Their joys become exciting for you and there sorrows become sad for you. Community brings us out of ourselves to focus on others and this is only possible through love. No quality leader lacks this kind of love. Every quality missional community displays this kind of love, this kind of gospel-centered love.

It’s been amazing to watch different community groups celebrate together each other’s successes. At times it is even more inspiring and moving to watch a community grieve with one another, tears that display a joining together to endure the worst and seek healing together. It’s a beautiful display of God’s design for community.

Love Enjoys People

The last part of this that I will focus on is the simple reality that when you seek to love someone, you enjoy who they are in all their quirks and personality. Lacking love can cause a leader to identify their favorites in the community and become annoyed with others. This type of leadership does not enjoy people based on their gospel identity of being a part of a Christ-centered community, but on what their contributions are to the community.

To lead well, love like Christ has loved us, enjoying our presence because He chose to and because He embodied love. Enjoy the people you find yourself with, not matter how different, or in your mind challenging, they can be. You’re (translate: I’m) just as challenging to others in the community.

Every one of us longs to be in friendship, relationship with a group of people who knows us and still values us after knowing us. We long for every relationship to be as if it were Christ. Someone that loves us because they choose to and even endures with us our quirks, flaws, and failings.

A gospel-centered community on mission like this is possible, but it desperately needs leaders who have been loved well by God to love their community well.

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May 30, 2012 · 11:02 am

To Lead Well, Be Faithful

Most people assume leadership involves a lot of activity, doing amazing and monumental things or accomplishing many tasks. When we look at leaders, they seem to be incredibly busy and while leadership naturally lends itself to more activity, the only way to ever lead well is through faithfulness. Whether it’s in a company, your family, and in ministry, faithfulness lends itself to good leadership.

Michael Hyatt recently wrote an article titled “3 Reasons Why Faithful is the New Radical” speaking to leaders who desire to be radical. This is especially true of those of us in the Missional Community world who long to see gospel-centered movements. I loved what he had to say,

By and large millennial Christians want offer lives in service to God and others by offering new and creative solutions. This is good.

But if I could speak a word of caution, from one rabble-rouser to another, I would say that sometimes the most radical thing you can do with your life is to simply be faithful.

Yes, you heard that right. By consistently doing the same thing every single day you might be more radical than you think. I know that doesn’t sound very sexy, but it’s the stuff that gives weight to significant social movements.

1 Corinthians 4:2 says that God holds his people accountable, not for the big splashy things they’ve done, but for simple faithfulness:

In this regard, it is expected of managers that each one [of them] be found faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:2, HCSB)

He goes on to share 3 reasons why faithfulness is so key. As I read it, it reminded me of what we ask of our leaders in our Community Groups. As people approach leadership in our Community Groups, we want to be clear to them that our greatest expectation of them is faithfulness. When we speak of faithfulness, it starts with faithfulness to God and then extends to specific people in your life.

Here are 3 reasons why we look for and expect faithfulness from our leaders.

Being Faithful Starts Before Leading

If people aren’t faithful before they start leading, they won’t be faithful while leading. We’ve taken risks on people thinking they would be faithful once they started leading and it simply wasn’t true. This is the clear pattern of scripture as well.

Jesus was faithful to God and faithful to his parents long before He comes on the scene and is baptized. He lived a sinless life, perfectly obedient to God and He remained faithful as He led His movement to the cross and beyond. Faithfulness in leadership is mirroring the character of Christ to those you lead.

In the Old Testament, David is faithful as a shepherd before he ever becomes a king. He lived in obscurity faithfully tending and protecting his sheep and his faithfulness there prepared him to fight Goliath and eventually become a great king.

His kingdom eventually suffers because of his lack of faithfulness to his role and to God. Faithfulness to tasks is one aspect of leadership, but spiritual leadership for Community Groups hinges on the leader’s faithfulness to God.

Faithfulness to God is True Success

All leaders want to be successful in leadership, but we consistently remind our leaders that God’s success is the result of abiding in faithfulness to God. Christ instructs His disciples in John 15 to abide with Him and bear much fruit.

In the missional community discussion, it can be easy to attempt to measure success in terms of people added to the community, service to the community, and in multiplying the community. These are all good things, but if they lack faithfulness to God, the community will likely suffer. God clearly desires devotion to Him over activity apart from dependence on Him.

While subjective in nature, success as gospel faithfulness can be easily seen in the results of confidence in the gospel and greater love for people.

Faithfulness to People helps a Community Thrive

There are certain people who have been placed in our lives closer than others. They could be family, friends, co-workers, or neighbors, but they seem to interact in our world with more frequency than others. When Paul preaches his sermon in the Aeropagus, he indicates that this is no accident, that it is in fact the design of God so that others and we would know Him.

Understanding this allows leaders and communities to be faithful directly where they are placed and directly with people who are placed there as well. This can decrease the strain on relationships for many of us and I’ve noticed that a thriving community results from the faithfulness of leaders to the people who are right in front of them.

Our Community Groups seek to care for one another and their neighbors. This could be a daunting task unless they understand being faithful to who God has placed in their midst. This lets them identify and meet the tangible physical and spiritual needs for one another and their neighbors easier by focusing on specific people.

Faithfulness builds on itself and expands the capacity of the leaders as their influence grows. We can’t be certain what the future has for our lives or our leadership, but we can be faithful with what we’ve been given. Whether it is a job we don’t enjoy, money, or friendships, learning to be faithful with what we have will allow us to be faithful when we have more.

