by Greg Fraser.
I have always been a fan of Rick Warren and the Purpose-Driven Church ideology about how to marshal a church’s efforts in a specific direction. For those of you who have lived on another planet for the past several years and not heard of Warren’s book, let me give a brief overview of his thoughts.
Every church has a purpose, a reason for their existence. According to Warren, too many churches are off purpose because they only try and fulfill one or two of the five purposes that are laid out in Scripture. He bases the five purposes as being revealed in the Great Commission (Mt 24) and the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37-40). To summarize—without boring you with a book report—the five purposes are:
To “Love God with all your heart” is WORSHIP.
To “Love your neighbor as yourself” is MINISTRY.
To “Go … make disciples” is EVANGELISM.
To “Baptize …” is to INCORPORATE INTO FELLOWSHIP.
To “Teach them … all things” is DISCIPLESHIP.
A Purpose-Driven church seeks to balance all five of these. There is a great deal of wisdom in the book and many practical steps that we need to take to achieve “purpose-drivenness.” However, over the years that I have been in ministry and the few years that I have been a Senior Pastor, I have noticed a deficiency in the system. Not to bad-mouth the “sacred path” of Purpose-Drivenness, but I must have missed something along the way. It seems I missed a key chapter, a key thought in my impenetrable system of guaranteed church growth: the need to be doing this with other leaders—the issue of leadership development.
Now, to defend Warren, he does spend some time talking about moving people from being seekers to servants, and so the development of leadership is implied. But, as I have been on this journey, I think he might want to reconsider his premise that the church needs to fulfill just five purposes. I believe that there really should be six. That there is a sixth purpose is revealed throughout the pages of the Word of God—the purpose of leadership development.
Models to Follow
We don’t have to look far to see leadership development in the earliest brush strokes of the Old Testament, and the fullness of the completed canvas is displayed in the New. Moses developed Joshua; Eli developed Samuel; Elijah developed Elisha; David developed Solomon; Mordecai developed Esther; and, as we continue to dig deeper, we see a clear picture emerging within the pages of the Old Testament. But just in case we miss it, the masterpiece is undeniably revealed in the New Testament—leadership development is one of the key purposes for the growth and health of the church, made evident by the Pastoral Letters from Paul to Timothy and Titus, by the unmistakable pattern seen throughout the book of Acts, and by Jesus and His entire ministry.
It is necessary to reflect on that last truth for just a few moments. The way Jesus managed His relational circles was truly the blueprint of this key purpose within the life of the church. Let me explain. Our relational circles represent who takes what place of importance within the limited time and energy that we have.
Think about a set of concentric circles. The circle closest to the center gets the lion’s share of our time and energy. And, as the circles go outward, the amount of time and energy we spend with people in those circles decreases. In Jesus’ life we see five distinct concentric circles:
His own time with the Father alone: His personal leadership development. (Matt. 14:23; Luke 2:49; 5:16; 11:1; 22:40-41).
His inner circle of Apostles: “The 3”—Peter, James and John (Matt. 17:1; Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33; Luke 8:51).
The 12 Apostles (Matt. 10; Mark 4:10; Luke 9; John 13-17).
The 70: the number of disciples commissioned (Luke 10).
The masses: the rest of humanity wanting His time (Matt. 13).
Now it is a fascinating study to look at the Gospels in the light of this truth. Jesus often pulled away from the masses to be with the 70 and from the 70 to be with the 12 and from the 12 to be with the three. The Scriptures record that many times he would only allow certain ones to be with Him (see Mark 5:37). Jesus managed his relational circles.
I have often thought about what it would have been like to be one of the disciples (there were likely more than 70 hanging around, but he appointed 70) watching the inner circle of 12 get Jesus’ special time and attention. I’m sure I would have pretended to be picking up garbage or collecting firewood so I could get in on those meetings. But Jesus never invited new people into those inner circles, and His close management of them was likely to the disappointment of those outside of them.
Jesus even walked away from needs. There were times when the ministry didn’t seem to be completed, and Jesus moved on (Luke 4:42-43). The sheer audacity that Jesus would leave needs unmet in order to manage those relational circles…Pastor, imagine telling someone you don’t have time to counsel them, and that instead of an hour counseling with you weekly they might want to go to the Wednesday Night prayer meeting—or better yet get plugged into a small group! (There is much more to say here, but I will let your pastoral minds create reams of sermons on that topic. I can hear the gears turning now! Topics like: “Why none but three shall see me anymore but Sunday!”) Now I know that we need to meet needs, but the purpose of this paper is developing other leaders to meet those needs, not meeting them ourselves. We are called to make sure everyone is cared for but not that we care for everyone ourselves.
Working It Out Today
So what now? How do we put feet onto and develop this sixth purpose for our churches and ministries today?
First, we must recognize the vital importance of leadership development: we must recognize that without developing new leaders, the church is dead. The crisis of leadership in our world today is a reflection of the church. In John 12:20 there were some Greeks who wanted to “see Jesus.” They went through the proper channels (talk to the inner circle if you want to speak to the man): they told Philip (one of the 12); Philip told Andrew; together they told Jesus. But Jesus doesn’t go to see the Greeks! Instead he answers: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.”
