Yesterday while I was at Christ Fellowship in Miami, I did a leadership talk for their staff team. At the end of my talk, we took some time for Q&A. One of the questions that was asked was about leadership growth. Having worked in churches of various sizes between 1,400 and over 10,000, they wanted to know how leaders change to grow with organizations. Here’s what I summarized with a little bit more detail. Some of this reflects my own experiences in the churches I’ve served. Some of it reflects the conversations with leaders in other churches.

Lead by example. This is the type of leadership that is required when a new ministry launches. During this season, the leader has to do most of the work themselves. That happens out of necessity because no one else is around. It also happens to establish a foundation for the future. “Leading by doing” gives the leader the opportunity to shape the mission, vision, values and strategy of the church. These folks may not necessarily be gifted as leaders but they are in a positional leadership role. They are the “leaders of tens.” Ministries with this style of leadership can grow to about 100 people.

Lead other people. During this season, the leader recruits other people to join the ministry team. Rather than doing all the work on their own, the leader begins to delegate tasks and responsibilities to other people. The leader still owns the responsibility for making things happen, they’re just including other people in the effort. These are the “leaders of fifties.” Ministries can grow to several hundred people with this style of leadership.

Lead other leaders. This is when a transition happens where leaders begin to empower other leaders. Instead of a hands-on role where they’re on top of all the tasks, they shift to a role where they’re really more concerned about leading, caring for and raising up other leaders. They don’t give up responsibility for the outcome, but they begin to release team building and decisions of execution to other people. These are the “leaders of hundreds.” Ministries can grow to several thousand people with this style of leadership.

Lead by vision. At some point, there are leaders who may continue to embrace functional leadership of specific areas of ministry, but their focus is really on the overall health of the church. Rather than a ministry-specific focus, they have a global perspective that encompasses every aspect of the organization. These folks are leading other leaders, but they also have influence that reaches beyond their direct reports. They are coming alongside the senior leader to champion the vision that God has given the church. These are the “leaders of thousands.” Ministries can grow to tens of thousands of people with this style of leadership.

First of all, do you agree with my summary of these different stages of leadership growth? What would you add or delete from my descriptions?

Secondly, where are you? Would would you need to do today to prepare for a step into a new leadership role tomorrow?

Leaders empower the people around them.

• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about the God-ordained vision.
• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about those being led.
• It’s less about the leader. It’s more about synergy of the body.

I’m still a big proponent of clear vision in churches. Clear vision leads to unified effort which results in ministry impact. A clear vision also provides a lot of freedom for people to be empowered to be who God created them to be. I’ve heard it described as freedom within a framework. That’s essentially a picture of the Christian faith. There’s actually more freedom for us if we stay within God’s designed framework.

Paul described the responsibility of leaders in the church this way:

“Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13)

That’s what I mean about it being less about the leader and more about those being led. Our role as leaders is to “equip God’s people to do his work.” The leader doesn’t do the work – God’s people do his work. God’s people don’t do the leader’s work – they do God’s work.

We see this reflected in Paul’s writings on spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12 as well. Each believer is given one or more gifts. Paul uses the human body as a metaphor to express how the various parts of the body of Christ are indispensable. In other words, we have failed as leaders in the church if we do not embrace the unique gift-mix that God designed. And, we won’t fully know the power and impact of the local church until people are empowered to be who God wired them up to be.

We aren’t telling them what to do to accomplish the vision. We are helping them discover their gifts and freeing them to use them to fulfill the vision. It’s not delegation. With delegation, I’m still responsible. It’s empowerment. Someone else is responsible, but, as a leader, I still hold them accountable.

In the Old Testament, we see this play out when Jethro tells his son-in-law, Moses, to:

“Select from all the people some capable, honest men who fear God and hate bribes. Appoint them as leaders over groups of one thousand, one hundred, fifty, and ten” (Exodus 18:21).

In the New Testament, we see this demonstrated when Paul instructs Timothy:

“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2 Timothy 2:2).

We see this model of leadership throughout the Bible where people are entrusting responsibilities with other people to carry on the ministry. Leadership isn’t leadership if it isn’t released to others.

With that, here are some questions we may want to consider about our leadership:

• Is there a clear vision that offers freedom within a framework?
• Is my leadership more about getting people to do what I want them to do, or helping people be who God designed them to be?
• Am I entrusting leadership to other capable people, or am I just delegating tasks?
• If I wasn’t here, would the ministry continue to grow without me?

It’s so contradictory isn’t it? We’ve been so conditioned to equate leadership with a person. Yet, that’s not how God created it. In God’s design, the sum is greater than its parts. Leadership doesn’t rest with one individual, it’s entrusted to capable men and women.

