Thoughts Along The Journey

I was recently reading through a number of articles that I had placed in a file when I ran across this quote in one of those articles:

“Young leaders want and need a place at the table. I know of one church where the leader (who is himself in his thirties) meets weekly with the church’s key emerging leaders. They read books on church leadership to discuss, they engage in spiritual and theological reflection. But they don’t stop there. He regularly offers them opportunities and assignments to do critical ministry projects and innovations. In some cases these have led to whole new ministry organizations being started, with young leaders at the helm. It happened because his leadership became a gateway and not a bottleneck.”

Several things struck me.  First, this leader had a “developmental mindset”. In other words, when new workers came into his ministry, he viewed them from the perspective of how they could be developed and trained to grow in ministry.  He saw their need for ongoing learning and training from the day they walked in the door (see my post from 13.05.2013).  Next, he gave away or delegated ministry opportunity.  He gave people a chance to test out their gifts and abilities in a context where he could give feedback and counsel.  He did not micromanage what they did.  He followed what they did: praying, giving feedback and cheering them on.  Finally, this leader was a young guy (in his thirties) who was building and releasing a growing number of workers and leaders.

World Team workers have an average of eighteen years of experience in cross cultural ministry.  We have an “experience capital” that is significant.

Imagine what could happen, by God’s grace, if that “experience capital” were used to create “gateways” for younger workers and leaders.

Filed under: Challenge, Delegation, Development |