developing leaders Archives - Passion for Planting

Two Questions Every Pastor Should be Asking

Sean Cronin — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 10:00:00 +0000

By Impact Discipleship Ministries: I have been the senior pastor of a local church for over thirty years. Many times in the last thirty years, I have had to “reset” my life and ministry. When I am in need of a reset, I always ask myself two questions. First, what am I called to do? Second, how well am I doing at accomplishing what I’m called to do? These two questions help me to recalibrate my life and help me get back to what I really need to be doing.

Seminary helped prepare me for ministry in several important ways. It increased my theological understanding, it helped me in my preaching, and it better prepared me to provide pastoral care. It did not do a very good job of teaching me how to lead the church to be a disciple making church. That is a major problem, especially when the mission of the Church is to help Christians make disciples of all nations.

The job of every pastor is to preach and provide pastoral care, but it is also the pastor’s job to lead the church to accomplish Jesus’ mission. If I preach outstanding messages and provide great pastoral care but fail to lead my church to be a disciple making church, I have not done my job.

Some would say seminary does not do a good job of teaching pastors leadership. I would take that a step farther and say that seminaries don’t do a very good job of teaching pastors disciple making leadership.

Three decades of ministry have taught me some things seminary never did. It has taught me the six priorities of a disciple making pastor. These six things are not automatic, they must be learned. All six of them are found in the life of Christ and therefore should be found in every pastor. Let’s take a look at the six things every pastor ought to be able to do.

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Lead the church toward mission!

The number one leadership tsk of the pastor is to point the church toward the mission of making disciples of all nations. By doing so, the pastor’s job is to get everyone going in the right direction and the same direction.

Lead themselves first!

Before a pastor every leads anyone else to multiply disciples, that pastor must first be modeling being and building disciples. That pastor must be doing exactly what is asked of everyone else in the congregation.

Lead the church to execute the mission!

Knowing and pointing toward mission is not enough. The pastor must know how to execute the strategy that accomplishes the mission. The pastor must be able to lead the church to help untrained seekers become fully trained disciples.

Lead leaders!

A church cannot become a movement of multiplying disciples unless the pastor can become a leader of leaders. If the pastor cannot lead leader the church will remain a movement of edition and never become a movement of multiplication.

Lead with a plan!

If pastors do not tell their lives where to go, someone else will. Many pastors are not making disciples because they do not have a plan for how to live their lives. Making disciples will not happen by accident. You must have a plan for how to lead the church and you must work your plan.

Lead well!

Leading well is not the same thing as finishing well, although it includes it. Leading well brings with it the idea of thriving and flourishing until the end. It means leaving behind a legacy of disciples who are making more disciples. Leading well means having a “much fruit” life.

Impact Discipleship Ministries provides equipping groups for pastors who want to become disciple making pastors. In seven online sessions, you will learn the priorities of what it means to be a disciple making pastor.

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Succeeding in Church Planting

Sean Cronin — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Home > Blog > Succeeding in Church Planting

January 20, 2021

Succeeding in Church Planting

By New Churches Team

Setting Your Priorities

Most church planters are not successful because they lead the opposite of Jesus. In the Gospels, we see Jesus often trying to get away from large groups of people. He would actively seek out smaller groups of leaders. Church planters, on the other hand, often try to get away from leaders to instead be with the crowd. As a church planter, it is important for you to prioritize your time so that you are spending it in ways that provide the highest kingdom return on investment.

Jesus didn’t make himself available to everyone all the time. He was intentional about developing a few, leading himself, and nurturing himself then he made himself available to the masses. There is an order to that sequence, and church planters should apply it to their own calendars. If you don’t plan your day and week, your week and day will plan you. So be proactive in setting your priorities and planning your calendar around them. You should be initiating ministry, not reacting to ministry.

Create Process-Oriented Goals

You should set process-oriented goals. Those are habit-oriented goals. The great thing about process-oriented goals is that you can feel successful regardless of what the scoreboard is doing, if you are being faithful to the process. Live according to your priorities, maximize your time, and do things with excellence. The numbers may ebb and flow, but as long as you are being faithful to the process, you will find success. If you are doing your part of the process, you can leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.

Raising Up Leaders

When raising up leaders, you need to always look at the four Cs. We get in trouble when we overemphasize one of these at the neglect of the others. You must evaluate your leaders in all four areas.

Character – Are they coachable? How do they respond to being told no?

To read the remainder of the article, and to watch the full video, click here.

This video is part of Plus Membership. To get full access to it, and much more, I encourage you to become a Plus Member. Click here to see all the benefits of becoming a Plus Member.

Source: Succeeding in Church Planting

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Building Vision and Culture

Sean Cronin — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:00:39 +0000

Home > Blog > Building Vision and Culture

August 19, 2020

Building Vision and Culture

By New Churches Team

“Vision and culture are the things that build capacity and cause us to achieve the things that God has put in our hearts to do,” explains Chris Railey, lead pastor of Oaks Church in Dallas and former national director of the Church Multiplication Network.

There are two kinds of vision. There is vision that we sit back and applaud. Then there is the vision in which we choose to participate. This vision is more heartfelt and better communicated because we can find our place in it. Our goal as leaders should be to cast vision that people can find their place in. In Church Unique by Will Mancini, he explains that when it comes to vision, you have to discover, design, and deliver. We can be really good at discovering and designing, but not so great at delivering. And it’s in the delivery that we help people find their place and their role.

Engaging in Limiting Circumstances

Railey shares that he has relied on gatherings and events of all kinds in his leadership life as a place to build culture. Now, coming back into pastoral ministry and during this COVID season, he never imagined what this transition would have looked like. Church attendance was already a struggle. They were trying to figure out how to engage people who only attended once a month. They went from being a church of 4,000 in regular attendance to under 1,000 after reopening for a few weeks. But Railey encourages that we now have a unique opportunity for trial and error and experimentation in our churches. You aren’t going to hurt your attendance if you try new things. This is a chance to try things that you might not have tried before.

For example, Railey is making a change to his church’s preaching style. He has long felt that people want expository preaching to anchor hearts in the word of God, but that hasn’t been the style of preaching at this church. Railey decided to go ahead and make the change. They are launching a 30-week series preaching through the Book of John.

Railey is also providing a daily devotional which walks through books of the Bible and people are engaging online. He explains that first he had to begin by teaching and developing church staff around this idea. He also set up a teaching team to develop young communicators. The idea is that as he shapes culture on the staff that will shape culture in the church and anchor them in God’s Word. Railey admits it may not work, and they may have to rethink it. But this is an opportunity to do new things at a low risk time and see what God does.

Developing Leaders

Don’t just execute Sundays. Develop people. This comes down to two things: time and place.

To read the remainder of the article, and to watch the full video, click here.
This video is part of Plus Membership. To get full access to it, and much more, I encourage you to become a Plus Member. Click here to see all the benefits of becoming a Plus Member.

Source: Building Vision and Culture

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