Why Church leaders stop growth
Colin Baron
"When I speak about creating empowering cultures, I realise that the big hindrance is over-protective church leaders"
Edgar H. Schein: “If one wants to distinguish leadership and management, one can argue that leadership creates and changes culture, while management and administration act within a culture."
Jesus was creating an empowering culture, firstly by teaching his disciples how to do the works of the kingdom and then empowering, with great delegation skills, his disciples to have a go and therefore multiplying their effectiveness.
As I mentioned in a previous blog these guys were not the finished article. Jesus was well aware of their lack of perfection but empowered them to have a go anyway. He knew that part of the process of them growing was the very act of them engaging in works of service.
I am amazed at how conservative we are when it comes to engaging people in leadership roles. Somehow we think that if we teach people enough they will become the mature person we need for the particular leadership task. As maturity comes with “doing” as well as “hearing” we can’t help but wonder why only 20% of our people do 80% of the jobs and why there is a chronic leadership shortage in the church.
As I travel and speak about creating empowering cultures within churches, I realise that one of the big hindrances is over-protective church leaders. I sometimes ask them to go through the membership list of the church looking for potential small group leaders etc. I then listen as they make excuses why each person could not do the job, marginalising them before even asking them to do the task.
To be continued…
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Colin's Profile
Colin leads Christ Church Manchester (CCM), a new church on the east side of the city birthed out of a passion to see significant churches planted in each of the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester.
Colin also travels internationally for the Newfrontiers team, encouraging and equipping church planters as well as coaching leaders and developing teams in established churches.
Helpful posts Colin
Do you agree that 80/20 rule could be stated as:
“shall I volunteer?” = skills/experience + opportunity + being asked - previous damage.
If so, perhaps to increase volunteers we need to:
- have tasks that are worthwhile
- ask people
- train people
- debrief/repair/refocus people when they fail
Additionally, I think 1-2-1 mentoring is valuable in supporting fledgling leaders of people.
However, perhaps it’s not all process. - there is a work of the spirit in gifting and identifying. - if we extend the principle in Eph 4, is it not true that just as not all are prophets, perhaps not all are growth group leaders, leaders of singing etc?
So whilst I agree there’s a definite need for church leaders to be less conservative in who they choose, they also need to have done the work to prepare all people for service and listen to the spirit.