by unSeminary: Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Ben Cachiaras, lead pastor of Mountain Christian Church. Mountain Christian Church was founded back in 1824 and currently has four campuses in Maryland.

Ben is with us today to talk about how to foster thriving relationships between the elders and the senior staff at your church.

Theology of eldership. // The sad reality about many relationships between elders and senior church leaders is that they can be antagonistic. Navigating the challenges of this relationship are vitally important because the mission of the church is at stake, and so is the health of the pastor. Where does one begin in taking steps toward unity and strong, healthy relationships? First ask what is the theology of eldership at your church. Are the biblical descriptions checklists, or descriptions of the kind of elders you’re looking for? Why or why aren’t they important to your church?Ask important questions. // Mountain Christian Church has a high view of eldership. Among some of the qualities and characteristics they look at are: someone who has mission of the church at stake, someone who is a person of character and competency. Would they have chemistry with the other people on the team, and are they ready for the commitment? What does their stewardship and contribution at church look like? Lastly, do they have a Christ-centered home? Developing elders is part of the leadership pipeline at Mountain Christian; these individuals are already serving and demonstrating leadership and MCC seeks to help them rise to their next level.Develop a year-round process to find and create elders. // Some years ago Ben began this leadership pipeline process for elders by inviting some people to talk with him and two existing elders about developing their skills and leadership in the church. This led to a 13-week period of development where they met and studied scripture, holiness, character, and skills such as how to develop a team and cast vision. Now there is a booklet and curriculum developed to walk people through everything from their gifting and personality tests to spiritual disciplines and leadership skills. This leadership pipeline has become a great source for discovering future elders.Relationally connect. // Teams that are relationally connected lead better. The elders need to be in deep relationship with Christ and bring their strengths to the table. And Ben and his elder team care about each other and know what is going on in each other’s lives. When the elders are taking their walk with Christ seriously and their relationship with each other seriously, they can lead the church better. Meet regularly. // At Mountain Christian there are regular meetings to nurture these relationships. During monthly business meetings they examine high level metrics and trends at the church together. There are also monthly study meetings in which they talk about non-business things. This might include reading and discussing a book together as well as meeting over a meal at someone’s house and spending time in prayer. Lastly, go on offsite retreats annually. MCC uses this time not only to build camaraderie but also to prepare for new challenges. Sometimes it’s just the elders attending the retreats and other times their spouses come along too.Trust each other. // The role of elders is vitally important at a church. But in order for their role to be effective, there must be trust between the pastor and elders. Elders need an instinct not to control everything, but rather function at a higher level to protect the church. On the other side, if the lead pastor is defensive about questions he’s asked, that’s a big yellow flag. Create a culture that validates the relational component of eldership and makes time for it. When you have a team aligned, you’ll be able to lead well with vision.

You can learn more about Mountain Christian Church at mountaincc.org. Ben also has a blog at outofmymind.cc.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Article’s Sponsor: Risepointe

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Source: Insights into Thriving Relationships Between Elders & Senior Church Leaders with Ben Cachiaras

The post Insights into Thriving Relationships Between Elders & Senior Church Leaders with Ben Cachiaras appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Thanks for joining for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have Kadi Cole, who serves as a church consultant, with us today.

Kadi has served in full-time ministry for about 20 years and worked with her Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. During a period of intense church growth, Kadi was appointed to research multi-site in its early days and gathered the information needed to help her church launch their first campus. She now works to help churches with leadership development.

Kadi is with us today to talk about what she’s been learning regarding women leading in the church.

Stained glass ceiling. // A big challenge to think about regarding women or any minority in leadership roles is the stained glass ceiling. These are invisible barriers that are structural or cultural that women run into as they are trying to advance in leadership.Find the discrepancies. // One of the easiest steps to take is to look at how you are paying and giving titles to everyone on your team. There may be a lot of pay and title discrepancies in your church, without your realizing it. Consider a man and a woman who may have the same role targeted in slightly different ways. Are they being paid equally? Do they have the same titles with the same authority and weight in the church?Sticky floor. // The opposite of the glass ceiling is the “sticky floor” and a lot of women run into this problem. The sticky floor is when women hold themselves back because of internal mindsets and biases they have against their own gender based on things they can or cannot do or where they belong. You can do a real service to the women in your whole church body when you approach them and help them see themselves as leaders.Take two for development. // Kadi recommends to always take two people with you when working on mentoring or leadership development. Leadership development often includes meetings or traveling out together to places such as the hospital to visit with people. But instead of taking just one person with you on these trips, take two—a male and female, two males, two females. It prevents the being alone situation and gives more people the chance to learn leadership development. Develop female leaders. // Kadi’s book Developing Female Leaders: Navigate the Minefields and Release the Potential of Women in Your Church gives male pastors and leaders an inside look into how women are thinking and how they can leverage their great leadership potential in your church. Churches are 61% women, but leadership roles are less than 10% women. There is a lot that can be done to develop women that are leading in ministry and Kadi’s book provides tips for how to work on this in your church.

You can learn more about Kadi at her website www.KadiCole.com and learn more about the book at www.developingfemaleleadersbook.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Remodel Health

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Source: Developing Leaders (Regardless of Gender) at Your Church with Kadi Cole

The post Developing Leaders (Regardless of Gender) at Your Church with Kadi Cole appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Thanks for joining in for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Buddy Gosey, a campus pastor at Northridge Community Church.

Northridge is a young church, the first campus planted ten
years ago. Buddy is at the Gray campus in Gray, Tennessee, which was launched
in 2016. He is with us today to talk about developing potential young leaders
within the church.

