During my college years I believed leadership skills were something you were born with. They could be honed and tweaked, but you either had them or you didn\u2019t. During my B.A. and M.Div., I went through several leadership classes and other experiences designed to bring out the leader that was supposedly already inside me. Most of the classes were about inspiring others and motivating them towards a particular end. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0Is that leadership? Yes. Is that all there is to leadership? No. After working in a church for almost 7 years, I\u2019ve come to believe there is a hole in my leadership development. What I\u2019ve learned most about leadership in the church is that\u2019s it not really about me leading in the traditional sense. It\u2019s about whether I am training others so they can lead.<\/p>\n
Training lay leaders is important because churches in the US are in decline. No longer are church sanctuaries full of people who don their Sunday best to worship God. No longer is there an \u2018oughtness\u2019 about church attendance. Simply put, church budgets and attendance are much smaller then they were 50 years ago. As a result, how churches go about ministry has changed. More and more churches are seeking to empower lay leaders to carryout the purposes and calling of the church because vocational ministers can\u2019t be everywhere and everything to everyone. A friend\u2019s church in Atlanta went so far as \u2018letting go\u2019 of almost their entire staff and asking them to reapply for new positions that focused on training lay leaders. They\u2019re going from a staff heavy, budget tense situation to a more nimble and financially viable system where everyone in the church has to be engaged.<\/p>\n
\u00a0When I came on staff at Second Baptist Church (2BC), I wanted to be the best minister possible. That meant being everywhere and coordinating everything. As time passed I realized two things. First, the church\u2019s ceiling in mission would be the same as my ceiling and that would be low if I tried doing everything myself. Second, if I moved jobs there would be a significant hole because I hadn\u2019t trained people to lead. Something had to change. My view of leadership wasn\u2019t effective or sustainable.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Once I realized those two things, a shift in my ministry occurred. Now, I rarely initiate a ministry unless I have a dedicated lay leader working with me. \u00a0I\u2019ve gone from primarily hands on coordination to creating an environment where others can minster (coordination is still part of that!).<\/p>\n
\u00a0I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m particularly good at developing lay leaders, but I do realize it has to happen for the church to move forward and I\u2019m trying anything that might work. Here are a few things I\u2019ve found that are important in helping develop lay leaders (many of these were also talked about in our book):<\/p>\n