Is your church producing volunteers or leaders?

In many churches I have been involved in, leaders have already upped and left. They’re not there anymore.

Not that they all physically drift.

Many are still sitting there, week after week. But in their heads they’re gone.

They were looking for challenge, for something worth giving their lives to. But they've concluded that they won’t find it in the church. 

So they settle into being a volunteer, giving their creativity, passion and drive to something else – like their job, or football team, or hobbies.

Volunteers or leaders?

Why is this happening? Is it because deep down as church leaders what we REALLY want is volunteers who execute our own vision and keep the church machine running? To lead home-groups? To head up a new project that the elders have decided would be a good idea?

When people stop behaving like volunteers it gets risky. ‘They might try something and fail’ we can say. Or, 'They have too many ideas'. Or, 'They're too difficult to manage'. We may even feel threatened by their potential.

Grow and release leaders

In a recent article Mike Breen said this: ‘A volunteer is someone who executes someone else’s vision. A leader is someone with a vision of his or her own’

So the challenge is: are we raising volunteers, or leaders? Do we squash creativity and vision from our congregations, or do we identify, equip and release them as leaders to their missional frontline?

Of course, a centralized vision is powerful, and is by no means wrong. My church's vision is big, exciting, faith-stretching. We are seeking to:

GROW so that we can effectively
EQUIP and release disciple leaders to lead in the cracks of society that God has placed them in order to
IMPACT our culture for the sake of Christ

We are in this together. We are committed to pray, give and serve in order to see this vision come to fruition. And yet it allows the freedom and permission for leaders to grow and be released. We can do this by being…

…a leader who is first and foremost a disciple …

Real leaders don’t demand that volunteers follow them. They don’t have to. Leadership isn’t taught but caught. Instead they live as disciples and through their integrity demonstrate a life worthy of imitating. Just like Jesus did.

…who releases ‘un-lead’ leaders…

Real leaders teach people to stop looking to them to tell them what to do. Of course, we teach submission to authority, an essential part of being a leader. This is not a call for loose cannons. But the overall vision of the church needs to be able to accommodate people who have passion and vision which is tested and agreed on being from God.

…equipping them for their frontlines…

Real leaders equip people for works of service where they spend their time. The city will be impacted when ordinary Christians in the cracks of society live out their faith rather than tying them up in the church building with a vision they are not passionate about in the first place.

…giving them permission to try (and maybe fail)

Real leaders believe we’re not doing something worthwhile if it doesn’t involve risk.  And yet risk-aversion (or being overly British) means that we prevent people from getting anywhere near failure.

I am convinced that the church should be at the forefront of releasing creative, gospel-obsessed, passionate leaders who are given permission to try - and even better - to try and fail and then go again.

My failures

This year my family has been given space to ‘risk’ starting a missional community. We’ve gone for it. By many standards we have ‘failed’. Am I glad we went for it? You bet I am. It’s now no longer theory. I have grown. My pride has been punctured (because when we started this was the RIGHT way to do things!). Now I’m tasting it, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to risk time, reputation and finance to see the Kingdom advance.

So will we be leaders who manage risk, constrain people to be part of OUR vision and develop obedient volunteers? And in so doing, find leaders are long gone?

Or will they be gone because they have been commissioned to risk outside the church’s four walls?

Will we ask leaders questions to see them become society-impacting, disciple-multiplying leaders?

Questions like these:

What is God saying to you?

What are you going to do about it?

How can we pray for you, resource you and encourage you in your God-given vision?

What do you think? Is this something you can relate to?