Give opportunities. // Buddy became a leader at a young age and he did that by being faithful and willing to learn from other leaders. So many potential young leaders aren’t given opportunities to lead in the church. Millennials and Generation Z don’t want to be just spectators at church; they want use their gifts and abilities to make a difference in the world . Identify potential. // While some potential leaders will go off to bible college, many won’t, but they could still be potential leaders within the church. In Buddy’s own experience he says what he lacked in competency and experience, he made up for in practical knowledge of how to make disciples. He had learned how to invest deeply in people who don’t know the Lord as well as people who do know the Lord as he sought to bring out their gifts. As a result, the ability to make disciples is at the top of Buddy’s list when it comes to identifying potential young leaders.Buying into the mission. // In addition to examining who potential leaders are discipling and influencing, Buddy examines if they are bought fully into Northridge’s mission. Do they get the culture? Competency—which is often a focus in identifying leaders—is important, but can often be taught as a developing leaders shadows someone with more experience.Be humble. // If you’re not humble as a leader, you’re disqualified right at the start. Buddy is surrounded by leaders who have been doing it longer than him and better than him, and so he knew the importance of being teachable and humble. Buddy admits he was bad at delegating when he began his position at Northridge. He had to take a step back and take a look at everything he was doing to learn it correctly and allow other people to have a hand in it. You should work not just in your ministry, but on your ministry, taking advantage of opportunities to grow and improve.Be faithful. // Buddy wrote a book called Enough: Someday Starts Today. The book is written to help people understand that no matter what happens in the world, they are enough because God is enough. The focus of the book is to encourage that if God gives you the what then the why, the will, or the how should be developed and we should trust Him. We are loved enough, He is trustworthy enough, we are young enough, and God asks us to be faithful, nothing more and nothing less.

You can find out more about Buddy and his book at www.buddygosey.com. You can learn more about the church at www.northridgenetwork.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Lightning Round

Something You Wish They Taught //

Influential Book //

Downloadable Resource //

Contact //

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Radical Mentoring

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Source: Taking a Risk on Next Generation Leaders with Buddy Gosey

The post Taking a Risk on Next Generation Leaders with Buddy Gosey appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Rich Birch: Welcome back for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Pastor Phil Taylor with us this week. He is the executive pastor at Mosaic Church in Winter Garden, Florida.

Phil is with us today to talk about the elder development process at Mosaic and how you can implement it into your own church.

Two-year eldership development. // When Phil came to Mosaic five years ago, one of their biggest needs was leadership and eldership development and so they decided to build a two-year elder development program. Since a lot of the men who become elders are not formally trained at the seminary level, the process involves a lot of reading about theology, spiritual life, marriage, prayer, Church history and so on. The two-year process is broken into the first year being the book learning side and the second year the more practical side. During the first year the group meets every month, and the second year they meet every other month.
First 15 Focus. // Part of the training process is called the First 15 Focus. When the group meets, the first 15 minutes will be focused on something related to the life of the church. The hospitality director may come in and talk about why they do hospitality services they way the church does it. The youth director may come in and talk about the youth activities and areas the church has. It gives the men a thorough look and understanding of the church during their training time.
Pre-requisites before the requisites. // Phil explains that when it comes to elder selection, Mosaic does not pursue people to fill this role, but rather lets interested persons approach them. It’s important that the men who come forward feel called to serve in this role, rather than feeling pressured by a pastor to do so. Before men who come forward are even considered for the two-year development program though, there are certain pre-requisites that must be met. For example, an individual must have read the entire bible at least once in the last two years. This is an obstacle to a surprising number of people. Once all the pre-requisites are met, the two-year training begins. Not everyone makes it to the training program, and many don’t complete it. But those who do understand their responsibility as an elder and are committed to the role they are called to serve in.
Shepherd the people. // Mosaic has elders for life, but not all elders work the same way. Some elders are directional elders and others are shepherding elders. The directional elders have the bigger role of coming together to work on decisions for the church such as salaries for the executive team. But for all elders of any position the primary job is to actively shepherd the people of the church.
Let the program evolve over time. // At first, the trainees would receive all of the information at once at the very beginning—if someone said they were interested in being an elder, Phil would give them a file that contained the pre-requisite list, the application, the reading list, everything. But he found that gave the assumption that they were automatically accepted into the elder program without any additional consideration or work on their part. It works best to distribute content in parts and see how committed the men are along the way. Another important part of the process is to involve the wives. Include the wife in the interviews to help determine whether it really is the husband who wants to be an elder and not his wife pushing him into doing it. It’s very important there is vision alignment from both the husband and wife. There are also questions in the application process for the wife to answer.
Help for backstage pastors. // Phil kept getting asked for the papers on his elder process and then asked to meet with people to go over the process in more detail. He realized that there were a lot of books on being an elder, but no one was going into a lot of detail on the process of training an elder for their role. So he took his process and annotated it into a book that explains each step along the way. Eldership Development: From Application To Affirmation is the second book in the Backstage Pastor series, which are practical books for pastors who spend more time behind the scenes than they do on the stage.

You can learn more about Mosaic Church at their website www.thisismosaic.org or email Phil at philt@thisismosaic.org. You can find the Backstage Pastors series on Amazon.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! 

Lightning Round

Helpful Tech Tools // Enneagram test

Ministries Following // The Potter’s Inn in Colorado

Influential Book // The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World by Peter Scazzero

Inspiring Leader // Kevin Feige

What you do for fun // Kayaking, Running, Orlando Theme Parks

Contact // thisismosaic.org or email Phil

Source: Best Practices in Elder Selection & Development Process with Phil Taylor – unSeminary

The post Best Practices in Elder Selection & Development Process with Phil Taylor – unSeminary appeared first on Passion for Planting.