My name is John. I am one of the elders at King’s Church Darlington. I have about 35 years’ experience of church leadership; firstly, as a church planter in Paris, France and latterly as a pastor in England.
Here’s a question for you. How does this rough stone become like this shiny stone? They are made of exactly the same material. But this one looks better. It is much smoother and has a lovely shiny surface. The reason it looks better is that it has been polished. It takes a little bit of toothpaste and lots and lots of rubbing with a denim cloth. But when you are ready to do the work, this can become that.
Raising up and releasing leaders is very much the same. Taking ordinary raw material and, through an intentional process, making it better. And raising up new leadership is one of the most important aspects of a leader’s role. This is what we are going to talk about in this session.
All leaders have followers. If no one ever follows you, you are not really a leader. But the best leaders are never satisfied in just having followers. The best leaders create other leaders.
Nic Harding (Kairos Ministries) says, “A disciple is not just someone who is becoming more personally mature, it is someone that is becoming more personally mature and who is making other disciples.”
In the time I have available, I am going to spend the first half showing you the biblical basis for raising and releasing leaders. This is a key aspect of what the Bible has to say about leadership. It shows that this is on God’s heart for his church.
In the second half, we’ll look at some practical issues. What are the obstacles to avoid when releasing others? How do I identify the right people? What qualities am I looking for? How do I go about it in the best way?
And then there’ll be time for questions at the end.
1. Biblical basis
So, first the biblical basis. We see examples of raising up and releasing leadership all the way through the Bible. There are many more examples than the ones I am going to speak about, but…
Moses
Moses was a great leader. He heard from God. He spoke God’s word. He confronted Pharoah. He did great miracles. He led his people. And he raised up a successor – Joshua.
Exodus 33.11 says that when Moses came out from the presence of the Lord, he would return to the camp, but Joshua did not leave the presence. Moses thought it was important for Joshua to stay there. So Joshua was given an apprenticeship in God’s presence.
And Deuteronomy 34.9 says that Joshua was full of the Spirit and wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.
Because Moses spent time investing in Joshua, because Moses exposed him to important things, Joshua was able to lead his people into the promised land.
Elijah
Elijah was another great leader. He heard from God. He spoke God’s word. He confronted King Ahab. He did great miracles.
But the day came when Elijah was exhausted after defeating the prophets of Baal. He was burned out from ministry on his own. God gave him a bit of rest and relaxation, and then told him to go and invest in a young leader. “Go and anoint Elisha.” And from that day on, Elisha became his apprentice, raised up to be a successor.
Interestingly, Elisha went beyond Elijah. Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. He had the ambition to surpass his mentor in anointing and impact.
The Bible records that Elisha did exactly twice as many miracles as Elijah. A double portion. Let’s not limit our expectations for those we invest in – pray instead that they go beyond our own sphere of influence and surpass us in their effectiveness and anointing.
Paul
Paul was another great leader. He heard from God. He spoke God’s word. He travelled internationally and planted churches. He did great miracles. But he hated working alone. He insisted instead on working in teams and he raised up a number of successors – including Barnabas, Timothy, Titus and Silas.
And he expected them to invest in others after them. In 2 Timothy 2.2 he writes this: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
Jesus
Jesus is undoubtedly the greatest leader ever. He spoke God’s word. He confronted the Pharisees. He touched untouchables. He forgave sins. He did great miracles. He initiated the new covenant. He could do everything better than everyone. But even he raised up many successors; Peter, James, John and many others.
He patiently taught them. He told them off. He challenged them. He empowered them. He sent them out two by two and told them to report back.
If the greatest leader who ever lived made time to invest in others, what excuse do we have for not doing so? So, throughout the Bible we see a pattern of training and releasing. Identifying future leaders and investing in them.
But the Bible also shows us what happens when we don’t invest in other future leaders.
Joshua
Think about Joshua. The one who came after Moses. One of the striking things about the book of Joshua is that after reading all the way through Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy about Moses’ assistant Joshua, when we get to the book of Joshua, Joshua has no assistant by his side.
Joshua has no successor. He has no assistant. Joshua invests in nobody. And the consequence of that is when Joshua dies, there is no one to step into his shoes. There’s a leadership vacuum.
And it leads to a chaotic period of decline and moral decay. It leads to the period of the Judges where, the Bible says, “everyone did what they thought was good in their own eyes.” All the leaders at this time are isolated and directionless. It’s a mess. One generation after another, things go from bad to worse. All because Joshua never raised up leaders.
