Training Lay Pastors - Lesson 3

Any growing organization needs growing leadership. A growing church has to have growing leadership. If the church grows faster than its capacity to to have leadership oversee, it becomes a cancerous tumor that's out of out of whack. Right. A church has to have healthy leadership that's growing, multiplied where people are being shepherded, being disciple, being cared for and challenged in a personal way. Otherwise it becomes a worship gathering or becomes an event. And it seems to be a church. One thing I've always tried to stress is we want to be healthy church, she said. I will build my church. She's building this church, not us. We're called to be to lead a healthy church. When we create healthy systems for people to flourish in their faith. And we lead, I believe, with courage and boldness, people power. But in your leadership capacity, your ability to lead in your ability to grow your ministry is dependent upon your ability to multiply leadership. And so I challenge you. You should always be learning from some others. And this great like what we're doing today. But you should have two or three guys that you're pouring your life into, that you are not being as leaders and are preparing to do what you do. The great thing is when you when you prepare people to do what you're currently doing, you work yourself out of a job and we work from our job. It frees you up to do what God's called you next door to you, just about people. And there's nothing better in the church in developing people and watching people flourish in their faith and grow from where they were to where God wants to take them too. So three tips I want to give you on leadership modification.

I mean, before I say, I would say do it. Just do it. Just do it is do it. Don't do anything alone. Years ago, I was teaching that I was I at Phenix Seminary for a class and I took various with me as class over in Chandler, Tempe. It was night class and at the end of the class the professor asked me, he said, You know, you brought some with you. Whose access? Terry said, Are you there? Junior high pastor at that time? And he said, Why did you bring with? And I said, Well, I had an hour drive over an hour drive back. TAPIA It would be great time to spend with them and the morning. And then they asked me, this guy finally said, Can we ask him any questions? So then the class got to ask him questions about my leadership, which was challenging because one of the guys asked, What's Greg's greatest strength? And Jerry said he can remember every mistake you ever make and bring it up in the most embarrassing time. So is awesome. But you know, most guys would drive over to Tempe by himself, do the class, come back? That was 4 hours of solid time. We had appointed Arius. You know who I believe in and is a strong leader. So anything you do, you can develop people along the way. I coached my football team. You know, I'm just assistant coaches. I have a bunch of guys that I'm developing in our church and leadership. Some of them come to Christ and I coach them through coaching and I developed them through the ways we respond to kids and where you respond to life and you talk to them. Everything I do, I try to try to hang out with other people trying to do life together.

And I would just challenge you, keep pushing yourself on a leadership level. Lori and I were talking on this. We have great pastor friends, pastors. My kids were friends, but our closest friendships are people in our church, and that's uncommon for pastors. Our closest friendships are a lot of them are people We led to Christ in our community and people that have grown in their faith under our leadership. And I believe that keeps my ED sharp. He keeps me in it constantly, has me developing other people. It's great going out, guys, at the same level you're at other pastor, but that's not as challenging as being with people who are looking. You saying, How do I go to the next level? How do I grow here? And that? And I love that. So I challenge you. Whatever you, however you do it, develop leaders, develop these around and grow people to do because our church is growth capacity or ministry. Growth path is limited by the amount of leadership we're developing. So number one, invite others into the journey. And I'm going to look at the model of Christ to invite others into the journey. Matthew four and so many other places come following me. Jesus said, and I will make you fishers of men. In essence, you said, Come drop everything, come follow me. I'm gonna teach you to do what I currently do. That's what the simple assembly learns to do. What the rabbi is, is called, are doing. And so you're asking people to come follow you and to do what you're currently doing. Not to do that. You go. You want to let them do some of the stuff. A lot of leaders mainstay said, I enjoy leadership so much, I'll invite people to come with me, but only let them do the stuff.

And I'm like, All right, and then I'll keep stuff and I like myself. And when they tell you, you've got to free up opportunities for people to do what you do, you've got to invite them into the journey. I want to. I love teaching. That's before you. It's one of my favorite roles of Church and The Apprentice people. I love leading church. I love teaching. But for us to be effective, the church about three years, our rules, we need a strong team. So I started giving up a lot more opportunities. And it's hard because there's always people like, Oh, pastor, you should teach this week, Oh, you know, my hands come in this week and you'll no, Christ, you need to be there, you know, you know those pressure. But what do we do? We have a teaching team of 60 guys not that strong and we don't drop a beat when anyone and anyone's on stage. And I love that in our church responding. But we have to be willing to let go of the leadership capacity that you have to let people develop. So whatever you're doing, don't just give them the job. Don't just give them the stuff you don't like doing. You know, if you're going develop leaders, let them share in the success, give them the best stuff you do. Let them to be a part of the great stuff that you get to do and be a part of it. Secondly, share the story. Be honest with them along the way. Share the full story is probably what I would say the best. When you invite people like the temptation of us as leaders is to keep our image clean. Right? We don't want talk about struggles. We don't talk about, you know, weaknesses or even like injury.

