As part of my recent posts on the training of pastors and church planters I kept hearing a similar theme emerge - that there is a decreasing number of 'leaders' emerging from our churches. In an Irish context this is something that is quite pressing as it appears anecdotally that since the change of VISA requirements we are not seeing leaders developed to replace the current leadership of established and planted churches.
In some ways the issue isn't an availability of good resources, training materials, courses and institutions. There is both an access in Ireland and also online, enabling us to receive some of the best guidance and training available at any point throughout history. So why does it appear that numbers entering full-time theological education are dropping? Why do we see less interest in overseas missionary service? Why are people less likely to develop from being identified as emerging leaders to take roles of responsibility as pastors and church planters?
I have been thinking recently that this might have less to do with leadership development and more to do with our discipleship of believers. I spoke to a good friend in the States who said that in their experience we can look at the development of leaders on a scale from 1-5. Steps 1-3 are about developing mature Christians, but steps 4-5 are seeing them take up positions of responsibility in their local church, and potentially lead a ministry or become an elder. His point was that most churches have become very proficient in steps 4-5, yet quite unprepared for steps 1-3. This inevitably reduces the numbers of maturing Christians to be considered for leadership roles, leading to a perpetual reduction across the board. As well as this, we can prefer that emerging leaders develop skills and traits that are developed in school, college or the workplace and then promote those people within our churches, leading to a desire for competency rather than spiritual maturity in our leaders. This also would exclude people who society deems as not having the required training or competency to undertake leadership development.
To begin to investigate this, I have come up with a few questions that I'd love church leaders, pastors or church planters to answer in relation to the framework of discipleship within your churches. Obviously the terminology may differ, but I'm trying to work out if we are intentional or informal, relationally or resources based, dependent on 'professionals' or cultivating every member disciple-makers within our churches. This will be confidential, and is not linked to Ireland only, I want to get a broad picture of how we see disciples made in our churches.
Here's the link:
Comments