So the Bible shows time and time again how good leaders shape younger or less experienced leaders to be able to carry the flame further and brighter. And it also shows us what happens when they don’t.
Equipping for Service
Finally, Ephesians 4.11-12. This is a key passage of scripture. It taks about “equipping God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
Bill Hybels used to say, organisationally speaking, all over planet Earth, there are basically two different categories of church. The first, is the most widely reproduced church leadership model in the western world. It has been the dominant model for the last 150-200 years or so.
Here’s what it looks like: Once a newly-planted church gets to about 100 people, the members get together and say, we need a full-time pastor now. So they pool their money and draw up a job description of all the things they want the new pastor to do.
Their basic idea is that the pastor does all of the ministry in the church.
· He does all the preaching and teaching
· All the dedications, baptisms, weddings and funerals
· He visits the sick in hospital
· He has the keys to open up and lock up
· he does counselling for people with problems
· He organises all the rotas from children’s work to serving coffee
· He changes all the lightbulbs
· He paints the car park lines and mows the lawn
· He sets all the heating controls
· He write hundreds of emails and packs endless mail envelopes
· He has to be available 24/7 in case of pastoral emergencies
And on and on and on.
It’s a long list. It’s an impossible list. So the church hires a pastor and he looks at the job description and says, “Oh man, I can hardly wait!”
As soon as he starts his job, he is of course quickly overwhelmed, while the 100 people who pay his salary are now practically unemployed.
In this model, you have 1 minister and 100 idle people. This is widely practiced because it is widely expected.
But this way of doing church, Hybels would say with passion, is totally absent in the Bible. There is no trace of it anywhere from Genesis to Revelation.
The biblical model is totally different. In the Bible, if you have 100 members, the leader’s main job is to equip these 100 people for works of service so that the church is strengthened.
Here, the leader’s consuming focus is to help everyone else to discover their spiritual gift and empower them so that they thrive. When that happens, this church has not 1 minister, but 101 ministers.
What model do you want? Do you want a church with one exhausted minister and 100 bored, inactive members? Or a church with 101 effective ministers, each doing what they do best for God’s glory and with no one inactive?
How many church members do you have here in Brasov..? So, biblically speaking, how many ministers should you have?
And, if you’re a leader, your most important job is to mobilise and release those around you to be effective in what God has gifted them to do.
Imagine! That many ministers, all thriving and excelling in their spiritual gifting. The church would be an unstoppable force in every town.
The question is how? What, practically, should we do to raise up and release ministry around us?
Church leader David Pytches once watched a prophetic minister called John-Paul Jackson give an extraordinarily accurate prophetic interpretation of a tongue. He went up to him afterwards and said, “That was amazing, how did you do it?” Jackson said, “I don’t know, it was the Lord.” Pytches said, “I know it was the Lord, but how do did you do it?” Again, Jackson just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, I just do it, it comes naturally, it’s God.” And Pytches said, “What a tragedy. Your gift will die with you.”
So, practically speaking, how do we pass on to others what we have been entrusted with?
2. Practical considerations
Be aware - what are the obstacles?
The first thing is we need to be aware. Raising up leaders doesn’t just happen on its own. One of the things we need to be aware of is that I might be the biggest obstacle.
Many people I speak to, who find raising up new leaders difficult, say to me, “Who do I start with? Everyone around me has some sort of problem. One might be gifted but never available. Another one might be always available but with limited Bible knowledge. Another might know the Bible well, but be quite rude or immature. Another might have a pleasant personality but very little charisma; when they speak in church everyone falls asleep.
We need to understand that Jesus chose 12 no-hopers. They fought among themselves as to who was the most important. They failed to drive out demons because they had so little faith. They never caught a single fish without Jesus doing a miracle. One denied the Lord. Another betrayed him. All ran away at his arrest. None believed the women when they said he was raised from the dead.
But Jesus patiently taught them and corrected them and released them two-by-two – and he never gave up on them.
One of the biggest obstacles to releasing is knowing that I know I do the job well, and if I give it to someone else it will be done less well. We are tempted to control everything because we care about things being done properly.
A third obstacle that prevents us from bothering to invest in others is that it’s time consuming. I need to show the person what I want. I need to explain to the person how to do it. I need to correct them if they make mistakes. I can do it quicker if I just do it myself.
Two weeks ago, Michael and I spoke with Joe about a sermon we asked him to preach. A year earlier, we did the same with David. We had to explain what we wanted. We had to read their drafts. We had to explain what we thought didn’t work and suggest improvements. It was a lot of work. It would have been easier just to do it ourselves. In my case, the sermon would have been better! (Both sermons were a big improvement on what Michael would have said)!
