There are 2 ways to get leaders for your church and ministry's Kingdom opportunities: (1) develop them or (2) discover them.
Wayne Smith, Director of Strategic Church Initiatives, shared this incredibly valuable insight in this talk at a recent Leadership Community for Generous Churches. Listen to the talk (or, download MP3 audio):
In this talk, Wayne describes how to discover and release Halftimers for Kingdom opportunities and what God may be calling them to do with their life experiences & success. These Halftimers are already in churches with extra capacity that can be coached and unleashed for a lot of good, both within the church, in the community, and the world. The full audio also includes an introduction from Chris Willard, the Leadership Community Director for Generous Churches.
Wayne shared these 2 drawings during the talk [simulated]. The first chart shows 5 groups of people with different levels of economic capacity, and the second chart shows the leadership gap between Kingdom opportunities and the people you can hire as staff.
Wayne is right that some of these ready-to-go leaders will not be found in a year-long leadership development program. There are probably people who are not yet discovered & released for the Kingdom sitting in your church, and the typical serving opportunities aren't engaging them to their full potential. They have so much to offer because of their life experiences, business skills, career success, and/or financial capacity.
So, who are the untapped people in your church with available capacity for Kingdom opportunities and ministry opportunities? What is stirring in their hearts that needs to be called out personally, in a way that an open call for volunteers will not connect effectively with them? What stories do you have to share where you've discovered them?
// DJ CHUANG, Leadership Community Director for Multi-Site Churches
Great post DJ! I'm guessing churches grossly underuse the talent w/in their own church.
Posted by: Mary Beth | January 25, 2010 at 12:52 PM