Acts 29

Every church plant has a lead guy.

And, in planting a church the lead guy quickly finds himself doing too
many things, most of which he is not skilled at and generally makes a
mess of. So, it is imperative for the planter to develop leaders before
he pursues masses of people. The selection of an inner circle of
trusted leaders and emerging leaders help to ensure that the church
does not continually bottleneck at the leader and thereby slow or
retard progress of the church and cripple the overworked
leader.

This inner circle of key leaders should be chosen by the planter for
their skill, trustworthiness, and loyalty. They should not be rushed
into official offices too quickly (i.e. deacons and elders) but instead
tested in their work and later approved for the office if they qualify.
In selecting these people you must be careful to avoid the selecting of
those imposters who intentionally or unintentionally appear like fellow
leaders.

Needy people disguise themselves as potential leaders by making
a lot of time available to the church and volunteering for every task.
However, their motives are often selfish as they serve to be noticed,
appreciated, validated and recognized. They also serve so that they can
be connected to other people and have their many relational needs met.
If you allow needy people to lead you will spend all of your time
mending their hurts and listening to their feelings and be sidetracked
from developing leaders who can shepherd people like them.

Insecure people disguise themselves as potential leaders by
seeking out friendships with the primary influencing leaders and
hanging close to the center of power. However, if you begin to push
them out of the center of influence in your church because you sense
that they are too easily wounded or serving because they like having
power, influence, and a title you will discover that they can quickly
turn their loyalties against you. If you allow an insecure person to
lead you will find that they are often emotionally unstable and
continually blame their failures on you and others. They will
continually speak to others about how busy they are and how much they
are doing so that they can garner attention from other people.

Nice people disguise themselves as leaders by having lots of
people like them and enjoy their company. Nice people rarely assert
themselves and are often nominated by others for positions of
influence. Nice people occasionally commit to service, but usually fail
to follow through on commitments and are not dependable. However, they
remain very nice and everyone loves them even though they do not do
anything of note. If you allow nice people to lead you will find
yourself spending lots of time having long and pleasant conversations
with them that never result in anything being accomplished.

Disgruntled people disguise themselves as potential key leaders
because they have lots of ideas and tremendous passion. They will tell
the planter how awful their last church experience was and why he is so
much more talented and wiser. However, their anger and gossip should
tip you off to their immaturity and you should expect that the knife
they put in the back of their last pastor will soon find its way into
your flesh.

Seasoned people disguise themselves as potential leaders by
talking about all of their experience and success over many years of
ministry. However, this can be a serious detriment to your work because
if they are not humble and teachable they think they know exactly what
to do and begin to impose all of their ministry philosophy and ideology
upon your new church. If you allow proud seasoned people to lead you
will dislike what they create and how they train emerging leaders and
likely have to deconstruct and rebuild their work that will waste a lot
of time and energy for you and them.

Church kids (meaning people who were raised in a church and
actually really enjoyed it) disguise themselves as potential leaders by
talking about how much they love God, love church, and want to be used.
They will likely tell you that they want to work in your church plant
because they want to be used by God and reach lost people for Christ.
However, if they have failed to do anything significant to that point
in their many years of opportunity you can safely assume that they are
not leaders. If you allow a church kid to lead you will likely spend a
great deal of time trying to convince them that your vision is tenable
and that because the high has quickly worn off they need to keep going
and not return to the safe and comfortable church life that they left.
After a while you grow weary and so will they, and they will either
return to their safe church life or simply sit in your pew and treat
your church like the one they left.

Dreamers disguise themselves as leaders by continually
speculating about an idealistic church with lots of passion, big words,
and convincing rhetoric. However, they tend to live in the world of
dreamy ideas and rarely have the discipline and courage to do anything
concrete with those ideas. If you allow a dreamer to lead you will
spend lots of time meeting with them and listening to them speak to you
about all the things other people should do while you grow frustrated
because you realize that they will never do any of those things
themselves.

Flaky people disguise themselves as leaders by continually
nominating themselves for a task and then failing to do it. They will
then appear repentant and sad, begging for another chance to do
something. If you give them another chance this pattern will continue
until you kill them, they leave, or Jesus returns. If you allow a flaky
person to lead (and you may be tempted to do this because you wrongly
believe that the responsibility will make them more committed and
dependable) you will continually find yourself checking up on them and
trying to pick up their messes at the last minute.

Wolves disguise themselves as leaders by carrying themselves
with confidence and expertise. However, they will naturally create
divisive alliances and cause people’s loyalties to shift to them. They
may do this by being overt and having lots of leaders to their home to
be won over, or they may do this covertly by dropping items of gossip
and undermining the leader’s authority and respect. If you allow a wolf
to lead you will split your church before it is healthy enough to
survive and you may find yourself out of work.

If I had it to do over again, I would pray for and actively seek
competent, mature, and loyal leaders in three areas to complement my
own. In every plant, there must be a leader/communicator
who can envision the future and lead others into it by clearly and
convincingly teaching from the Scriptures. This leader/communicator
often lives in the world of ideas and is a generalist who does not want
to run a particular area of ministry, but instead influence all areas
of ministry in a church. This leader/communicator also often enjoys
developing leaders more than counseling and shepherding people and is
primarily responsible for fundraising.

In addition, I would prayerfully seek an administrator
who can oversee the planning, implementing, managing, and reviewing of
the ministry philosophy and theology of the church. While the
leader/communicator envisions the future, the administrator envisions
the present and the steps necessary to walk into the future in such
practical areas as facilities, budgets, communication flow, technology,
volunteer coordination, organizational structure and the like.

I would also seek a worship/arts leader who could craft
experiences and oversee the worship service events. Since this person
is the second most visible person in the church they should have sound
theology, admirable character, and be fully devoted to the church
planter and his philosophy of ministry. The worship arts leader will
need some management skill to coordinate volunteers, musical skill to
develop new material and inspire fellow artists, and have an
understanding of technology such as projection, sound engineering and
the like.

I would also seek a shepherding/groups person to
coordinate the care and training of the people coming into the church.
Whereas the leader/communicator spends most of his time developing
leaders, the shepherding/groups leader should be developing and
nurturing the people who come into the church. Ideally, this position
would be filled by a husband and wife team who worked well in tandem
together on marital issues, and also separately with specific gender
related issues, particularly those of a sexual nature. This couple
would need to be tremendously mature, hold a confidence, be able to
emotionally withstand the demands of their position, and be able to
train others to teach Bible studies and counsel those in need.

The leader/communicator is then free to live in the world of
ideas, finances, leadership development, and vision.

The administrator is free to live in the world of details,
specifics, and planning.

The worship/arts leader is free to live in the world of
creativity and experience.

And, the shepherding/groups person is free to live in the world
of people and life transformation.

Ideally, under each of these leaders would then be developed emerging
leaders who could grow the church in wisdom, depth, influence, and
size, eventually creating the very elders and deacons qualified to
occupy their offices and carry the new work into a long and stable
future.