Proper equipping for ministry leadership occurs within three successive stages of leadership development and spheres of influence:
- The capacity to understand and manage one’s self and time,
- The ability to bring out the best in others, and
- The know-how to influence and guide the behavior of whole systems.
Character development and growth are the top priorities and foundation for developing leaders. First and foremost, the leader must remain focused on his relationship with Christ and seek continued spiritual growth. Thus, development of “self” or one’s inner life and character is a prerequisite for leadership in the Church. The growing leader must also understand and exploit his strengths, understand and compensate for his weaknesses and learn to manage priorities and time.
A leader must learn to exercise personal influence or the art and science of coaching to enhance his ability to work with and inspire others, one person at a time. He must also learn the art of building teams, including the concepts and skills needed for leading teams from launch to mission completion. The leader must seek to develop organizational leadership competencies that help him to effectively lead and manage ministries within an often changing ministry context or environment to which he is called. Thus, he must become proficient in leading change – understanding the dynamics of change and the means to formulate working strategies in achieving his church’s or ministry’s God-given mission within a ministry environment that varies with time.
A successful leadership development process requires a conducive climate and healthy human relationships to foster:
- Trust (based upon deep caring, consistency, dependability, openness, impartiality, hard work and longevity),
- Transparency (based upon sharing one’s life and struggles and understanding one’s imperfection), and
- Time (based upon investing and committing to the development process).
Therefore, it is important that the leader have an understanding of his church’s or ministry’s organizational culture and the systemic implications of culture on ministry performance – as inputs into leadership replication, strategic planning and deployment and implementation of change initiatives.
Just as one’s life as a leader requires balance, people building and establishing healthy churches and ministries also requires that leadership seek balance in emphasis and priorities – in helping their people to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry and larger through evangelism (Warren, R. The Purpose Driven Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). Such efforts complement the climate and leadership development process within the church, thereby enabling more effective ministry outside the church.
