Building Leaders

The church ought to see itself as a leadership factory that stirs up the gifts of God in people, not an auditorium that gathers people behind a leader.

When we are building leaders, we must remember that every single one of them has an individual calling and individual needs.

We’ve got a new tool that tests your health as a leader, and we’re looking for beta testers.

I recently rediscovered these “Turning Point Lessons” that emerged out of a strategic planning retreat of our New Life Fellowship staff team in 2010. At this point, the church was twenty-two years old. What struck me as I re-read these is how timeless and relevant they are for today. The following are my edits and summary out of that discussion.

Our view of discipleship is skewed. For this reason, the church is not developing leaders because it is not creating disciple-makers. We need to reverse the course.

Of course, this is good advice for all ages (and not just pastors), but the majority of questions I receive are from younger pastors. I’m not sure what it says about us older pastors but it has been true in my ministry that the younger a pastor is, the more willing to heed advice.

Too often, to our detriment, we only deal with competencies when building leaders.

I have often watched leaders struggle to recover from a mistake made that probably didn’t have to be as personally or professionally damaging to them as it was. They simply didn’t respond well enough and it cost them more than it should have.

We hear so much about being an "authentic" leader. I believe fully in authenticity. You must lead from who you are; at the same...

Building leaders is not a quick process, by any means. We need to be prepared for the amount of time it takes transformation to occur.

People often react to change in detrimental ways. Here’s how you can encourage your followers in the midst of change.

As Christian leaders in God’s house, I hope these seven essential priorities help you to make the improvements that are within your power to make. God knows, we need healthier, stronger, leaner, more flexible leaders who can stay the course! You can absolutely improve your health!