But both spoke really well. We extended our preaching team. David and Joe both learned a lot. And, most importantly, people heard from God. Perhaps in a way that they wouldn’t have if Michael or I had spoken instead.
This is what it means to “equip God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up.”
I have given you an example from preaching, but it is true if you are a home group leader, a worship leader, a welcome team leader, a pastoral leader, a youth leader or whatever.
Very rarely will we look around and think we have the ideal person to invest in. There is always something - sometimes more than one thing - that is not 100% ideal. But if we never start we will never finish.
Be wise - how do you identify the right people?
All that said, the second thing is we do need to be wise. I have invested much time over the years in people who promised much but proved to be disappointments. That should not stop us though! Paul invested in John Mark and later regretted it when John Mark deserted him in the middle of a critical mission trip. As I said earlier, Jesus invested in men who crashed badly.
One of the most important issues is comparing character with giftedness. Sometimes, you come across someone with fantastic gifting; they might be a great speaker, a brilliant musician, or an effective evangelist. They might be very good at drawing a crowd. They might naturally attract young people. They might even hear from God and be prophetic.
But whenever the New Testament lists the qualities necessary for church leadership, it is always character rather than giftedness that features most. Are you teachable? Do you drink too much? Do people speak well of you? Can you control your temper? Do you treat members of the opposite sex appropriately and with respect? Are you sober minded?
Church leader Paul Harcourt says, “Anointing will get you on the stage but only character will keep you there.” In other words, if you have many gifts, you will usually have many leadership opportunities. But if you are immature in character, it will not last long.
Samson in the book of Judges is a classic example of someone who was strong in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, but weak in character. And his life was a tragic failure.
One of the things I always look for is a servant heart. Christian leader Bill Donahue says, “A Christian leader who is not willing to serve is not fit to lead.”
I once asked a Christian in his early 20s to lead worship meetings and preach. And I noticed that every time I did, he would arrive early and clean the church toilets beforehand. One day I said to him, “Why do you always clean the toilets before you lead the meeting?” He replied, “I felt God say to me, if you aren’t prepared to serve in unglamorous ways when no one sees you, you shouldn’t accept the more prestigious roles when people do.”
What else am I looking for when I am selecting people to invest in for leadership? I want people who love the Lord. Do they have a heart for God? Do they come to prayer meetings? Are they engaged when the church is at worship? Is there evidence that they love God’s word?
I look for people who are eager. When I ask them to do something, are they responsive. Remember when Jesus speaks to Peter in Luke 5. Jesus is preaching. Peter is fed up. He has caught no fish all night. Jesus says, “push your boat out and let down your nets.” Peter is an experienced fisherman. He has been up all night. He is ready to go to bed. Most people would say, “Get lost, I’m busy.” But Peter is action-oriented and eager. “Because you say so, I will do it.” Peter is a doer, not a talker.
I look for people who are available. I need people who I can count on. I might notice someone who is gifted and who has fine character, but if they are never around, it’s not going to work. Sometimes, people need to be challenged. “I could really invest in you, I want to do it, but I need to be able to count on you. Are your priorities in the right place?”
Be intentional - how do you release?
Finally, how, practically speaking, do we release people?
I would recommend assigning small tasks first, then if the person is faithful, entrust them with more and more responsibility. How do they respond to being asked to do something small and unimportant? Are they offended? Are they just pleased to be asked? Do they take it seriously? Do they do what is asked with all their heart, or do they act like it is beneath them?
Secondly, set clear expectations. In the parable of the talents in Luke 19, the master gathers ten servants, he divides up a sum of money and he instructs them to invest the money while he is gone. They have a resource, a clearly defined task and a timeframe to work to.
When asking someone to preach for the first time, for example, I will say “you’ve got 30 minutes. Not 35. I want you to study and pray over the text. I want you to identify the main point of the text. I want you to steer the congregation to a decision. I want you to tell stories to illustrate the point you’re making. You need to look at people, not at your notes. You have to sound like you’re interested in what you’re saying.”
People need to work to clear expectations.
Then it’s really important to give feedback and encouragement (and correction) afterwards.
Again, the parable of the talents is very helpful here. The master comes back and rewards good performance with greater responsibility. And those who do nothing, what little responsibility they had is taken away and given to those who take the ministry more seriously.
3. Questions...
Talk given at Central Crestin, Brasov, Romania, 19 October 2024
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