Empowering Leadership

Natural Church Development assesses a church in eight different quality characteristics. With this post, we will take a quick look at one of these characteristics – Empowering Leadership.

Effective leadership begins with an intimacy with God, a Christ-like character and a knowledge of God’s calling. A leader with this foundation, will experience greater success in identifying, equipping and empowering other leaders.

For leaders whose churches have this as one of their lower points, NCD offers the following starting points as a means of improving this area.

It begins with you..

• Discover your areas of giftedness and discern what areas you are not gifted in.
• Remember that empowering leaders are themselves dependent upon being empowered continually.
• Practice the art of delegating more tasks and sharing more of your ministry.
• Systematize your leadership development so that existing leaders are always raising up the next generation of leaders.

As a leader, being aware of your gift set will be a huge benefit to both you and your church. Knowing your gifts will help you identify your sweet spot(s). These are ministry areas where you will experience the greatest level of success based on how God wired you.

Once you have identified your sweet spot(s), you need to continually work on improving that area. Do the things necessary to become a better you: prayer, study the Word, study resources in your gift set, attend conferences, take a class, etc., etc. If you as a person are not growing, how can you expect those you lead to grow?

Now that you know where you are gifted and you have a growth plan in place, ask others to join you in the completion of this ministry who offer a different set of gifts than you do. You won’t be able to do everything. Enlist those who are good at things you are not. This will allow the church to grow and expand beyond your limitations.

And finally, work yourself out of a job. Give your team the permission (and you to) to find those who will carry the load after you are gone. Far too many good ministries have died because there was no one to carry on after the originators left. Do not let this happen to you! Be willing to ensure the continued success of what you do by finding those who will minister long after you are gone.

As a coach, these are areas I can come along side of you and assist with as you lead your ministry.