We don't talk about faults, mistakes, and we give people a false view of what we do right. It looks perfect and glamorous from the outside in a lot of ways because we only let them see the successes or this that, you know, I kind of joke if you follow a pastor's Twitters on Sunday, it's beautiful because everybody had an up Sunday, everybody had a thousand celebrations and everybody's pumped about next week. Right. I wish pastors would tweet on Monday when the truth comes out. Right. You know, the attendance was down and I didn't feel well. My message was a bomb. And you know all that, you know, we we love to protect our image. If you're going to invite people into discipleship, if you're gonna develop leaders, you've got to invite them into your life and you got to let them be around your, you know, your family. You've got to let them be around your house when there's a mess, you know, you got to let them in your life. You've got to share with them your struggles and your weaknesses. You've got to be honest with them and real, because otherwise they won't learn how to deal with those things in their own life. So invite people into the full story. We looked at this passage a couple weeks ago in Party chapter 16. From then on, Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for Him to go to Jerusalem and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, leading priests and teachers of religious law. He would be killed. But on the third day he'd be raised up from the dead. That's the tough stuff. That doesn't build a great team. They come, come with me, come die with me.

It's not a great sales point, you know, to build a strong team. Right? And Peter, we look at Peter, but Peter took him aside and he interrupted many saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said, This will never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get away from me, Satan. You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God. Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways. Take up your cross and follow me. Do you still disciples? Do you know what I'm calling you to? Is a life of sacrifice. What I'm calling you to is the life ultimately of death. I'm calling you to give it all. But there's a greater reason that because we're going to build the Kingdom of God, that you've all been promised for thousands of years that you've been looking for, I am the Messiah. Come back to me now. We're calling for them signs. We're following Christ. We're called them by other people in the journey to make disciples right. You said, Go and make disciples, Jesus didn't say, "Go and build a large crowd." I think that's where a lot of church go wrong today they're trying to build a large crowd. Jesus, didn't care of about numbers. He'll take care of growth. We're called to make disciples. So as we invite people in the journey of life, we go to help them in an appropriate level. Maybe for them that's beginning to read the Bible, Maybe for them it's getting into serving some people around you. It's beginning to do what you currently do, and I would challenge you identify two or three leaders, potential leaders that you can say, I want you to do like I want to meet with you every week for lunch.

I want to coach and I do I want to share life with you and share to my struggles, my hurts, my fears. I want to do life here and glean from you what you have to offer. And you help them learn. They'll be able to do what you currently do, but you've got to share the full story. I encourage you don't don't try to shield people from the truth in your life. You know, again, not want to broadcast everything. You know, last night had a loss for, you know, whatever. I mean, you know, it's time, you know, you got you've got to be personal, but you've got to sit in a room with some guys and say, you know, this what I'm struggling with right now, this is what I'm doing Well, and this is where I'm hurting in, you know, a lot. And we don't want to burden people or we don't want people to think less of us. Think about it here, thought less of somebody because they admitted something to you. It was a weakness. There's I never have said, wow, that's courageous of you to hear it. And as you watch somebody deal with it, you get to glean from them. It's one of rings Lori and I decided to be very public about my illness was your temptation was not to bring it out because, you know, my best friends told me, no, man, if you bring it up, people are going to leave your church or you think you're not going to last, you know, and all that. And then maybe, I don't know, but ultimately decided I want to help people see how I deal with what the worst the world has to offer and I and help people grow in their faith from it.

I want to help people, you know, be encourage interfaith, strengthen and prepare people to deal with whatever they might deal with in life. And so we decided to go public with it. And I think that's the benefit of being an open, authentic church, is that it creates help, it creates strength, it creates a prayer base, and it creates a greater desire for people, disciple, be disciple. So share the full story with people around you. Share the stuff side of ministry. You know, if all you share is the glamor of ministry, you know, our numbers were up and so many people got saved and this is growing and all this. Everybody wants to be a part of that. If you truly want disciples, you've got to say, tonight we're going to go down the hospital, we're going to visit, you know, a three year old who's doing something or we're going to go to the we're going to go to the Teenage Recovery Center radio, some teenagers who are in drug rehab. You know, we're going to go visit a family that's losing their home this tomorrow. And she lives in her home. We're going to go pray with them. That's not fun. None of those are fun, but they're stuff that we're called to do. If you're a pastor, if you're if you're a leader in the church. And so don't shield people from the church, go take people with the honors. I tried never to do a hospital visit, loan and try never do a funeral loan and try never do a wedding alone. I try to give all those opportunities to teach people how I deal with this. The basic stuff of ministry, but share the pulls in, equips them in, and encourage them to do what you're currently doing.

