Last time I made the point that we consistently struggle to train leaders and develop disciples. My observation was that in my own denomination, there have been few systematic examples of intentional, coherent and effective discipleship processes.

What can we do about that?

At the outset I want to say there is no cookbook. What I mean is there’s no sure fire method of leadership and discipleship development that will work in every context. I am often surprised how quickly church leaders will look to one or the other model of something that is working well somewhere else, thinking they can just unscrew it from that local church context and bolt it on to their own. In so doing they ignore the factors of development in the original context, and they underestimate the unique developmental characteristics of their own local church. In reality, every local church is different, and will be best served by an approach that applies Scriptural emphases in their own specific context. Sure, we can learn from what others do, but nothing beats an approach that grows out of the local context, addresses local issues, works with local strengths, and which addresses local challenges.

Growing healthy churches and leading disciples toward maturity will be best advanced by a combination of thoughtfully applied programs pitched toward sound discipleship processes.

Here’s what we are prayerfully undertaking in 2014 to address the ‘program’ or ministry side of things at Gateway Community Church:

Leader & Elder Training

We’ll be doing some focused leader/elder training which will look at – amongst other things – the nature of biblical leadership (which is servanthood), the leader’s spirituality, the leader’s character, the leader’s faith and life, leading and teamwork. There will be extension units available which will address aspects of leadership specific to elders: pastoral visiting, pastoral skills, the call to eldership, elder qualifications.

As we progress through these units we’re hoping various leadership skills and passions will be unearthed among those who participate. The hope is that these training contexts will become a natural breeding ground for all kinds of leaders. The more we demystify the task and calling, and the more we prepare and equip people for ministry, the more depth we will have in our future leadership. Further, the more leaders we have, the more people we will have to train and develop others.

Preaching group

We want to start a preaching group. Ideally, this will develop people with preaching gifts or aspirations, giving them opportunity to discover what preaching is, and develop a few basic skills. This is not to compete with seminary training, but more to recognise the place of the local church in identifying gifts and equipping people for service.

The other advantage is that this group will provide participants with some responsible hermenuetic. Skills acquired will be useful for anyone who wants to lead a bible study, develop a talk, or even just read the Bible with greater understanding and benefit.

Mentoring

We want to develop a mentoring ministry where more experienced Christians lead others. While there are some basic processes and structure to be developed, they big deal is that people have another, their mentor, to pray for them, encourage them, and stimulate them to growth. The prayer is that mentoring contexts will be wonderful environments to stimulate growth in individual followers of Jesus.

Gospel and life

We want to encourage clarity around the core truths of the Christian faith, and we’re wanting our church to be united around those truths. We have already worked through Matt Chandler’s Explicit Gospel in our leadership. This year we’ll be asking all ministry leaders to work through this book. It’s the best book available to help people understand the broader cosmic implications of the gospel, as well as the individual implications, and how the two relate to one another. This book will also be a tremendous resource for mentors, developing leaders, and future elders.

Witnessing and sharing

Related to the above, how good would it be for people to be confident in simply sharing ‘the gospel’ without using typical Christian or ‘Churchian’ jargon. So, we also want to run a few seminars that will – we trust – develop these proficiencies in Christians.

We know this will not be a perfect raft of ministries. From time to time we’ll need to assess what we’re doing and see if it’s meeting our goals. We also know that even if all of these ministries work really well, they still might not lead people into growth, or the church toward health.

To do that, we need a tool that will help people work out where they are in their Christian development, and then move them on into growth. I’ll be writing about that in my next post.