Steve Cordle
In his excellent post this week, Rob Campbell prompted us to think through the way we develop leaders.
In that vein, how do your group leaders see themselves? Do they view themselves as facilitators of a meeting? As care-givers for group members? As representatives of the church?
This question is important, because leaders act according to the way they see themselves. For example, if they see themselves only as facilitators of meetings, they probably won’t be doing a lot of evangelism or connecting with members between meetings. The result will be a weak group.
In the the healthiest groups the leaders see themselves as disciple-makers, and they usually have a plan. They know who they want to encourage through the Equipping Track, and they know who they are developing as an apprentice. If they have no plan, they are probably just leading meetings.
Here are a couple of ways to help leaders see themselves as disciple-makers:
1.Speak about disicple-making in coaching times. Share from the scripture and your own experience. Help them see disciple-making is a commission from God and not just a requirement of the church.
2. Encourage the leaders to personally disciple their apprentice. Give them a format to do this (Neil Cole’s Life Transformation Groups are a great vehicle for this).