Share the glory. Share the glory. If you're going to share the story. Share the glory. Matthew 1618. Peter had this huge reprimand. I'm guessing when Peter left, that conversation instead was between his legs. I'm guessing he felt pretty low about himself, right? But Matthew 16, verse 18, You see this? I tell you that you are Peter and this rock of my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. These paper, I believe in you. I believe in you. I believe in you. And if you're going to if you're going to develop leadership, you're going to accept that you've got to believe in people around you and you've got to speak life and helping them. You've got to believe in them enough to say, you can do this. You can do what I'm currently doing. I'm going to give you the opportunity to and give you accountability. I'm going to coach you through it. We're going to examine the strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, you can do this. And one day I'm going to I'm going to hand the keys to this man, Charity. I'm going to put you in this position. And when people know you believe in them and they'll give their life to what you call them you've asked them to do to give everything they got because you believe in them and you're going to give them the full story. You're giving the full story and you're going to show that share the full glory. And one temptation in ministry is to take all the glory for ourselves. You know, I say, Well, look, we did the Atlas celebrate together, but, you know, I want to be the guy to deliver it. I want to be the guy who gets the focus.

We've got we want to share the glory with other people in the ministry, because when when people sense that they have a stake of the success and they're getting celebrated for it, they'll give you greater input. You really will. And so you've got to share the full story and you've got to share the full glory. But ultimately about leadership mode creation tell you it's doing life together. We talk about time. We still like to say, I invite you into my life. If you're good, develop leaders, have them in your house, do stuff with them. Whatever you do in ministry, invite somebody along. I mean, if you're going to the hospital, first of all, why go along things carpool lane? Okay. So certainly, you know, you teach somebody how to do it. And, you know, people a lot of guys, you know, who want to do what you do, they're scared of some stuff you deal with, whether it's hospitals, whether it's praying with a family who's driving loads, sitting with the couple who struggle in their marriage, whatever. You do all those tough stuff every week, teach somebody else how to deal with it. And you strengthen the church and you strengthen the church, strengthen the body as the body strength it grows. And because it's healthy. And so I challenge you whatever wherever you're doing currently, invite people in the process, identify two or three guys Agree. I don't see the two or three potentially around me to start to pray. God, show me the leaders. I was talking with our worship team recently said, You know, we need more talent, especially going on, so we need more time. I said, Have you guys prayed for it? They said, We've got auditions. We put the ball down with the nurses.

And Have you prayed for it? I mean, have you prayed to God? Who's any more talented? You know, you said that the labors are few, you know, just pray for more laborers in this area. You know, let's ask God to be the solution to the problem that we have to bring the solution. And so I challenge you, pray God, I need to disciple some guys and I want you to say, well, there's no doubt we're called to make disciples so you know that you want to do. If you're not currently having those people in your path, start to pray and start to look up and say, Who around me could do what I do? Who has that? Who has that passion with a vision, who has that character, who can develop along the way but just do it? Our churches help our churches strengthen our churches. Growth depends upon us continuing to make disciples. Got it. Any questions? I actually have one. Just on that note. Some of the strongest leaders in my area are women. Mm hmm. And so from a business standpoint, obviously, that's not the direction we're going. Right. So what's your advice on that? As you as you pray and you start to see the people that are stepping up are to women? Yeah. How do you handle that? You just discount that. You continue the incursion. I don't think you can discount it because this is women leadership, too. Right. And I mean, first of all, the boundaries are good. We all have them. I So you just got. Yes, it was done on not be with women alone, you know, not just that. And then, you know, and then, you know, so so you build healthy systems to work within if you're going to have you know, if you've got a couple of people inside, you meet with them all together, you know.

