The role of the church can be summed up this way:
Be the church, center on the gospel, live mission, raise up leaders, and multiply the sent.
Creating a culture of missional leadership is the only way to faithfully raise up leaders. The challenge is that the church must work as hard as the leaders. A raw reality that the church must embrace is to love and labor beside a leader who is not polished and perfected. They must humble themselves, submit to Christ, and trust the elders, knowing that they too will be used to shape the leader as much as, if not more than, being shaped by the leader. The church is where leaders must emerge for mission.
You have heard me say on many occasions that mission is messy. Raising leaders is the messiest of missional challenges because people are directly involved and affected. I’m convinced this is why so many churches opt-out of intentional disciple making. Raising leaders is risky. Jesus was betrayed by Judas. Paul was abandoned by Demas. Every church will have at least one, and most likely more than one, who will prove the greatness of the risk. But none of these should stop mission. Mark, the gospel writer, demonstrates that those who initially prove to be “risks” or “failures” can become great warriors in mission, models of leader redemption. As mentioned above, the church must shape its paradigm to embrace this risk. Real missional leaders can only be raised up when they have the opportunity to serve in the church, among the people, where skill and ability (hands), understanding (mind), and joyful commitment of character (heart) can be observed.
Every person in the church must commit to serve emerging leaders by following them. They need to experience what it feels like to have people follow them. This doesn’t mean you are committing to that person exclusively. Jesus is the only exclusive commitment one makes in the church. Emerging leaders serve under the oversight of elders and the responsibility of other seasoned leaders. Where an emerging leader demonstrates a lack of following the elders, the church body should go to the person to inquire — and ultimately to the elders if necessary — to labor for the unity of the body. The church should guard the emerging leader from criticism or gossip, while not excusing behavior that reveals weaknesses or character flaws. As well, no one should try to gain the favor of an emerging leader to manipulate, coerce, or control them.
Every person in the church should serve emerging leaders by encouraging and praying for them. There are many principles of life and leadership that can be applied. The church body serves an emerging leader well when they encourage and pray for them.
Every person in the church should serve emerging leaders by giving counsel and correction when needed and as is appropriate. I love the picture of Priscilla and Aquila taking Apollos and graciously correcting him, explaining the part of the gospel he had not yet heard (Acts 18:26). Advice dropping is neither helpful nor beneficial, but life-investment is essential. The church is full of godly people who can counsel in many areas of life.
Real-time training is essential to recruiting, equipping, training, and resourcing the church with strong leaders and sending out those ready to move mission forward. The resource of church leaders also serves to resource missional expansion, multiplying the sent. Not every person that becomes a leader in the church will go out from the body. But many will in some way. Mission will only expand and multiply as leaders are raised up, equipped, and sent out.
As we expand leadership one final need emerges, the need for more leaders. Are you ready to engage “Lane Training” and grow the mission of LPC as a leader?