Dear Friends
A number of years ago when I was on staff at
Calvary Chapel in Old Bridge, N.J., I met with a group of men who
aspired to be pastors and church leaders. During the course of one of our
meetings, I was asked by one in the group to share any personal leadership
lessons that I felt would be of value for anyone interested in church
leadership.
The question motivated me to develop a list of some of my
own personal leadership lessons that had been important to me, and the
following week I shared them with the class.
I recently came across the list I developed, and hopefully
some of the lessons I share might be of value to you.
Develop your active listening skills. Attend training
opportunities where you can learn how to be a better listener.
Guard your family life for your family is your ministry.
Teach your congregation about
spiritual gifts and have them complete a spiritual gift inventory to assist
them in discovering their spiritual gifts. Plug people into ministries where
their gifts can be maximized.
Equip your people to do ministry. Train individual members
for ministry. Never do ministry alone but always take someone with you.
Stay in your strength zone. 80% of your time should be spent
developing and leading in your areas of strength (giftedness) and 20% in your
areas of weakness.
Develop prayer ministries in your church. Teach your people
to pray and provide opportunities for them to pray. "Prayer is striking
the winning blow; service is gathering the results."
Always be looking for opportunities to announce and
celebrate people's achievements within your congregation.
Develop small group ministry and be a part of a small group
where you can both give and receive ministry.
Recognize and teach that ministry takes place from the
pulpit to the pew but also from the pew to the pulpit (people encourage and
care for their leader) and from the pew to the pew (people minister to one
another) Always remind your people that "every member is a minister."
Plan annual retreats with staff and
always include plenty of time for fun and fellowship as well as training.
Have your leaders visit other churches and then report back
on what they saw and learned. A lot of valuable lessons can be learned from
watching how others do church.
Take care of your own physical body and be sure to include
some form of exercise.
Catch staff members doing exceptional ministry and publicly
recognize them for their contribution.
Write personal letters of encouragement to your members. Set
a goal of at least 5 a week.
Recognize birthdays with a birthday greeting or better yet,
a personal phone call.
Always guard your integrity. People will always be watching
you to see whether you are genuine.
Take personal time alone for ministry planning and spiritual
renewal.
Get to know your staff and their families and spend time
with them.
Take the Myers Briggs personality
assessment or any other personal assessment to help you understand the personality
traits of your staff/leadership team. In one church I served we had sweaters
made for our leadership team with our Meyers Briggs personality identification.
"I am an ISFP."
Practice MBWA (management by walking around). Spend time
with your staff. Have lunch together and let them know that you care about not
only them but their families as well.
Visit the sick in the hospital. Don't leave all of the
visiting to your deacons. There is no greater way I know of to develop close
personal relationships with your people than visiting people when they are
sick.
Emphasize the importance of the Fellowship Hour after church
and do everything you can to encourage every member to participate. This is a
time when people can care and minister to one another.
I would love to hear from you about any particular events or
activities that you found of value in your spiritual development.
Yours in faith,
Tom
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