There are two things we can immediately glean from this (I think Jesus is speaking about two deaths in this passage). First, Jesus knew that in his physical death, in the resurrection, and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the One seed would become many. In other words, “They don’t need to see me in person if they can see me through the people of the church!” And that is the reproduction of Christ in the hearts and lives of all of us! Second, I think he was referring to the need to die to self—the way in which things have always been done. Jesus realized the price from “day one”: to truly influence the world, He couldn’t do it alone. How difficult must it have been for the King of Compassion to walk away from needs? He spent much of His three years of ministry pouring into 12 men instead of meeting every need He encountered. How many more miracles might we have read about if He had neglected the circle of 12 to spend more time with the masses? The painful questions that leap out at us are these:
“In what ways do we ‘do ministry now’ that need to ‘die’ in order for us to fulfill this sixth purpose?”
“Where are we in the ‘nobleness’ of our calling moving away from the 3 and the 12 in order to meet needs God isn’t calling us to meet in that way?”
I often wonder if I have the courage to really manage my relational circles like Jesus did? I have to confess that I have spent probably thousands of hours with people whom God never told me to pour that kind of investment into. I have too often allowed the urgency of needs to override the importance of leadership development. Truth be told, many times I do these things out of the fear of man or the need to be seen as the loving “pastor” rather than the genuine leading and love of the Holy Spirit. Maybe I am preaching to myself right now, but, oh, that I would have the courage to be led by the Spirit in this way!
So we read a paper like this and we say, “Yes I must teach on this Leadership Development thing.” But Leadership Development will cost you more than you can imagine. It may require a paradigm shift in the way you lead your life and church. It will definitely cost you incredible amounts of time (or at least demand great discipline in how you allot your time). And it will probably cost you lots of money! (It’s an investment—so hang in there: it will pay dividends).
The biggest issue is that most of this (leadership) is caught not taught; therefore, it requires an opening of one’s life to the emerging leader. It means bringing them along when you do ministry and having them over for supper to watch you “do life” outside of ministry. It means be willing to confront and train in love. This isn’t just about teaching on leadership; it’s about modeling leadership on a daily basis.
One Local Approach
That being said, here is how we are approaching Leadership Development in our church.
This is where I meet with my 3 and my 12:
We have daily prayer every weekday morning with our discipleship school students and our staff.
We have a one-year discipleship school. I teach them one day a week in my home. We eat lunch together, and the entire staff and interns come over for that meal. (Our interns are graduates of the one-year program; we currently have four on staff). This school takes a great deal of effort from our entire staff, but the fruit is many on-fire, emerging leaders for the Kingdom.
We have a weekly staff meeting for 2 hours where we do a leadership teaching and go over the business of the church.
We will often have the pastoral staff over for supper or holidays and just hang out.
I meet with our Administrator and our Executive pastor weekly and our other pastoral staff on a more infrequent basis as needed.
I meet with our Elders and Deacons on a monthly basis.
We have yearly leadership retreats with the Elders and the Church staff.
We attend Leadership conferences together. There are 16 of us going this year to a four-day conference: staff, spouses, interns, elders. It will be costly but it will bring incredible returns.
This is where I meet with our 70:
We have a monthly meeting with all the volunteers in our church family. We call it Servant Leaders Night. All those serving within the church are invited to come. We have a time of teaching, envisioning, prayer, and fellowship. We end the night eating a meal together. The intention is to equip them and pour into them, to say thank you to them and re-envision them to keep on keeping on!
We bring seminars into our church and send our people to conferences.
This is where I meet with our church family:
Obviously, on Sundays. Once a week we come together to worship, fellowship and hear the Word of God.
We don’t have an evening service and we place an emphasis on people connecting into small groups.
We run a weekly Bible College course called International School of Ministry that many of our adults attend.
We started a midweek night called “Family Service Night.” We are running 6 weeks on “Parenting God’s Way.” We will then do a 13-week financial seminar, followed by other relevant courses in the future.
Of course every church will go about how they accomplish Leadership Development in different ways. We started a discipleship school because we had a huge influx of youth and young adults getting saved in our church. It seemed like the Spirit-led progression for us then to have a place where they could be discipled and envisioned.
An FCA Priority?
The ultimate point is that it is time for the church to come back to the New Testament pattern of Leadership Development. We need to recognize this as one of the key purposes to which we have been called. And to fulfill all the other purposes, this one needs to come to the forefront.
I believe the FCA has great potential for leadership development, and primarily because of the commitment of its ministers. The pastors in our churches are not hirelings. They are not “professional pastors” looking for greener grass every few years in a new pasture, or pastorate. They are committed men and women who desire to serve their Master to the fullest and to see His Kingdom expand throughout the earth. My prayer is that we will all learn this key purpose that Jesus lived and fulfilled so that we might complete all that He has called us to be and to do—to see the seeds He has entrusted to us grow into amazing leaders for the future of this fellowship and His Kingdom.
Greg Fraser is senior pastor of Morinville Christian Fellowship, Morinville, Alberta.