And I think and I don't think you can discount it. I don't think you can run from it. I think that's, again, going back to our character. Our character has to be strong enough to stay on whatever, because if your character is in strong signal, custom tailor something for you, you know, I mean, you know, so so I would say you not that don't sweat it, but but you've had this position person and you've got to be willing to to deal with what God has let college students lead the church. So that makes sense. Yeah, I would say just to find ways to do it in group or in, you know, at least with a couple of people there. So. I think one of the things that you talk about that I know made a big difference to me personally. We spent a lot of time together as we were, you know, as you were developing me. And I think about some of the things we did. You know, we went to Wal-Mart, we went to the city, were at the DMV. Some of these things that were at none of those are things that were necessarily development. You know, that was the point when it was just time together to say, I'm I'm going I'm on my way to do this, come along and join me. And there's a lot of things that are probably caught in those interactions that help that when you're in the formal one, it's the first time you're telling somebody to come do something as they come to this wedding with me. That's great and there's things to learn. But it's that time and that investment, investment in between that really brings the relationship to the point that when you are mentoring them in a more formal setting, it has a bigger impact.

So that's meant a lot to me. I thank you for that. I know you take it out on a lot of people that way, but it shouldn't be understated in that because really doing life together, it's the whole thing is that's a great example. Bill goes and says 1994 five So my dear Bill, I actually didn't. It's crazy because I was trying to figure out how to put a trailer light on a trailer, which I had no clue. Bill had no clue, but his friend invited him and I invited Builder to join our our youth team. And then we started doing life together. So that's true. I mean, the best time just driving in a car, going to Walmart. This is life, you know. But why do life long life long is boring, you know? So invite people into the process and just do life together. Can you you know, you can coach people anywhere They watch how you those people, they watch how you deal with situations. You watch how you drive, which is bad for me. But you know, the watch everything about what you do and they glean from that. You know, the greatest impact on my life has been my father in law in terms of reception format. And I remember the time when I first discovered that it's happening in my life. I was dating Laurie and we were at a wedding and Lori, guys pastor, pastor of a large megachurch and had been in ministry for at that point 45 years and also said, look over and he's got a garbage bag is going table to table collecting garbage off the tables. He's a pastor doing what he needed cleaning up after the wedding. I have people there. That's his last night.

I refer to the wedding Herschel dinner for my niece. End of dinner. Guess who's got a garbage bag going, Table to table. And you're going from that? You're going from people's lives. I didn't remember servants heart. And and I opened the doors to me, learning so much more from him. But that service heart center. And you would never see that in a formal setting. You see it in a doing life together. So you all have we all have two or three that you're thinking of travels to the people you're putting your phone to. I challenge you. If not, make that your priority. Start people our priority. How can I get both? Kevin K Kevin Cake. You can see there, you can see. Come here. There we go. All right. How do you find guys that you can invite in that journey with you that can grow in process with? You know, when you look at well, things I love about the Buckeye camps, the idea of multi-site, I've been a slow adapter. And so my friends make fun of you, my pastor friends, because, you know, pretty much out of the top 100 fastest growing, largest churches, which are a part of we're one of the very, very few that's not doing what I say yet. Is that what you've been praying about? I've been wondering, is it healthy, you know, in this last long term and does it work? Absolutely. I mean, it's it's obvious it's working in church all across America. And my questions were, what is it, healthy long term and too, is it right for us to do and pray that through And God finally brought us to. The one thing I learned from a lot of churches is they tell me that when they go multi-site, their level of giving per person, you know, number of people going and their level of serving skyrocket up.

Because also it's so much more about the vision because, you know, Buckeye camps, I'm pregnant teacher, you know, ten, 20% of time. So people choose that church they're choosing it based on they're going to get to pal around with me or be my buddy, right? They marry me to meet me. They're choosing it because they believe in the vision of the church. And so church primary church is not, as I say, the campuses where the pastors not mostly present are healthier and stronger than the campuses is where he is. Very interesting. Just, you know, the idea and focus on the vision and the leadership modification. Great deacons work. I'm all say we have a leadership lead right now. You know, like so many pastors within the lobby, there's only so many, you know, ministry leaders for children, which are also and we open up a whole new avenue for more people to develop and more leaders to develop. You know, I've been through I think one thing I'm going to do with teaching, Kim, is we're going have weekends where we have live teachers of both camps, is why more, more people get to teach, more people get the opportunity to teach, to involve more teachers. So it is greater multiplication of leadership. And I think if leadership is key, which it is, what a great opportunity to multiply and to develop more leader. So then I pray is because that father we love you got thanks for entrusting us to lead in your church, God, your body, your bride, and we want to be faithful in that guide. So I think for these guys have taken time today to learn to be sharp. And guys, we all go together. Our pages make us more effective in leading your church.

God help us be authentic. Help us be real. Help us to walk in righteousness in your path. God help us then to pour out into the lives of people around us. God and I pray you give us laser focus on the vision you have for us reaching lost people in our commune with the love and help of Christ. We think today in Jesus name, Amen.