13 Are These All the Sons You Have?

Now, oftentimes there is a difference between leading ordinary sheep and leading leaders. Leaders can sometimes be difficult to lead. They have their own opinions. They have their own ways of doing things. They have their own ideas. They often need to be persuaded. That can often lead to us labeling them rebellious and unteachable.

But I think we've got to discern quite clearly between people who are rebellious and difficult and people who are just strong. We want strong leaders and we need to be identifying them. We need to be equipping them. And we need to be raising them up in order to release them.

If you know that with the size of your congregation, that you need three more elders, you should actually be looking to raise six or seven more elders. Because we always need an overcapacity of leaders. Because if we don't, we can't grow. The limit of growth is on our current leadership teams.

And so we always need to be setting up our leadership teams to prepare for growth. We need to identify, train, equip, raise and release leaders. We have heard the principle many times in Andrew's story. Of when he was about to join a church and the guy said, "I don't care who you are. I don't care how gifted you are. I don't care if you're Pope John Paul. You join the church like everybody else and make tea." There's a principle there that is valuable. When people join us saying, "What are you going to give me? What position, what ministry?"

No, we just want to get to know you, we want relationship. But unfortunately, I think sometimes we've turned that into a law and a rule. We've got people amongst us that can really contribute richly to who we are. And we have the potential to be killing them. Restricting them in a way that the Lord Jesus wouldn't have us do. So we have a principle, but the principle serves us. We don't serve the principle. Scripture says, "Hope deferred makes a heart sick" [Proverbs 13:12]. If there's somebody who's got a dream and a vision, and it's a God-given calling into some kind of ministry or leadership, and we keep them subdued and suppressed for too long, we can actually destroy that vision and kill that vision in people. We can say, "Let it die and if it's of God, He'll raise it up." But there's a godly way of letting something die, and there's a Saul way of killing something. And Saul tried to kill what was of God.

How to Identify Leaders by Looking for Life

So, how do we identify leaders? I think there's many ways and it depends on the individual and it depends on the gift and the context. But for me, the number one thing is this: where is the life? Look for signs of life. Where are things happening? Where are people contributing? When you notice that there's one person at the center of those things, generally what you're finding is a leader. Leaders are those who others are drawn to, others are influenced by and that others follow.

When we ordain elders, we're not suddenly giving somebody a leadership gift. We're recognizing a call and a gift on somebody. Yes, once you lay hands on somebody, I think it gives them a fresh anointing and a fresh gifting. But if somebody's not a leader, all the laying on of hands in the world is not going to work.

But that's the one thing I look for. Are things happening around this person? Now, of course, that's only possible if we're open-handed enough to let people do stuff in the first place. Maybe one of the reasons that we're not recognizing leaders is because we are holding too tightly to the reins, and people don't feel the freedom to step out and do stuff. If you give people freedom, you will find those that have life and those that follow the Holy Spirit. Also, you'll be able to see those who carry our values, and those who are playing team, and those who aren't.

Discipling Potential Leaders

And if people don't carry our values, if they're not playing team, if they have character deficiencies, that is not an eternal disqualification. It may be a temporary disqualification, or it may be something that they need adjusting in. Which brings me to the next point: how effective are we being, not just in identifying those guys, but discipling them? Speaking into their lives. Adjusting them. Equipping them and training them. Often I've heard, "Oh, so and so would be an elder, but he's got this thing in his life that disqualifies him."

My next question is, "So what have you done to help him overcome that?" Or are we just leaving people in isolation and hoping that they'll come to a point where they're qualified? It's our responsibility, just as it's my responsibility as a father to adjust my girls' attitudes and behaviors, to bring them into maturity and to bring them into fully functioning adulthood. So spiritually, as elders in the house, our responsibility is to take people, see the potential in them, and then adjust them, train them, speak to them, and encourage them so that they can become fully functional leaders in the household of God.

