How to develop new leaders – part 1

I have been reading a great book on building movements called T4T – a Discipleship Re-revolution, by Steve Smith and Ying Kai.  I recommend this book as it is full of extremely practical ideas on how to plant and build church movements through spiritual multiplication.  I heard that this book is being translated into Russian and will let you know as soon as I know when it is available in Russia.

A few days ago, I read the chapter called, “Reproducing Leaders.”  I have written a few blogs on this subject already but I really loved how the author clearly laid out from a Biblical model the ideas about how to develop new leaders.  Most of the following is directly from the book (I have adapted some parts to shorten the text).

Developing new leaders is absolutely vital to the continuance of a church or student movement.  

• Movements or ministries will only continue on as long as new leadership is developed and entrusted to carry on the ministry.
• The more leaders are developed and entrusted with leadership, the larger the movement will grow.
• If there are no new leaders to take over when current leaders graduate, then the ministry dies.

Biblical examples of how Jesus developed leaders

Jesus never asked Andrew, Peter, James and John to simply leave their nets and follow a person they had never met before.  There was more involved before this happened.  Long before Jesus called the four brothers to leave their boats and follow Him, He had a number of encounters with them.  The first one occurred when John the Baptizer referred Jesus to them.

·         Stage One:  First encounters (John 1:35-51)

o   How did Jesus discern that they were the right men?  They showed some interest, but Jesus wasn’t ready to call them to full-time ministry or make them apostles.  Instead He probed them with small requests or statements.  He watched how they responded to these small requests or statements. 

o   How did Jesus develop them at this point?  He gave them small things to obey – stay with Me tonight, go get your brother, think about what you can become (fishers of men).  Plus, He began to spend sporadic time with them observing their lives as they observed His.  At this point, Jesus did not yet make great demands on them – He simply observed how interested they were in what He asked them to do.

·         Stage Two:  Second call to them at the seashore (Mark 1:16-20, Luke5:1-11)

The famous story we all know about Jesus calling the four men - Andrew, Peter, James and John – came weeks or months after John 1.  These men knew Jesus and had already spent time with Him.  Knowing this helps explain how Jesus could ask them to leave everything to follow Him.  They knew more of who Jesus was at this point and were able to count the cost of leaving their livelihood behind and decided it was worth leaving all to follow Him.

o   How did Jesus discern that they were the right men?  He had already spent time with them.  When He probed them with larger requests (take Me out in your boat; let down your nets; leave your nets to follow Me), they repeatedly obeyed.

o   How did Jesus develop them at this point?  By giving them greater tasks with greater responsibility to fulfill and by spending more and more time with them.  He gave them uninterrupted attention at times by this point.

·         Stage Three: Final selection of the Twelve (Luke 6:12-16, Mark 3:13-19)

Though ‘the Twelve’ get the most attention in the gospels, Jesus had many more disciples (He had as few as 120, and 500 is another number given, but there could be more - Acts 1:15, 1 Cor.15:6).  He is now ready to give more authority and responsibility to one set of disciples than He would give anyone else among larger group of His disciples.  Even after choosing the apostles, Jesus continued to invest in many other disciples (e.g. the 72 disciples of Luke 10), but the Twelve received His greatest investment. 

o   How did Jesus discern that they were the right men?  Jesus spent an evening of prayer and fasting before calling the Twelve to even greater responsibility (Luke 6:12).

o   How did Jesus develop them at this point?  He continued to develop them by giving them more attention and increasing their ministry responsibilities (Mark 3:14-15).

In the next week blog I will continue with the observations of how to develop new leaders in the context of ministry.

What have you found helpful in developing new leadership in your ministries?

Leadership team ideas

Some of you are at the point where you are ready to ask others to join you as a strategic team in helping to bring the gospel to students, faculty and administrators on your campus who don’t know Jesus Christ.  This blog walks you through a simple process of putting together a leadership team.

Saying no to say yes to the best

This is one of my personal favorites!  We are all inundated at times with so many pleas to get involved in various ministries.  Is it ever ok to say, ‘no’ to involvement in ministry?  This blog should help you walk through the process of making these kinds of decisions.

Successful Witnessing

It is easy for me to get discouraged in telling students about God’s way of salvation for them because so many are not interested.  I think this reminder of what to consider ‘success’ when we are sharing the gospel with others is especially good for us in Russia where we don’t often see people place their full trust in Christ as Savior and Lord.