Developing Leaders in your Home Groups

Christian leadership is all about facilitating and having vision for the work that God is doing. For the church to move forward in God's work, their knowledge of what is going on in culture needs to be understood. Leaders must be able to maintain and spur the church on with the biblical mission, the biblical message, and the biblical means of communication.

To understand the art of leadership, it is imperative to understand yourself and God. You can only lead people as far as you have gone yourself with the Lord. Opening up the book of Philippians we see Paul write down the art of the Christian life. Like Paul, we too can bring people along with us as we understand and relate to God in deeper ways.

Through Paul's letter to the Philippians, we see Paul not let his circumstances dictate his mood. He allows God to put courage into him and accept the unacceptable. Paul demonstrates servant leadership, modeling Christ. He presses on and is obedient, leading to liberty. He shows us that if you want to be big, learn to be small. And that when we minister we must remember that we are dead to sin and to let God give us our throne.

Raising up leaders in the church started with the first church and is something we can do today. The members of the church are fully capable of becoming leaders. This is accomplished through discipleship and leadership promotion. There are seven conditions that help promote leadership: 1) setting vision; 2) insisting on Spirit-chosen people; 3) holding leaders in honor, accountability, and discipline; 4) replicating discipleship; 5) making the goal service; 6) having a clear pathway to leadership; 7) forming leaders into teams.

Through beautiful stories and examples comes encouragement to not waste the pain and suffering in our lives, but allow God to use it. It is through adversity that we have a choice to deepen our faith. Mary of Bethany is a woman who through her life gave her heart, home, and hurt to Jesus. \r\n

In raising up leaders, the goal is to not undernourish or overwhelm. This presentation walks through Xenos' adult education program both inside and outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, there is a Biblical emphasis on in-depth training for significant ministry roles and cultivating a love for the Word. Based on 2 Timothy 2:2, Xenos trains people who will be faithful to train and teach others, and these classes are agile in order to balance the demands of ministry while providing an equipping program that successfully prepares leaders. Outside the classroom, discipleship is the catalyst and format through which leaders teach and train believers on biblical literacy, personal ministry, and character growth.

Carl Westerlund from Calvary Chapel discusses the structure and focus of this church's leadership building. Carl describes the difference between servants and stewards, and emphasizes the responsibility that stewards or leaders of the church have. This requires strong character and integrity. In this church, there is a large focus on teaching throughout the week and sending people to build up their own churches, exercising authority there.

The Vineyard Model for equipping leaders focuses on several key areas. One of these is emphasizing well-rounded discipleship, approaching the need for compassion, evangelism, integrity, and so on in the disciple's life. Another large focus is on effective teaching and training at the in-depth level. The church trains members on actual pastoral experiences that will arise, not only academics. Along with this, members receive training within the local church, learning together in community and integrating both classroom and real-world experiences. This offers a more streamline equipping that is not disconnected from the local church or regular pastoral needs.

Part of the problem in our churches may be that we are not abundantly sowing. If we never go out and surround ourselves with people who do not know Christ, our evangelism may dry up and wither. We need to invade secular space, to shift the emphasis from gathering people inside the church to dispersing ourselves out into the city. There are two main avenues through which we can create these "Go-Groups," through recreation and volunteering. Provided here are different examples, potential failures, and needed actions to make these groups fruitful.

While the Bible gives some examples of gifted leaders, Christians do not have to have the gift of leadership in order to hold the office of leadership. In 1st and 2nd Timothy, Paul describes important character qualities and actions that must be present in those who lead, while omitting the necessity for gifting. Paul presents six key things for the office of leadership. These include: being an example of godly character, explaining and applying God's Word, exercising one's own gifting in the context of one's own group, shepherding one's flock with high support and high challenge, staying focused on the mission, and developing future leaders.

In order to look at the balance between ministry and day-to-day life, Patrice McCormac presents four principles about our view and use of time, starting with the fact that we are simply stewards of God's time. She also offers practical advice on balancing our time as well as reasons scheduling our time is important. It is inevitable that our schedules will get crazy sometimes, however we can prepare ourselves so that our spiritual health doesn't suffer when our lives get busy.

As a leader in the college ministry at Xenos, Jessica Lowery has a lot of experience training and raising up young leaders. Looking at Luke 10, Jessica points out several principles Jesus used in his own discipleship ministry. She discusses the importance of things like giving direction, casting vision, and setting goals. The session ends in a group discussion regarding issues specific to young people and ideas on how to help them wade through these issues.

