Images of Leadership: Sower - Ministry Exchange (MX)

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Images of Leadership: Sower Leadership Skills for Effective Ministry Leader’s Notes Draft 11/25/2001

Overview
I recently went to a John Maxwell seminar entitled “The 21 Irrefutable Laws
of Leadership.” While some of the material and ideas were helpful, it left
me feeling flat. The nature of laws is they seem so black and white—they
are, after all, irrefutable laws. Yet leadership—certainly exhibiting it,
even teaching it—doesn’t seem so black and white. The advantage of
thinking about images, biblical, three-dimensional, look-at-them-from-
different-angles images is that they are not black and white. They have
texture and shape, they can be examined at a distance or in detail. And, in
fact, they are biblical. Most often, images are the ways the scripture
teaches about leadership. In one form, parables, they comprise the bulk of
Jesus’ teaching in the gospels.

Hence Images of Leadership. The nine images are meant to form a
package, a composite image, of leadership from scripture. One of the
strengths of the multiple images is that for various teachers, different
images will stand out as helpful and central, while other images may be
more unfamiliar. But the composite of images helps to avoid the danger of
over-generalizing. In other words, it is easy for a shepherding leader to
teach on leadership as if it is all about shepherding, while a visionary
leader may tend to teach on leadership as if vision is the only key
quality. So taking a broader survey of some of the biblical images and
depictions of leadership can broaden what might otherwise be a narrow diet
of teaching. Each image, each chapter of the material, can easily stand alone and
doesn’t need the other material to make it understandable or useable for a
group. So a staff person working with a group may decide that the first
thing the leaders need is a teaching on the leader as sage, for example.
However, there is some logic or structure in the ordering of the chapters,
as I will outline below. I have taught the material over two days with
staff, and I have taught 3 or 4 sessions in a one-day seminar with leaders
in a church setting. My ideal schedule would be Friday night, all day
Saturday, two sessions, about 6 months apart. I would try to cover sessions
1-5 during the first weekend, and sessions 6-9 during the second. But of
course the advantage of the sessions being modular is that they can be
rearranged to serve the needs of the group or team.

Chapter Content and Flow
. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 form the introductory core material. When I have

taught this material on campus, I am eager to teach this early in the year. . In fact, I have tended to use the servant material (chapter 2) during the spring of the year as an intro seminar for all students interested in leadership for the following fall. I take 2 to 2.5 hours to go through the whole seminar: an hour on the scripture studies, followed by shorter presentation of the material in the notes, followed by small group discussion of a campus-oriented case study (see the leader’s notes for an example—the one in the printed material is more oriented toward a church). . The Shepherding material (chapter 1) can be taught over the course of three weeks for on-campus leadership training of small group leaders and other influence leaders in a chapter. Don’t rush the scripture study. . The Patient material (chapter 3) can also be taught in the Spring, as people are deciding to be leaders, or else during the fall, as the initial excitement about being in leadership is giving way to a job- description approach. In this way, people need to be reminded of how God is healing/developing them and their character through the experience of leadership.
. Chapters 4 and 5 address influence dynamics. The sage image (chapter 4) addresses the situation you have when people trust you and are asking (in one way or another) for your advice. The sentinel image (chapter 5) addresses the situation when the people you are seeking to influence or lead aren’t coming to you looking for advice. They may need challenge or exhortation, but for whatever reason they aren’t initially seeking such influence. It is helpful to make a distinction between these two postures, and to recognize that a full leadership role includes the ability to lead through gentle questions and good listening at times, but also the ability to challenge and “exhort one another every day” as is sometimes necessary.
. Chapters 6-9 form a body of material I tend not to use with new leaders, but rather with leaders of leaders. Or another way to put it: chapters 1-5 addresses the leadership of groups, while chapters 6-9 speaks towards the leadership of teams. On campus, this means I would use this material with a new exec team, or other student leaders of teams of leaders (outreach team, worship team, drama team, publicity team, mission team, etc). New small group leaders may not really need the vision stuff, but the people leading small group leaders do. If you are doing staff training with this material, I would expect most staff are in the place where this material will be extremely helpful. But younger students don’t need this latter material—focus your training of them on the dynamics of shepherding, servanthood, and influence. . Chapter 6 speaks of vision. A crucial concept for anyone who would lead any team trying to accomplish anything but the most rudimentary of tasks. . Chapters 7 (Steward) and 8 (Sponsor) could also be renamed The Leader as Manager and The Leader as Coach, respectively, though steward and sponsor are more directly biblical concepts. But these chapters deal with crucial questions of management, planning, and delegation (chapter 7) and training and empowerment (chapter 8). . Chapter 9 (Sower) speaks to the topic of multiplication. The scripture study on multiplicative ministry followed by the session on Leadership Development is built on much of the previous material, especially the Leader as Patient. It presents a powerful argument for the basis of on- the-job leadership training (campus based during the school year versus relying solely on summer leadership training at chapter camp). I almost never use this stuff with student leaders, but it would be crucial for staff, and would be very helpful for many churches.

More detailed leaders commentary.
Following these introductory remarks are leaders’ notes on each session.
These take the form of points that I have put on my manuscript or said in
discussion, without much editing or prioritizing. What immediately follows
is a summary of teaching strategies and teaching points for each of the
nine sections. This will give you a sense of how the session is organized—how 90-150 minutes is spent on each session.

Chapter 9: The Leader as Sower.
The culmination of the material, this section summarizes and highlights the
power of a consistent application of many of the themes of the entire
study. While the title image is that of the sower, I usually don’t do more
than reference that image before moving on to the heart of the material,
the short passages of scripture beginning with Mark 3. These 6 passages are
paired, two to a page. I usually give each small group a different pair to
study. I introduce the passages by defining “multiplicative ministry” in
contrast to “additive ministry”: “additive ministry adds value to the
recipients, but multiplicative ministry produces more ministers.”
Preaching, healing, feeding are examples of additive ministry; the passages
here illustrate some principle or another of multiplicative ministry. Once
that definition and examples have been given, I encourage people to find
principles of multiplicative ministry in each of these 8 passages, first
working on their own and then in their table groups.

Just one word: the last passage, Mark 2, is a little more obscure and
are difficult for groups to see the multiplicative principles embedded. I
will sometimes summarize this passage without assigning groups to study it. In the large group, I try to move through the passages fairly
quickly, highlighting the various principles of multiplicative ministry as
outlined in the teaching notes for this section. The second part of the session, then, is a lecture on leadership
development versus leadership recruitment. This again summarizes much of
what the entire course has been about. One of the key insights here is that
we don’t train people so we will have leaders, so we’ll get the work done,
but rather we put people into leadership so that we can train and invest in
them, for they are an end, not merely a means. It is, once again,
participation in the economy of God: they are blessed, while others are
served, while ultimately God, the source and destination of our ministry,
is glorified. The power of this section comes in that so often we as leaders and
would-be leader developers take the short-cut, and are tempted to recruit
leaders rather than develop them, to use people to further the ends of the
ministry rather than to honor and treasure them as, even individually, more
important than any furtherance of the mission. Finally, an article outlining a strategy for group disciplemaking is
given (after page 14). This is meant to be a further resource, beyond the
scope or timing of the course, but a helpful tool for follow up.

Sample Formats For a training day/weekend:

One day Schedule:	Friday evening:	One day schedule, part
9:00 Gather & intro	7:00 Gather & intro	2:
9:15 Leader as Shepherd	7:15 Leader as Shepherd	9:00 Gather & intro
9:15 Leader as Sentinel
11:15 Break	9:30 break for evening
11:30 Leader as Servant	11:00 Break
(abbreviated)	Saturday:	11:15 Leader as
12:30 Lunch	9:15 Gather	Visionary (scripture)
1:30 Leader as Patient	9:30 Leader as Servant	12:15 lunch
3:00 Break	11:00 Break	1:15 Leader as
3:15 Leader as Sage	11:15 Leader as Patient	Visionary (lecture)
5:00 End	2:00 Leader as Steward
12:30 Lunch	(abbreviated)
1:30 Leader as Sage	3:00 Break
3:30 Break	3:15 Leader as Sower
4:00 Leader as Sentinel	5:00 End
—or—
5:30 End	2:00 Leader as Steward
3:30 Break
3:45 Leader as Sponsor
5:30 Dinner
6:45 Leader as Sower
8:45 End

All these formats have the single advantage—people are there for a bulk of
material that they will find fits well together and is usually pretty
helpful and loaded with things to think about. The downside of anything
like this is that people will be pretty filled to the brim, perhaps well
before the end of the day. The best type of content schedule would be 2
full hours/week for 5 weeks during the fall, followed by another four weeks
of the same 2 hours/week about six months later.

A three-day format for the material, which I am liking the more I
teach it (slow it down):

Day #1:	Day #2: Leaders	Day #3: Leaders of
Pre-leaders	Leaders
9:00 – 9:15	Introduction	Introduction and	Introduction and Review
Review
9:15 –	Session 1:	Session 4: Sage	Session 7: Steward
11:15	Shepherding
11:30 –	Session 2a:	Session 5a:	Session 8a: Sponsor
12:30	Servant	Sentinel
1:30 – 2:30	Session 2b:	Session 5b:	Session 8b: Sponsor
Servant lecture	Sentinel Heart of	test and discussion
and case study	Unbelief & Case
studies
3:00 – 5:00	Session 3: Patient	Session 6:	Session 9: Sower
Visionary
5:00 – 5:30	Closing Prayer	Closing Prayer	Closing Prayer

These sessions might be ideally several months apart, giving people time to
digest the material before they receive more.

The Leader as Sower: Multiplicative Ministry

Multiplicative ministry: a leadership pie vs. a leadership factory.
Leadership is not a small, fixed pie, from which we must cut the staff-
leadership slice and the student leadership slice. (In which case, in our
commitment to develop student leaders, we should try to cut our own piece
as small as possible.) No! Leadership is a pie-baking process. Our job is
to make pies-the more pies the more opportunities for student leadership.
Our job is to make pies.

Mark 3:7-19: Selection- the ability to focus on a few for the sake of the
many:
. Undemocratic, non-egalitarian: Jesus prefers some over others, it isn’t

simply self-selected.
. Context: chaotic crowd, and it is getting worse. Jesus brings order
. [pic]
. with this structured approach. You cannot train a crowd. Preaching and healing are not multiplicative ministry.
. Concentric circles of intimacy: he preached to the crowd – he called those whom he wanted – he appointed the twelve – he renamed the three. Each deeper level of intimacy allows him to focus on a smaller group, for the sake of the larger group. Even the three became those who looked after the twelve. (Luke 22:31-32)
. Jesus provides a structure which offers care for each person in the reach of his ministry: inner circles reach out to outer circles.
. Crowd = campus; wanted = fellowship; twelve = leadership; three = leaders of leaders, people to focus on. Only as an image: do not assign too lightly a one-to-one correspondence in this situation.
. His call: to be with him. Two ways in which we understand this: 1. emphasis on being with Jesus, the unique Lord and master, savior: Jesus is unique. 2. emphasis on being with the discipler or trainer: Jesus is our model. Actually, preaching is multiplicative, for the partners you have with you being trained to become preachers.

Mark 5:18-20: Flexibility- the ability to break “rules” of selection:
water everything and see what grows.
. Non-Jewish territory: this man was uniquely qualified to do ministry in

this territory. He had a powerful experience of Jesus’ mercy, a broken spirit, notoriety.
. This man, if he had been in our fellowships, would never have fit into standard categories of leadership. Within a focus on selection we must leave room for God to bring to us unexpected partners for ministry.
. He doesn’t turn this guy into a Jew (he would have been terribly ineffective) but rather sends him to his home community. The Urbana 96 poster: “What have you seen God do lately? A life transformed by Christ is a compelling witness.” This man had one such witness.
. A model for multiplying evangelists: we call them to speak to their friends of God’s great work, not sequester them in the context of Christian community.
. Examples: Second semester junior who becomes a Christian, or who gets committed to the fellowship after trying out several different groups for two years. Didn’t follow the normal path of leadership, but sometimes can become key leaders.

John 13:1-17, Modeling and articulation- both are necessary.
. He makes is explicit that he wants them to do exactly what he is doing.
. What’s hard about this? leading strongly while serving with humility. It

is hard to talk about yourself as a positive model of leadership.
. This is where we see one of the benefits of being on a team: we can interpret the model of each other.
. It’s in our nature to imitate: “follow me as I follow Christ.” We don’t simply model ourselves after Christ, we can also use imperfect (but more tangible) models to grow to become more like Christ.
. Modeling servanthood is one of our deeply ingrained values. But articulation is a much harder thing. “Actions are not self-interpreting.” Jesus could have said, “I did this to you, so you should do this to me.” Or they might have understood him to mean that. He asks, “Do you know what I have done to you?” The correct answer, at that point, is “We haven’t a clue.” So he tells them, “I’m not treating you this way so that you’ll be nice to me, but so that you’ll learn what it means to serve one another.” Reciprocity is not multiplication. We won’t multiply ourselves if we don’t communicate the blessing involved.
. “Teacher and LORD” from John 13: Jesus is both the unique LORD of all, and also a model for human disciplers (“teacher”).

Acts 20:17-38: Modeling must be: Accessible and Attractive
. “You know how I lived among you.” Incarnation. Transparent ministry,

living close to campus, with students or staff, living an accessible lifestyle (not separated from the people to and with which we minister). Paul’s lifestyle, as radical as it was, had to be something that they could have aspired to. He calls them to it: “Those who so live.” Examples: summer mission teams, intense ministry experiences when people can see exactly how you live 24-7.
. Both Jesus and Paul stress that living this way is more blessed. This is crucial. Implied in Paul’s comment: “and my life was attractive.” Nothing more important in multiplying leaders: leaders have more fun. They are more blessed, not more noble. We won’t multiply ourselves if we communicate only the hardships, not the joy and blessing.
. Another way to put this: staff development most easily will happen from staff whose lifestyles are attractive and accessible as models. If staff live 10 miles from campus, focusing on “balance” and “boundaries” those staff may be effective in working with students, but they’ll have a hard time seeing lots of people come on staff out of their ministry.
. The importance of closure with Paul’s disciples: a sense of passing the baton, impartation of the vision, and commissioning, affirmation and blessing. Multiplicative ministry involves actually turning over the ministry to those who have been raised up.

Mark 6:7-13: Delegation with partnership.
. Delegation to partners: the twelve don’t go out alone.
. Specific training: he gives them words to say, helps them think through

difficult situations. Challenges them to rely on those they do ministry to.
. Priorities in ministry: 1. Partnership over coverage. They are sent out in pairs though they could have covered more ground. BS co-leaders vs. having a bible study for every dorm, led by a single leader. 2. Relationship over coverage or Depth over breadth. He tells them to stay in one place: They might be tempted to go from house to house, to try to cover more ground. Jesus says, invest in one place, go deep. So SGLs who have 10 people in their SG may be tempted to spend 20 mins with each person per week, vs. really trying to focus on a few who are able to relationally “host” the SGL in the dorm. Again, focus on a few for the sake of the many.
. He tells them to move on when they meet up with unresponsiveness. Don’t try to make up for lack of responsiveness with sheer effort. Move on. Trust God to bring you to responsive people. Even Jesus met up with unresponsiveness (see the previous passage).
. The powerful experience of trusting in God together, taking risks with doing a missionary task: summer project, spring break in Florida, etc. Group risk taking is a powerful multiplicative ministry experience.

Acts 6:1-7: Empowering Delegation
. Willingness to broaden leadership: if they were going to reach the world,

they were going to need diversity. Minority empowerment. They submit to the people who are complaining, and over whom they have authority.
. Empowering delegation: it is very possible to delegate in a way that doesn’t produce multiplication. Delegate a vision, not just a procedure. Don’t simply delegate a task for the sake of efficiency. We measure efficiency not simply by how long it takes to get the job done, but by what actually is accomplished, at a deep level.
. They gave honor to the new leaders, by authorizing them and praying for them before the entire group.
. Problems lead to growth in ministry, not simply obstacles: Started with one leadership team and we end up with two! (They made a new leadership pie.)
. Example: social justice complainers in my fellowship: asking them to research options for service involvements that the fellowship could undertake. Turned critics into partners.

John 1:35-51: Vision
. Jesus tells Peter and Nathanael that they will see great things if they

stick around. “There is stuff going on here in this fellowship that you can’t see. But stick around. It will be worth it.”
. Perception: the ability to see in people things that others don’t. “Simon, the Rock? Ha!” Andrew might have said, but Jesus sees more. Also sees what is unseen in Nathanael.
. Bold hope: “You haven’t seen anything yet!” Are we able to say this to people we call to follow?

Mark 2:18-22: New wineskins
. Baking pies: needs to be a radical ministry. We aren’t just multiplying

pie bakers to join our team, but also to attract others outside of our bakery. New situations need new contexts, and so you need new wineskins. We aren’t done multiplying ministers until they learn how to think and depend solely on God for themselves.
. We are training others not to rely on our training / old structures, but to innovate, be creative.
. We are not done with multiplicative ministry until we have trained people we work with not simply to rely on the wineskins we have given to them. New wine is for fresh skins.

Contrast multiplicative and additive ministry:
Additive: Multiplicative:
staff leading dorm talk students leading dorm talk
with staff prep
Urbana (for many) Urbana (for some)
Worship worship jam/practice
preaching leadership training
healing prayer, staff for student prayer ministry
training, team praying for a student
talking to students re: parents talking to leader re: Bible
study members

Multiplicative Ministry

Contrast multiplicative and additive ministry:

Additive Ministry	Multiplicative Ministry
Preaching to a crowd. The leader	Training a few leaders. The leader
focuses on the needs of the weakest	focuses on developing the most
members.	faithful leaders.
Leading a Bible study. The leader	Leading a Bible study prep session
enjoys teaching.	for leaders. The leader hands over
teaching and empowers people to
lead.
Leading a prayer meeting. The leader	Helping a person lead their first
stays at the spiritual center of the	prayer meeting. The leader is
group.	willing to get out of the way.
Leading worship. The leader looks	Gathering a team of worship leaders
for opportunities to use his/her	for a jam session to learn songs and
gifts.	styles. The leader looks for
opportunities for others to use and
develop their gifts.
Praying one-to-one for a small group	Leading a small group in concerted
member. The leader expects that	prayer for one of its members. The
his/her relationship with a member	leader looks for ways to help group
will be key.	members to develop trusting
relationships with one another.
Talking to a follower about	Talking to a leader about his/her
lifestyle issues. The leader uses	team members’ growth and
his/her insight to help others.	development. The leader tries to
help younger leaders develop insight
into the people they lead.
Serving people: the leader is	Calling people to commitment: the
special and available for anything.	people are capable and available to
try anything.
Everyone thinks, “I could never do	People think, “I think I’d like to
what he/she does.” Ministry is	try to do that.” Ministry is
daunting and distant.	accessible and attractive.

The Leader as Sower: Leadership Development

Begin with open discussion: What are the barriers to leadership development
in your fellowship?
. lack of time, lack of availability: junior year abroad
. lack of commitment; people have too many commitments
. lack of community: leadership doesn’t look attractive; the group doesn’t

engender loyalty or commitment to it
. burnout and the fear of burnout
. relational conflicts-people leaving leadership or not as effective because of conflict with other leaders
. lack of people-too many people, too few leaders: leaders become overworked.
. lack of training, short-term focus, crisis orientation. Getting to focus on leadership character and skills that yields long-term growth and development, not simply short-term solutions to problems.
. fear; lack of faith in God, that “God could work through me.”
. No sense of a body of material people need to learn; convictions people need to gain.
. Approval or achievement orientation in potential leader motivations-why is that a barrier? because if immediate status or approval is what is fundamentally driving the desire to be in leadership, then people won’t pay the costs of long-term and often unheralded servanthood which are necessary to offer true leadership.

Leadership development is not the same as leadership recruitment.
While we have a leadership recruitment mind set we will not have leadership
development or a growing leadership team. It is easy to fall into or back
into a leadership recruitment mentality.

Mindset	Leadership recruitment	Leadership development
The focus	Filling empty slots or	Investment in the people
supplying people for needed	involved, providing tools,
roles	training, support, and
partnership.
Top	The task, the ministry, the	Leaders’ growth and
priority	program.	development.
People	The fringe at the expense of	The core for the sake of the
focus	the core. If newcomers are	fringe. While vitally
having a good time, then the	concerned about the
costs leaders pay are all	experience of newcomers,
worthwhile.	unwilling to sacrifice the
support and development of
the leaders.
Evidence	”We really need you.” “You	People want to be leaders;
haven’t served as _ in	they hear about the
a while.” Guilt,	experiences of previous
manipulation, getting people	leaders and want to
to do what they don’t want	experience leadership for
to do. People do a year of	themselves, not to achieve
ministry leadership then	status but to grow. People
want out. When people even	get into leadership and don’t
think of ministry, they get	want to leave. People fall in
tired.	love with ministry.
Recruitmen	Lower the net so everyone	Ask for big commitments and
t strategy	can get over: make	make it worth their while.
requirements for leadership	Take the people who’ll make
as low and as flexible as	those commitments and give
possible. Use extrinsic	everything you can to them to
rewards or threats: “You	make their experience strong.
cannot be a leader if you	Intrinsic rewards of
don’t go to this retreat.”	leadership and commitment are
stressed.
Result	uses leaders ? burnout	serves leaders ? growth

. Leadership development is based on the premise that leadership should be

good for the leader, not essentially a sacrifice or a duty. We don’t say to someone, “You’ve received for a while, now it is time to give something back.” (And we don’t allow people to become leaders because of that motivation.) Rather, we invite people to receive even more-joy, life, growth-by giving and serving as they learn more about leadership in the Kingdom of God. We also don’t say, “We really need you.” (God doesn’t, and we don’t). Rather, we want people to desire for themselves the kind of experience leadership offers to them. Leadership recruitment uses leaders. ? burnout Leadership development serves leaders ? growth

. Staff’s job: fundamentally, to make sure that people who enter into

partnership with you have a good year, regardless of the short-term fruit in the lives of the younger students. (Not that we don’t care about fruit. We care about leaders for the sake of the fruit.) Any ministry (whether of staff or students) that is running at the expense of leaders (staff or students) is not in the long-run serving anyone, and will ultimately undermine people’s confidence in the goodness of God. “I’d rather have three people not decide to be leaders and regret it later than to have one person decide to be a leader and resent it later.” That is different from saying that people who are in leadership should always stay. Sometimes what God does for people in leadership is raise issues which then need to be addressed by leaving leadership: motivation issues, fear, approval, etc. . As an area director, I am more committed to staff than to chapters. For the sake of the ministry. . I am more committed to leaders than to SGs or to fellowship members. For the sake of the group. . Any ministry that is running at the expense of the minister is not serving anyone. It is modeling that God uses people, that ministry is not life-giving, and that leadership is ultimately costly. all false.
. That also is not to say that we are risk-averse in leadership selection. A student’s motivation is key: we will take risks on people who want to be leaders (when there our instincts tell us they are worth the risk) but we will not try to talk people into taking a role of leadership in order to fill slots.
. We are not fundamentally selling something-rather we are inviting people into a process that will change their lives and grow their faith. Our hope is that people fall in love with loving God and loving people, so much so that they want others to join them in the enterprise and never stop.
. One implication of our commitment that leadership is good for the leader: we are more committed to partnership than coverage. A leadership development strategy places six leaders leading three small groups in pairs rather than having six small groups each led by an individual, even if it seems that there is a need for six small groups! A leadership recruitment strategy says, “We need to find more leaders to cover all the leadership roles.” A leadership development strategy says, “We need to give the few leaders we have the best experience possible, which means some slots may be left unfilled.” Then we will see the number of leaders grow to the point that we have enough to handle all the people God has brought to us.
. Leadership Development yields a knowledge of spiritual gifts- it does not depend on people knowing their gifts to begin with. (And it is extremely difficult for college students to have a good working knowledge of their own spiritual gifts.) For example, we begin with interests: worship team, prayer team, SG leadership, outreach team. Then we begin to discern gifts. A SG leader may have pastor-teacher gifts, or apostolic/ missionary gifts (working with frosh or in a new area of campus), or service/helps or mercy. An outreach team member may have evangelistic gifts, or may have more apostolic/missionary gifts. A prayer team member may have gifts in intercession, prophecy, physical/emotional healing, etc. We begin with interests (and a sense of basic aptitude), add experience and then discern gifting. This is, in fact, one of the ways we help people to enjoy their leadership experience-they learn more about their own gifts by working in the context of teams.
. Leadership development addresses the heart: it gives people an experience of loving God and loving people such that they fall in love. with ministry itself. They become, not experts, but lovers. Not professionals (seminary can produce professionals) but “amateurs” (from the latin, amator, lover). Once people fall in love with ministry, their lives will be indelibly imprinted with this love, which they will carry with them into whatever career or path they choose.

Leadership development involves leadership training.
It is impossible to have effective leadership development without
leadership training.
. If you could only have one kind of training, which would you have:

leadership training before someone becomes a leader (with no ongoing training) or ongoing training with no training prior to their entrance into leadership? Which of the two would you pick if you could only do one? On-the-job (OTJ) training is crucial to leadership development.
. Why is OTJ training so important? Because we want people to have an experience of leadership that develops them, in which they feel they are learning all the time, that the more they do it the more they learn. If we rely on training that happens only at Chapter Camp, then usually after one or at most two semesters people feel that they have learned all they are going to learn, and so they are tempted to drop out of leadership. Once people in your fellowship join leadership, do they stay in leadership until they graduate? If not, it is often because they feel they are no longer learning or growing as a leader.
. We don’t train people so we’ll have leaders, rather we bring them into leadership so we can train them. Training is what we’re up to. We want people in leadership for a long time (2-3 years). It takes that long and longer to make a good leader, and ultimately to fall in love with loving God and loving people. This should be our goal.
. We focus in leadership training on both character and skills. Definition of leadership role in IV group: Leadership role = task role + influence role We train for both the task role (SG leadership, prayer team, worship prep, outreach skills, etc.) and the influence role (listening skills, servant leadership, shepherding, etc.). Separating the components allows for 1) people who take on task roles but who aren’t leaders because they have no influence role in the group (on-ramps for new people in the group, etc), and 2) the reality that people can contribute with widely divergent gifts for task roles but they still must take initiative in relationships (influence role) in order to be considered leaders. So prayer team members can be leaders, if they see themselves as taking an influence role in the lives of some members of the fellowship (perhaps their small group, their prayer group, or a few people new to the prayer team).
. Implication: we focus most of our training, and for all leaders, on the influence role portion of leadership. Otherwise, it might be possible for people to feel that they are doing their job as SGLs if they simply remember to prep the passage each week and come with snack to the SG meeting.
. We want each person in leadership to have such a strong experience that once they enter leadership they never want to leave it. Fundamentally leaders need to know that they are not alone. So we want each person to experience: . teamwork and partnership: relationships with other peers who are working with them . training and supervision: each leader has a leader of leaders caring for and developing them

Leadership development involves calling for commitment.
Leaders don’t have more time, they just spend it differently. But as their
commitment grows, so does the value of the experience. Ask for 5
hours/week, and you will get it from a few people, but not for more than a
year. Perhaps counter-intuitively, ask for 20 hours/week from people, and
make it worth their while, and they will keep coming back for more.
. “make it worth their while”: i.e., don’t ask them for arbitrarily large

amounts of time, but just the amount of time it would reasonably take to live out the commitments you are making to one another and to the fellowship, to their small groups or ministry teams, etc.
. How do we communicate the value of OTJ leadership training? By making it high-density. . Focus on scripture, make the LT time in scripture meaty. . Spend a lot of time preparing for LT meetings-take them seriously. Make the time great! (Temptation to spend lots of one-to-one time with students, which is very immediately rewarding, over spending time on the computer preparing a LT session. Yet one powerful LT time can be much more influential than several two-hour one-to-ones, and it can also set up more of those influential two-hour conversations.) . Interactive learning-Scripture study, case studies, small & large groups, presentation and discussion. People are learning from scripture, from their own experience, from one another, and from the trainer. . For example, leadership training shouldn’t essentially be “sharing.” Sharing is important, and has its place in a fellowship, but not as the basis of a LT core. Sharing in a LT time is more like the squad captains reporting back to their field commanders how effective the tactics they have been trying to implement have been. It should be focused around the training topics and pointed, representative not exhaustive (hearing from a few, not expecting to hear from everyone every week). Mission oriented, vision-minded sharing. For example, we might share creative ideas we have tried, resources we’ve brought in, social events that worked, etc. But not sharing about tests, family problems, etc. That happens at other times. . I focus on this because if we got a handful of students together and said, “What should we do for our leadership team meetings?” Most of them would probably say, “I hope we can really support one another. I’d like to emphasize sharing.” If we focus on support, then we won’t end up doing much for which we need support. If we blow the trumpet and call people to costly commitment, then when we need support, it’ll be there.
. It is a myth that students don’t have time for 20-hour/week fellowship commitments. Anyone on the crew or football teams or the newspaper can disprove that myth instantly.
. People who are always worried about burnout are more likely to burn out. If your fellowship has a history of burning out its key leaders then something is wrong with your leadership development strategy. Ministry with Jesus, at his pace, with partnership and training, doesn’t produce burnout. We don’t have to fear ministry if we aren’t doing it alone and our partners are looking out for us.
. This underlines the importance of a multi-year leadership development strategy. What is optional for leaders now may be expected next year and will be a prerequisite for leadership in two years. For example, Chapter Camp, Mark Study, 2+ evangelism, training conferences, etc.
. You cannot get Biblical leadership without modeling it. Mosaic vs. Aaronic leadership. We need to be intentional, authentic, risk-taking, willing to go forward with the few who will go. Don’t lower the net so everyone can get over it-but make it worthwhile for each one who is willing to do it!

Exec and Student initiative:
. We must find ways to give the ministry, its direction and substantial

leadership, to students in such a way that their failure or success is material to the overall strength of the group.
. It can be tempting to want to help students learn only from success, but when we were students we learned from failure.
. This will be a moving target; never become complacent.
. Definition of exec = the team of leaders of leaders. When you have students who lead student leaders (either in partnership with staff or with other students), then you have an exec. Don’t call the team of five leaders of your small fellowship the exec, they are simply the LT. Don’t call your exec an administrative team—hopefully your key decisions are being made by pastors, who are in touch with the pastoral concerns of your leadership team, and not simply by pencil-pushing bureaucrats.
. Implication: don’t pick frosh for exec, or even sophs. People need to be served before they are asked to be leaders, and they need to lead before they are asked to lead (and serve) leaders.

Leadership Development and Culture Change:
If you are not where you’d like to be, don’t move there by making new
requirements of leaders. Don’t be in a hurry—it will just alienate
current leaders. Instead, make higher commitment optional this year—and
reward it highly with your own time, investment, prayers. For example,
offer a Mark Study or a prep session for leaders who would like help with
their Bible study prep. Not required, just an opportunity. But don’t lower
the net so everyone can play—making it optional every week, encouraging a
lack of commitment. Rather, ask for a commitment from the people who are
inclined to take advantage of the opportunity, and then make your
commitment to them that the teaching will be strong and the experience
together great! As the year winds on, their experience of Mark or the prep
session will be so positive that they will help recruit others to it next
year. By then, it will be recommended or slightly expected; the following
year, required; and the year after that: a pre-requisite. For example, LT
meetings, BS prep sessions, Mark Study, summer missions experiences, etc.
Invite people into higher commitment, make it good, and the experience will
sell itself.

The Gravitational Pull Model of Fellowship Growth:
The more gravity a fellowship has, the more able it is to deeply impact the
lives of its folks.
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Gravity is built by growing in one or more of the following ways: 1)
quantity of leaders, 2) personal maturity of leaders, 3) skill and
experience of leaders, and 4) commitment of leaders. Fellowships will grow
if the gravity of a fellowship is growing, up to a point. I personally
believe that other forces become significant when fellowships grow beyond a
certain ambient upper limit. At that point, it may be best to split,
differentiate (segment the target market), and continue to grow.

Structures for leadership development:
. Bible study prep sessions for all the Bible study leaders
. Bible study leader teams, at least in pairs with experienced-novice

pairing
. leadership training time weekly for all leaders, focusing on the relational influence dynamics of leadership
. Mark study on campus for new students (pre-leaders) and new leaders
. Global project teams, Florida Evangelism Project (FLEP), Urban projects
. Worship teams, prayer teams, outreach teams (each with a training component)
. Pre-leadership training sessions open to any who are interested.
. Investigative Bible Study leadership, dorm talks or other evangelistic risk-taking.