Great leaders are faithful leaders.

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January 19, 2012 · 11:57 am

Links I Loved This Week

I read a lot of articles and blogs on the interwebs. Here are my favorites this week.

Leadership

I’m a bit obsessed with Harvard Business Review, my favorites for this week were:

What’s Your Influencing Style? A great article about leading through influence rather than simply relying on a title.

No is the New Yes: Four Practices for Reprioritizing Your Life Incredibly helpful concepts and practicals to help be proactive in prioritizing life. Helpful for me in light of my Reactionary Life posts.

Seth Godin wrote about learning leadership lessons from congress. Mainly by explaining how horrible they are at it. It was enjoyable and sad that “representatives” are really corporate advocates.

Thom Rainer wrote 10 Lessons in Organizational Leadership from Steve Jobs. Incredibly helpful.

Christianity, Masculinity, & Parenting

Spurgeon & Manly Men is an older post but worth considering since the tendency is to try and nuance Christianity to where you have to just-add-Jesus to your current American Dream lifestyle and you’ll be fine.

Mark Driscoll wrote for the Washington Post “Why Men Need Marriage” which has some great thoughts. At the same time, we need to hold up God-glorifying singleness as high as we do marriage to encourage the healthiest marriages. Otherwise marriage becomes a point of idolatry.

(My Personal Favorite) Connecting Church & Home Conference audio. I’ve listened to the first 3 sessions and they are incredibly encouraging for parents. I highly recommend them.

Barnabas Piper wrote a blog titled Vehicles, Obstacles, & Parenting that cuts to the heart of how parents have a tendency to treat kids as a means to their own end. Really great thoughts.

The 4-minute video below titled Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus caused a big stir in the Christian blogging world, but I enjoyed it. His thoughts are worth watching and considering.

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April 28, 2010 · 3:30 pm

Pastors, do you really want lay leaders?

Last week I looked at how Christians can bless their pastor by living out the mission of the church at home, at work, and in service to the church. As I mentioned last week, I’ve never heard a pastor complain about someone desiring to be bi-vocational. To be faithful at their job, while also faithfully serving and assisting in accomplishing the mission of the church.

As I thought through those blogs, I also started thinking through whether ministries are structured and prepared for an influx of volunteers if, like I intended, people magically stumbled upon my blog and they were divinely enlightened to life-changing truth.

While I know many pastors who would love to have more volunteers, there are times it seems ministries aren’t planned or structured in the necessary way to accommodate various commitment levels.

How can pastors help volunteers & lay leaders get more involved? Here are 8 ways I think will help.

1. Affirm the bi-vocational mindset. Be the voice for the priesthood of all believers on a Sunday and beyond. It’s easy for the average church-goer to attend a Sunday service and not see a need because most churches are organized and planned for Sundays.

We need to be reminded and hear that our calling is to be the priesthood throughout the week in addition to helping on Sundays. And I don’t mean mere lip-service of voicing your belief in the scripture that affirms it, I mean backing it up by providing bi-vocational leaders an opportunity for high-level leadership if the Lord has gifted them and equipped them to do so.

Putting a bi-vocational leader in those positions will be the most effective way to convince volunteers that you truly do affirm this calling.

2. Understand the limitations. A bi-vocational leader spends 40 hours a week on something other than ministry. Understand that they may only be able to give 5 hours, but value those 5 hours. Even though there are limitations, don’t shy away from trusting people with responsibility. Consistently ask how they are doing and if they feel overwhelmed.

The limitations actually force you to raise up more lay leaders as opposed to hiring more staff.

3. Plan further ahead than you think. Things take longer when you choose to use bi-vocational leaders. If you haven’t planned for that, you’ll only be frustrated with us and our lack of speed. Most leaders want to be shown that a plan is in place to utilize them and provide them opportunities to contribute.

This will also help you answer all the questions that business minded volunteers typically ask.

4. Delegate and let people learn. It won’t be as “perfect” as you do it the first time, but eventually it will be what you need. You’ll never develop anyone if you do all the work.

5.  Explore various volunteer opportunities

Create Project Specific or Seasonal teams.  Do you have a busy Christmas season or summer schedule? Or are you working on developing a specific ministry for social justice or missions? You could create a team for each specific project or season that is able to work on things long-term allowing you to provide oversight and direction rather than building it all yourself.

Distinguish between short-term & ongoing commitments. Providing a short-term, a few hour commitments allow people to explore your ministry to get a better picture of what you really do. It’s a great entry point for people wanting to get involved.

The ongoing, long-term projects or commitments reveal you’d like them to focus deeply on one ministry instead of spreading themselves thin across 4 commitments.

6. Have a Leadership Path. This is something we just put together for college ministry, but it clearly showed the potential for growth and development within our ministry. Our leaders really responded well to that because it showed them they could commit long-term and wouldn’t have to move to another ministry for deeper responsibilities.

7. Identify training needs and provide ongoing development. What are the essentials theologically and practical needs for leading in your ministry? What are the most effective way to train people in knowledge and abilities necessary for your ministry? Can you get them up to speed within a month?

8. Ask. Personally invite them to be a part of your ministry. The announcement from stage on a Sunday can get people to sign-up, but a personal invitation often leads to greater commitment. And you’ll be surprised to find that many are waiting if only you’d ask.

Pastors, if you’re tired of being overworked, overextended, and making way too many family sacrifices, the long-term sustainable solution is to develop lay leaders and provide them real opportunities to bless you and the church in their service.

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