God calls us to be generous with our resources, and leaders must often help develop the burden for financial generosity in the people they lead. This is done in love through prayer, helping people develop their own convictions based on what the Bible says, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work. By looking at several past campaigns at Xenos, Jeff Gordon offers practical insight into what has made some successful and some unsuccessful.

As the Director of Central Ohio Youth for Christ, Scott Arnold ministers to people in the inner city every day. He addresses many issues that are specific to the urban population that make this work different from suburban ministry. He also shares YFC's approach in many of these areas and gives practical advice for how to overcome some of these deficits and help people grow into effective leaders for the Lord.

In order to lead our home groups toward consistent and effective evangelism, we must first convince home group members of God's mission for the church, which is to reach the lost and disciple the saved. We ourselves must own this and model this in our daily lives, showing personal commitment in this area. We want to draw attention to the right motives behind evangelism and help equip our people to effectively reach people themselves. Prayer too is a powerful weapon. While we need to emphasize each member having a burden for this, we also want to ensure the structures of our Bible study put non-believing friends and family at ease when they visit. This would include the environment, comfort of the room, meeting times, available food, and avoidance of strictly Christian language.

When there is a focus on getting results in growing a church, there is often a pressure to shift towards building compliance rather than commitment. In order to have healthy, long-term growth and transformation, however, leaders must continue to move away from compliance thinking. God does not operate this way, and the negative effects are serious. There are various indicators of compliance that can be identified and things leaders can do to help build commitment in their groups. One key aspect of this is ensuring that the leaders are growing themselves, modeling their own personal commitment.

Sherri Fojas provides a practical look into tried and tested evangelism initiatives. While Xenos hosts some outreach events, most of the evangelistic efforts here happen on a home church level. Sherri gives and explains numerous ideas for both "come and see" and "go and be" events. She also discusses misconceptions about evangelism and addresses some common questions people ask about these initiatives.

Just as Jesus prioritized discipleship because of the relational aspect, the vision of multiplication, and ability to model, so should we. There is a felt need for deep discipleship where mentors are not just teaching about what it means to follow Christ but also how to do it, walking side by side with another believer. This requires a shift from a program-centered approach to a relational approach, one in which there exists a focus on building personally committed disciples who can carry on the work themselves. Three key elements of this type of disciple include: transparent trust, the truth of God's Word learned in community, and life changing accountability.

Not all people who have vision are leaders, but having vision is an important source of empowerment when trying to raise up leaders. Communicating both positive and negative vision is important and biblical; explaining the results if someone chooses or chooses not to align themselves with God. There are several ways we can cultivate vision, including sitting before the Lord in prayer and looking at other churches and outside examples. We must also communicate effectively, framing vision appropriately and juxtaposing the negative and positive vision side by side, without shying away from appropriate heat. Through prayerful consideration, thoughtful communication, and repetition, believers can infuse vision into fellow brothers and sisters. In order for the vision to stick, the visionary must exemplify credible character and trustworthiness.

The goal of the church is emphatically to go out and reach people. This stands contrary to the American church which places larger emphasis on making the people inside happy. Believers in Christ, no matter which church they may belong to must take responsibility for those who do not know Christ: in their city, in their country, and in their world. This means that we must partner with other Christians and churches around us for the greater mission. Through personal Bible reading, interdependent leadership, and positive witnessing seen through our relationships, there is hope for evangelism. \r\n

Through his research of breakout leaders in churches across the country, pastor Thom Rainer complied a list of ten characteristics of effective leaderships which he illustrates in depth. These breakout leaders have a long-term perspective, an eagerness for personal evangelism, and confident humility. They are people who keep focused, who are obviously passionate, who take feedback, and who loves others unconditionally. They are people of hope and promise who understand life's brevity. These leaders take their ministry seriously but don't take themselves too seriously. It is these characteristics that are observed in the men and women who have emerged as servant leaders in God's church.

In Paul's second letter to Timothy, he presents six mandates for Christian leaders, mandates that we too are called to follow today. First, we are called to draw strength from Christ's grace. We must develop leaders who will go on to develop leaders and embrace the hardships of leadership. We must focus on both keeping biblical instruction central and continuing to experience personal character growth. Finally, in order to be effective leaders, we must deal with sinful opponents in a godly way.