At the 2013 Canadian FCA Convention Pastor Paul Vallee, President of FCA Canada, spoke with great conviction about the importance of calling, discipling, and developing leaders. Here is some of what encouraged and challenged me from his message:
What will have the greatest impact over the long haul on your church, ministry, and community?
Developing leaders.
Moses, Elijah, Jesus, and Paul all raised up leaders! Our fellowship will never move forward if we don’t produce leaders.
In Mark 3:14-15 Jesus called the Twelve after spending the night in prayer. If we’re going to call, develop, and disciple leaders we should pay attention to how Jesus did it:
He prayed first:
Jesus spent the night in prayer before choosing His leaders. Why? Probably because it was that important. For us it’s important to look for godly leaders; people who display humility, teachability, honesty, life-long learners, etc.
He called them to BE WITH HIM:
He called them first to be WITH Him before anything else. We are called to be with God and to teach others to do the same, but we should also call leaders to be WITH us by making ourselves available to those we are discipling.
Then He SENT THEM OUT:
Many times we want to skip the first two parts of this and get to sending people into ministry, but you have to be willing to invest in people first.
Sometimes we may do the first two parts and stop once it gets to the point of actually sending our leaders out. The truth is you have to release the leaders around you to walk in the fullness of their calling.
If we want to flourish as a fellowship we need to be calling, discipling, and developing leaders. Imagine if every church, if every leader, was developing and discipling 2 or 3 leaders, or more! Think about it: We could change the world!