A great way to train and equip is to do training evenings, is to do equipping sessions. But also to pull them into your life so that they can see how you live and see how you do things. If you've got somebody who's a potential elder, communicate clearly.

There is nothing wrong with pulling them into the odd elders meeting to expose them to our values and our leadership style and how we do things. You'll also get a different sense of who they are as well. Of course, then we've talked about identifying, equipping, and raising leaders.

Raising Leaders Through Responsibility and Clear Expectations

And in raising them, give them increased responsibility. A wonderful principle of training is this: Let them watch what you do, then do it together, then you watch them do it, and then you release them. But be careful of managing expectations. Clearly communicate to people what your expectations are, what their expectations can be.

If you're inviting somebody into an eldership meeting just with the idea of giving them exposure, but they think that means they're going to be made an elder in a month's time, then the more time goes by without them being made an elder, the more difficult it's going to be.

The more potential for offence. And the more their heart may grow sick. So clearly communicate. But then when people are ready, it is very easy to ordain somebody as an elder or a deacon. It's very difficult to step them down or discipline them out of that.

And it causes many problems for the church. I believe that we need to take risks with people. We need to take risks with experience at times. With age, not necessarily with character, but there should be calculated risks. And there should be risks taken in conjunction with those that God has put amongst us that can really bring an apostolic perspective.

So the likes of Kim, Andrew, Will, and others of the elders who direct. Expose your leaders to these guys and expose these guys to them. So that we can help you to really identify the trajectory and the calling of each of these individuals.

One of the great privileges I had in the early days of JoshGen was sitting and hearing Andrew talk about leadership and why he made decisions and things like that. We don't all have the privilege of sitting down with Andrew these days. But we can all have the privilege of sitting down with elders who should be representing the heart and the values of Andrew well.

Samuel and Jesse: Looking for the Next King

When Samuel was told by God to find another king for Israel, He said, "Stop grieving over Saul. Stop looking at the past. I need you to go and look for a new king, a new leader." And when he went to the house of Jesse, we know the story, most of us.

Seven sons of Jesse paraded before him and they all looked like great leadership candidates. Because they're all big and strong, just like Saul. They were all like the previous choice. But he knew none of those were whom God chose. But it seemed like there was nobody else.

Until he was prompted to ask, "Is there another son?" And the other son was out in the field. We need to be asking the Lord to show us who the next leaders are. They won't always be the ones who look the best. They won't always be the ones parading in front of us.

They may not always be the ones who are most readily getting our attention. But I can guarantee this: God wants us to grow as a church. He wants us to grow in health, and He wants us to grow in numbers. So He has already added to us many gifts that are needed.

We just need to know where to find them. They're in our congregations, but we need to be actively looking. We need to be actively praying. And when we've found them, those rough diamonds in the ground, wherever they may be, we need to polish them hard until they become beautiful gems that are what the Lord wants them to be.

Multiplying Leaders Instead of Focusing on Problems

We can say we've grown quickly. We can say we've got COVID. We can say we live in a culture that's anti-leadership. We can have lots and lots of excuses for why we maybe don't have enough leaders at the moment. The truth is this, we can raise more leaders.

God has given them to us, if we simply apply the principle that Paul gave us. Which is this: Those things you've heard me saying. Those things you've seen me teach and see me do. Entrust them to reliable men who themselves will be qualified to teach others.

As elders, I think we can so often be caught spending all our time and energy on the bleating sheep, on the problems. The squeaky wheel gets the most attention. We need to deliberately and intentionally devote large portions of our time to the faithful men and women amongst us.

The potential leaders. To invest in them. If we invest in them and raise up leaders, we have a principle of multiplication, where more problems in the church will get dealt with because there will be more leaders to do it. By focusing on the problems, we are actually neglecting our potential leaders.

Let's reverse that. Let's be those men who can be faithful in raising every single individual into the fullness of their calling of the Lord Jesus Christ. Raising more leaders.