Does your leadership empower people?

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Other Posts in This Series:

• Part 1 – Overview
• Part 2 – Servant Leadership

Leaders are servants. It’s counter-intuitive. It may be unlike the leadership you’ve experienced in the marketplace…or even the church for that matter. But biblical leaders are servant-leaders.

“Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (I Peter 5:2-3).

It’s interesting that of all the roles outside the church, God chose the shepherd to be the model of leadership within the church. When you think business titan or political leader, you probably don’t think shepherd. God’s way is different, though. He wants leaders who are ready to serve. He wants people who will not lord their leadership powers over those entrusted to their care.

Jesus, of course, was the perfect example of embracing and championing this servant-leader approach. Here’s what he had to share:

“Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’”(Matthew 20:25-28).

Clearly Jesus is teaching a distinction between an authoritative style of leadership and leadership that is focused on serving others. You wouldn’t typically think leaders are first servers, but that’s how Jesus designed it.

Most of what makes a servant-leader is our attitude towards ourselves and others. Paul explained it like this:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

The key is the attitude of humility. Rather than focusing on our ambitions and our own interests, Paul suggests we need to also focus on the interests of others. Here’s what I know about the interests of others: they’re sometimes different than mine. It takes a confident yet humble leader to follow God’s calling in his or her own life while also considering the interests of others around them. We have to live in that tension in order to experience God’s design for the church. That’s how we accomplish his purposes.

So, here are some questions you may want to consider about your leadership:

• When people consider who I am as a leader, do they think “servant” first?
• Do I lord over those in my care?
• Am I pursuing my ambitions, or do I consider the interests of others?
• How would those people I lead respond to these questions?

I hope you’ll join me in wrestling through these passages and these questions. The Church needs a new kind of leader. That’s the way God designed it. And that’s what he demands of those who are called to lead others. This isn’t just a model for church leadership. This is a model for how we are to interact with people all around us.

Are you a servant-leader?

Other Posts in This Series:

• Part 1 – Overview

Over the last number of weeks, I’ve been diving into the Scriptures to better understand a biblical perspective on leadership. Over the next several days, I plan on sharing what I’m learning. I want to challenge you to do the same. Today, I’m going to take the opportunity to explain why.

First of all, I believe that leadership is a gift. It’s among the list of spiritual gifts listed in Scripture. “If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously” (Romans 12:8). Now with that, the Bible says, “God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well” (Romans 12:6). That suggests that some people have leadership abilities, but others don’t. We are all followers, but not all of us are leaders. I think we all can learn some some leadership skills, but not all of us are gifted to be leaders. One of the first questions you may want to ask yourself is this: Am I really a leader?

I also believe that God has designed the Church to have clear leadership roles and structure. For example, “the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.” (Ephesians 4:11). These are specific roles God designed for ministry. Then in passages like I Timothy 3, we see defined leadership roles of elders and deacons. We are also called to respect the leadership structure God puts in place. “Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God” (Hebrews 13:17).

Now, here’s why I think we need to all wrestle with our theology of leadership. God has gifted some to be leaders. God has defined leadership roles in the church. But, God has also expressly defined for us how leaders are supposed to act. Frankly, sometimes I see a gap between God’s design for leadership and how we (including I) live out our leadership roles.

There’s this warning in the Bible to commit ourselves to the instructions of God’s Word rather than the traditions of man. (See Mark 7:8-9.) I’ve heard some press on the fact that we tend in the modern church to look too closely to marketplace leadership for cues to how we should lead in the church. That’s probably a fair argument. Not all successful leadership is biblical leadership. However, I do see business leaders using leadership principles taught in Scripture whether they know it or not.

The bottom line, however, is that we can learn from business leaders, but they should not be the anchor for how we lead. We can also learn from fellow church leaders, but they are also human and don’t necessarily provide a perfect model for biblical leadership. When we look to other leaders, we are essentially holding on to our traditions, rather than embracing the truth about leadership found in God’s Word. That needs to become our filter for truth. Just because we see other leaders doing it, doesn’t mean that’s how God designed it.

So, I ask you: What’s your theology of leadership? If you’re like me, it’ll continually be shifting in some respects as you come to a clearer understanding of God’s Word and how it applies to your life. You are not becoming the leader God designed you to be, however, if you are only learning about leadership from the books you read and the people you watch and your experiences along the way.

We need to wrestle with this issue and try to understand how God defines leadership. I hope you’ll join me on this journey to discover these answers together.