MANILA, PHILIPPINES—We are glad to be back in our Manila apartment after a week in Taipei for our annual Every Nation Asia Leadership Team (ALT) meeting. This blog was inspired by something Bishop Manny Carlos said about leadership development during the ALT meeting.
Pastors and missionaries are leaders, or at least they are supposed to be. Some are good leaders. Others are not. Some have intentionally upgraded their leadership skills. Others have not.
It is one thing to be an effective minister; it is another thing entirely to be an effective leader.
A person who is an effective pastor or missionary will eventually attract a crowd that will become an organization that will require leadership skills. If we grow in ministry skills but fail to develop leadership skills, we will create chaos and unwittingly destroy what we build.
Here are three leadership skills that pastors and ministers must develop and constantly upgrade:
1. Organizational leadership. If we are effective ministers, what we lead will grow. And, growing churches and ministries will require organizational leadership skills including management, strategic planning, budgeting, communications, and others. The larger the ministry grows, the more important it is to develop organizational leadership structures and skills.
2. Spiritual leadership. Organization charts, strategic plans, and management principles are important but inadequate. We must also be spiritual leaders. Prayer, preaching, Bible study, discernment, and deliverance are just a few of the skills necessary to lead healthy growing churches and ministries.
3. