Dr. Grant C.

Richison

INTRODUCTION

1. Most commonly missed leadership skill.

Most pastor’s don’t know how to deputize believers for ministry, get reports from them, give them
feedback and reaffirm their vision so that they can keep their ministries effective, motivated and
contributing to the whole.

2. Three characteristics: Leaders and Power

1) a key group of strong leaders.

2) a set of strategic objectives these leaders have accomplished and are accomplishing

3) a good match between lay leadership and staff

Kennon Callahan, 12 Keys to an Effective Church, 41

3. Leaders and achievement:

1) Leaders, not Enablers

“The time for leaders has come, the time for enablers has passed. In the churched culture of the 1950s, it
was possible for the church to focus on developing enablers. In the unchurched culture of the 1980s it is
decisively important that the church focus on developing leaders.” 41

Dysfunctional leadership–enablers–“the reactive, responsive, process-centered style of leadership present

in many local congregations contributes significantly to those congregations being declining or dying
congregations.” 42

“It is appropriate to focus both on process and on responsive considerations in any style of leadership. At
the same time, it is decisive that leaders lead the congregation forward toward the thoughtful
accomplishment and achievement of substantive objectives. That means that leaders are active as well
as responsive. That means that leaders share their own sense of direction and vision as well as simply
enabling others to share theirs.” 42

2) Complementary strengths: supportive, analytical, discerning, relational.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 2

______________________________________________________________________

3) Quality of objectives:
– written

– strong ownership

– specific and measurable

– realistic time horizons

– concrete " achievable

– mutually reinforce one another in a complementary fashion

– few in number

4) Accomplishments, not Activities

The more activities a congregation has, the less likely it is to have strong leadership resources.

“There is some relationship between activities and accomplishments. This appropriate and limited
relationship has to do with whether the activities move toward accomplishments. Too many
churches plan, sponsor, and promote activities that have no direct correlation with any of the
objectivesand accomplishments toward which they are strategically headed. Activities should never been
seen as ends in themselves. Activities are those critical events that advance toward the accomplishment
of strategic objectives.” 43

5) Combination of competency of leadership skills and continuity of those skills–substantive

leadership resources.

Primary focus: Not commitment but on competency, then compassion and then commitment. NB

Too many churches focus on who’s committed as they think about who they want to ask to serve in major
leadership positions. It is more important to focus on who will be competent and compassionate and to
some degree commitment.

Furthermore, churches rotate their leadership too frequently to achieve strong continuity of competent
leaders. Myth–leaders want to rotate off from leadership positions at the end of three years. No
responsible institution does this in any other field.

6) Ratio of 1 to 15 people in the congregation. Rule of thumb.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 3

______________________________________________________________________

7) Strong pastoral and staff leadership.

Major planning, policy, personnel, program and financial objectives and decisions that shape the future.
The pastor and staff who concentrate and focus on details lack strong leadership skills. It is the pastor
who focuses on major objectives and major decisions having to do with the congregation’s strategic
priorities that will make it possible to develop strong leadership.

8) Recognition and reward.

Positive reinforcement–the more negative reinforcement, the weaker the leadership.

9) Directions for development.

4. Directions for development

1) Balance between mission and leaders.

2) Discover the number of leaders in a congregation and then build a program and mission.

3) Match the competencies of the key leaders with solid responsibility and authority.

4) Look for key characteristics in people that indicate their competence and capacity to solid leaders.

5. Leadership is INFLUENCE, NOT TITLES.

A person who thinks he is leading but no one is following is only taking a walk.

A. HAVE INTEGRITY

B. LOVE TO WORK

C. MAKE A HIGHER LEVEL OF COMMITMENT

D. SERVE OTHERS

Mt 20:26–this is an attitude.

6. Leadership can be learned through fellowship.

cf Paul and his associates.

7. The quality of your leadership is largely determined by your philosophy of life.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 4

______________________________________________________________________

8. cf Staffing patterns for churches of various sizes, C. George

Multiple Staff Church

I. INFRASTRUCTURE AND LEADERSHIP

A. META-CHURCH INFRASTRUCTURE
1. Staff who sponsors and sustains a cell philosophy can take a larger responsibility for all leadership
training without the system suffering from compartmentalization (99). cf Future, George, ch 9.

-major time investment into KL by staff.

-belief that leadership of cell is most strategic role in the church.

-pastoring is more important than teaching in a cell.

2. Key Leader (coach to cell leaders " their associates) is responsible for the leaders of 10 (cell).

-KL’s provide long-range stability.

-oversees 5 groups.

-itinerates regularly from group to group, not directing any meetings except in extraordinary
circumstances.

-more manageable responsibility for pastoring (caring).

-associate cell leader is future cell leader.

-responsibility for multiplication of cell leaders.

cf. STEPHEN MINISTRIES, Kenneth Haugk, St. Louis, Mo.

But, operates on a para-clergy model. Therefore, most effect when it trains small group leaders.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 5

______________________________________________________________________

3. A DECENTRALIZED APPELLATE SYSTEM (121)

Ex 18:13-23,37–decentralized the meeting out of justice to the lowest level possible.

-regularized the nation

-redundancy of organization–no where in the structure does the span of control exceed a ratio of one to
ten.

-cf JETHRO II chart, p. 123

X=over 10 people

L=over 5 cell leaders

C=leader of 100 (larger churches)

+congregation size (100) groups

+e.g.=adult Bible fellowships, departmental assemblies, single’s ministries, senior adult programs.
D=responsible for up to 10 L’s (full-time staff) and 5 C’s.

The D can supervise more than 10 if the following assumptions are in place:

-D spends 30-40 hours a week in visitation.

-the D must have stable C’s so that D-C supervisory meetings can be collective ones for planning
purposes.

-most of the L’s oversee nurture groups; the more task forces with varying agendas represented, the fewer
L’s one person can supervise.

-the D must have clerical assistance and, if possible, a lay understudy (Da).

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 6

______________________________________________________________________

C’s and L’s run on separate accountability tracks, lest they compete with one another. They interact in
only 2 ways:

a. See each other at leadership meetings, which involves all D’s, C’s, L’s, X’s, and sometimes
apprentices.

b. The C’s allow their congregation-size groups to serve as “fishing pools” for the L’s and X’s with
their apprentices to meet and recruit potential cell-group members. The C’s plan specific times of
acquaintances-facilitating foursomes so that X’s and apprentices can have opportunities to build new
relationships.

Retain as many extra group leaders as possible. The more trained leadership present, the more a church
can grow. Historically, for every Sunday-school teacher or small-group leader commissioned, a church’s
attendance average increased by 7 to 10.

Therefore, each D, C, L, and X will want to develop an apprentice. Da, Ca, La, Xa.

4. KEY TO THE ARCHITECTURE OF CARE: LISTENING.

People don’t feel cared for until someone has heard them. Feel valued.

No one can listen to a hundred voices with a quality listening. In fact, 10 is too great a number for
someone to nurture. Therefore, the importance of Xa. cf charts 10,11 (127)

We need to unlink traditional roles from metacell nurture (the elder board which governs the church)
and lay ministry (people who facilitate one-another caring). By doing so, the pool of potential caregivers
will remain as large as possible. Otherwise, as soon as an organizational system correlates titles (pastor,
elder, deacon) with cell-group leadership, a lot of God-given talent will go unused. (chart 12).

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 7

_____________________________________________________________________
5. DEVELOPING THE LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY

People can’t be lectured into leadership. Leadership formation cannot occur without on-the-
job coaching by someone to whom the leadership trainee is willing to be responsible.

Three functions need to occur (the VHS MEETING):

Twice-a month gathering of D’s, Da’s, C’s, Ca’s L’s, La’s, X’s, and Xa’s for a three-fold purpose:

1. Vision

Brief time of worship; get a handle on where they are headed. Help people to know that they are the
primary care people in that church for those people. Remind them that they have fully permission to be
fully used of God.

2. Huddle

3. Skill

II. CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADERSHIP THAT GOD USES

A. GOD USES A PERSON WITH A DREAM/VISION.

-If we do not have a goal, that is a goal by default

1. Nothing happens until someone starts dreaming

2. A church never outgrows the vision of the leaders

3. You cannot delegate primary vision

-The person over the organization must set the goals

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 8

______________________________________________________________________

4. Goals are statements of faith.

-Question: “What would I attempt for God if I could not fail?”

-Big thinking attracts big thinkers.

-Qualifications:

1) How long a person stays in a ministry

2) How many people in ministry area

3) Spiritual gifts

-Two common mistakes in goal setting:

1) Set goals too low

2) Try to reach them too fast

-we over estimate what we can do in one year

-we under estimate what we can do in twenty years

5. The differences between winners and losers is attitude

6. We make a mistake when we compare ourselves with others.

Gal. 6:4

-Two trends:

+Always someone doing a better job–we get discouraged

+Always someone doing a worse job–we get proud

B. GOD USES A PERSON WHO IS WILLING TO RISK FAILURE

1. Three types of people:

a. Risk taker

b. Caretaker

c. Undertaker

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 9

______________________________________________________________________

2. Fear of failure debilitates

-Prov 29:25

-failure is not failing to reach a goal but failing to set a goal

3. Goals are based on what you believe God can do, not what you can do.

-Four words on tombstone: “At least he tried”

4. Key: get God’s total vision for your situation.

1) What. God’s vision of what he intends to do.

2) How. God’s way is usually totally different from our ways.

3) Why. The timing. God’s timing is perfect.

-Don’t pray: Bless what I am doing

-Instead pray: Help me to do what you are blessing.

-Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb–because that is where the fruit is.

C. GOD USES THE PERSON WHO EXPECTS THE CHURCH TO GROW.

–Mt 9:29–You get to choose how much God will bless you.

-Never let an impossible situation to intimidate you.

-Today’s impossible situation are just tomorrow’s opportunities.

-Expect people to help you.

Great people are ready to help us in the right way at the right time. Ps 37:5.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 10

______________________________________________________________________

D. GOD USES THE PERSON WHO NEVER GIVES UP.

1. Persistence.

-Oak tree is a little nut that refuses the give ground.

-Failure is never final until you give up.

-Jerry Falwell–“You do not determine a man’s greatness by his wealth, gift, etc, but by what it takes to
discourage him.

2. Great people are ordinary people with an extraordinary sense of

determination. Persistence is another word for faith.

E. GOALS/DREAMS AND PRIDE

1. How do we have big dreams without a big head?

-God judges pride quicker than anything.

1) We will be criticized unjustly.

-Only way not to be criticized: do nothing, be nothing, say nothing.

-They never make statutes to critics!

-Within the criticism look for the ground of truth

2) Problems will come into your ministry that can only be solved by prayer. God will force us to depend
upon Him.

3) We will make stupid mistakes.

-Just because we are God’s men doesn’t make us perfect.

4) God has given us a dream that is so big that we are bound to fail if we do it by ourselves.

-Most churches can be explained away by a balanced budget " a standard SS, nothing supernatural is
happening.

-Is it harder for God to humble us or motivate us?

-What are we expecting God to do in our ministries?

-We are the biggest bottleneck for God to work in a big way!!

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 11

______________________________________________________________________

III. THE KEY LEADER IN RELATION TO AN ORGANISM

A. THE LEADER IN AN ORGANISM

The Key Leader must:

1. Conform to emerging ideals of the organism.

2. Have creative programs to meet needs.

3 Minister to the body.

4. Place leadership under him according to gifts.

5. Exercise life by activities.

B. ELEMENTS OF A CHURCH ORGANISM

1. VALUES

– Values are unseen but DETERMINE what you do.

– Powerfully influence the COMPATIBILITY of people and groups.

– Determine the ideas, principles and concepts a person or a group can accept, assimilate, remember and
transmit WITHOUT DISTORT-ION.

2. PRIORITIES

– Grow out of values

– More visible than values

– Erected to give VISIBLE FORM TO VALUES

(worship, fellowship, minister, train, send)

3. PRACTICES

– Rest on priorities

– Skills, attitudes, activities, which keep the church growing.

– Individual skills but a corporate effect.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 12

______________________________________________________________________

4. PERSONNEL

– Those who labor in the superstructure are:

bounded by the values,

supported by the priorities,

sustained by the practices.

-Not all adapt to the superstructure–they need to be oriented to thevalues , priorities and practices of the
church.

II Tim 2:2

Faithful men who are able

5. PROGRAMS

– Designed to accomplish something specific in relation to the whole.

– Not permanent fixtures.

– The point where values, priorities and practices BECOME VISIBLE.

– The point where we TOUCH OTHERS

– An indication of what is TRULY BELIEVED

– Limited by the degree to which important practices have become

PART OF THE LIVES of people.

– Must change as CONDITIONS CHANGE.

– Need to move toward GIFT-BASED programming.

– PROBLEM: moving into skills without change in KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 13

______________________________________________________________________

IV. RECRUITMENT OF KEY LEADERS

1. IDENTIFY LEADERSHIP–select; Mk 1:16-17

They must be:

a. Philosophically attuned.

b. Positive volition to minister

c. Godly and mature.

d. Natural leaders.

e. Gifted for leadership.

f. Initiative with organizing and direction abilities.

g. Motivated or willing to be motivated.

h. Emotionally stable.

i. Faithful.

j. Available.

k. Teachable.

l. Industry.

m. Innovative.

n. Productive.

o. Like-minded.

p. Be able to interact with a ministry team.

q. Nearing the height of his potential–seasoning.

r. Steward.

s. Committed to the Word.

t. Camaraderie.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 14

______________________________________________________________________

We must:

a. Note the level of leadership in relation to their potential.

Good leadership always breeds leadership. The effective xn administrator has the task of assessing and
recording how well each worker performs his present position and what kind of ability he demonstrates
for other more difficult tasks.

b. Look at their qualifications and personality strengths.

An effective leader must start with what a man can do rather than what the job requires.

c. Know them enough to see their desires (what they like to do and are comfortable with).

d. Distinguish between genuineness and opportunism.

e. Build GENUINE RELATIONSHIP with them: communicate, play and pray together.

f. Gain THEIR TRUST.

g. Draw out LATENT leadership abilities.

h. Be aware that certain people naturally lead only certain types/groups of people.

i. Motivate people to follow a particular type of leader.

Effective identification of leaders:

1) Focus your time and energy to equip current leaders and develop future leaders.

Gordon MacDonald’s 4 kinds of people:

a) VIP= very important people (current leaders)

b) VTP= very teachable people (future leaders)

c) VNP= very nice people

d) VDP= very draining people

(many pastors spend the majority of time with

these; they cry the loudest)

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 15

______________________________________________________________________

2) Select and recruit people with leadership potential.

3) Agree on areas for training and development.

Map out a plan for growth.

4) Recognize the dynamics of an effective training process.

People learn in a mosaic pattern, according to felt needs, not in a linear manner.

The traditional training sequence: orient, involve, equip is wrong! People learn in the context of doing.

Training is a four-step process:

-I do, you watch (observation and model

-I do, you help (limited participation)

-You do, I help (assist, evaluate)

-You do, I watch (fully trained, encourage)

5) Schedule regular appointments for ongoing reporting, encouragement, and accountability.

Assignment, assistance, accountability and applause

2. Let people know:

a) the VISION we have,

b) the GOALS we want to reach,

Human beings perform more effectively if they know what is expected of them. If a person can see a
tangible, achievable and challenging goal, he is more likely to reach it.

Without objectives, activities have little meaning. Objectives give direction and purpose. MBO
(management by objectives) determines which activities should be performed and provide criteria for
evaluating how well they are being implemented.

There are two ways to formulate objectives:

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 16

______________________________________________________________________

1) TOP DOWN PROCESS

This originates at the decision-making level. It then trickles down through the total church structure.
This begins with the staff then moves down to MIDDLE LEVEL LEADERS. They in turn in each area
of service determine specific objectives for their areas within the confines of the broader general
objectives set for the total church by top level leaders. Finally, SERVICE LEVEL LEADERS AND
WORKERS determine activity–oriented objectives for each phase of their organization. These objectives
should further the accomplishment of the specific objectives outlined by middle level leaders within the
framework of objectives determined by top level leaders.

2) BASE-UP PROCESS

For this base-up process to benefit the total church, workers at the bottom must be totally aware of the
organized structure and purpose of each area of service. Mass confusion and branching out may
result. When used properly it involves all levels of works in the ministry.

PRINCIPLES INFLUENCING OBJECTIVES:

1) ACCEPTABILITY

If an objective is not acceptable, an atmosphere for developing team spirit, mutual supportiveness, and
trust are not likely to occur. Instead, suspicion and resentment tend to increase as people fight the
objective. We cannot simply tell someone to do something and expect full-level achievement.

2) ATTAINABILITY

An objective must be attainable within a reasonable period of time. By setting measurable goals, it is
possible to determine when and to what degree the objective was achieved. There should be a realistic
balance between the attainable and stretching to attain more. Objectives that are too simple or too
difficult are often discouraging. Feedback is important here.

3) MOTIVATION

Objectives must be compatible with the interests of the indivi-dual as well as the needs of the
organization. It is important that the individual establish personal goals within the main objective.

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 17

______________________________________________________________________

4) MEASURABILITY

The principle of measurability builds in a sense of accountabil-ity.

5) SIMPLICITY

Simplicity increases the possibility of its effectiveness. Packaging is important here. EG=signal caller
rather than a ball carrier–he needs to know where the goal line is.

6) COMMUNICATION
Progress and problems with an objective must be communicated on a continual basis to all concerned
with its achievement.

c) The PLANS to achieve them.

Our people need to be familiar with the NEED to be met and the JOB to be filled (" how).

3. TRAIN IN REAL LIFE SITUATIONS, Mk. 2-3.

The disciples LIVED with Jesus=relationships

We need to develop a REAL LIFE INSTITUTE as a whole in EACH DEPARTME-NT.

Three means:

a. FORMAL training–classroom and formal in-service training.

b. INFORMAL experiential training–FEEDBACK as they minister.

c. MODELLING– observation.

GOAL–informed, articulate and skilled in task.

Key leaders need an ACCURATE PICTURE of the task;

– Write out job definition and training requirements.

– Make clear the involvement and time commitment you expect

– Let them know the cost.

– Bring them GRADUALLY to a commitment.

People have a GREATER THIRST for training as the NEED ARISES (Learning climate).

Training Manual for Key Leaders Page 18

______________________________________________________________________

4. DEPLOY, Mk 10:1-15

This is to STATION THEM SYSTEMATICALLY (extended front)

-administration and placement to carry out the goal.

-their gifts for the goal should be clear.

-this takes discernment.

a. Let them OBSERVE you and then get FEEDBACK as to what they observed (or observe another
key leader). MODEL
b. Let them DO IT WITH YOU (bonding between staff and key leader).

c. Let them DO IT WHILE YOU WATCH.

d. LEAVE THEM–DELEGATE AUTHORITY.

5. MONITOR (supervise), Lk 10-20. (encourage and retrain)

a. CONTINUE to get feedback

b. Give EVALUATION.

c. CLARIFY, STATE AND RESTATE what is expected of them

d. Show or tell them why THEY ARE IMPORTANT TO THE MINISTRY- --(nurture).

-Affirm

-Show them how they fit into the larger scheme of things.

-They need to feel part of the team.