THE CORE LEADERSHIP TEAM...

   If a church is to succeed in carrying out a healthy ministry and developing a good Christian community there must be stable and high-quality relationships among the members of the core leadership team.
 

 

1. Modeling…
      The ultimate goal of such a team is absolutely essential…to radiate a healthy and vital presence throughout the church organization and its whole system of relationships. Ultimately this has a tremendous affect on the quality of relationships within the church community and the congregation’s effectiveness in ministry. [The leadership team literally becomes both a model and a mirror of the congregation. When the leadership team is unified and healthy, the congregation typically reflects that condition.]
   
2. Replication…
      When such principle leadership teams demonstrate a healthy, collaborative model to the congregation they inspire the replication of similar teams. 
   
3. Challenge…
      Many traditional churches are experiencing a severe decline in their influence and effectiveness. This decline represents a crisis in traditional church models that can be summed up in two categories: spiritual and organizational. Contrast this with a sharp rise in new, growing, entrepreneurial congregations that have emerged during the late twentieth century. [Example: Sea Coast out of Mt. Pleasant & Restoration Church in Spartanburg]  
   
      Denominational church models, for the most part, are not very productive. Today we need to develop strong, steady, biblically sound, and culturally relevant models of church leadership that consistently produce positive results. 
   
4. Goals…
      The following are three of our District Leadership Team goals for South Carolina—
      ·        Helping leaders find and follow God’s plan for their lives and
      ·        Helping leaders become the kind of leaders others want to follow
      ·        Developing strategies to help lead others to where they need to go to discover and then share their individual value. 
      There is more to being successful in ministry than developing new programs or achieving higher numbers. There are deeper issues at stake if we are to ever arrive at the kind of success God has in mind for us. Ignoring these deeper issues [personal spiritual formation for instance] is paramount to removing the rudder from a ship. You may be able to move fast on the surface, but have no particular direction. Drifting is not a part of God’s definition of success. 
   
5. Community…
      No one can become successful alone. Success, as well as character development, happens in community. That includes your success as well as the success of those following you. According to George Barna:

Leadership is more than calling the shots, and it is more than merely having influence on people’s thoughts and behavior. Similarly holding a position or title that implies a person is a leader bears little relationship to whether, in reality, the person is a leader. Neither does possessing a charismatic personality or massive intellect make a person a leader. A true leader measures his/her success by the success of his/her followers.

 
   God creates each of us with extraordinary capacities, the goal of which is intended for good. But simply discovering and developing our capacities does not insure that the resulting abilities will result in positive influence or an enduring legacy. Philip D. Reed observes:

          It is sometimes frightening to observe the success, which comes even to the outlaw with a polished technique…. But I believe we must reckon with character in the end, for it is as potent a force in world conflict as it is in our own domestic affairs. [Character] is the last blow in any battle (p 13, my emphasis).

   Stephen Covey basically reached the same conclusion when he wrote:

          Many people with secondary greatness—that is, social recognition for their talents—lack primary greatness or goodness in their character. Sooner or later, you’ll see this in every long-term relationship they have, whether it is with a business associate, a spouse, a friend or a teenage child going through an identity crisis (p 21 my emphasis).

 Next time I want to look into the theme: Round Table Leadership – Leadership Teams.