This past weekend my senior pastor preached on one of our church’s core values. (You can check it out here). It is the sixth core value we have as a church. While it may not be in the top three, there is one thing that we all quickly realized about this value. One thing that stood out to almost all of us pastors on staff about this value. This core value really defines and describes what our jobs as pastors are all about. So what is the core value?

Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 4:11-13, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,”. We value equipping others to do the work of the ministry. Which brought on a good discussion at our weekly meeting? Who are we equipping? How are we equipping? And what are we equipping them for?

All of these questions really took us to one topic: leadership development. It is a hot topic these days and very much needed, but the truth is the church is the one organization that should be superb at developing leaders. We should eat, breathe, sleep leadership development. Isn’t that what Matthew 28:19-20 is all about? Isn’t making disciples really about making others more into the image of Jesus? And wasn’t Jesus the greatest leader ever to walk the face of the planet?

While we all granted that leadership development is important and we must be doing it. The tough part was how do we develop leaders. There are many systems, formats, and structures to help an organization do that, but I love what Kevin Fontenot and Scott Magdalein discuss in this Thriving Ministry Teams Podcast entitled “Leadership Development Principles for Your Church“.

Enjoy and as always be with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s day!

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash!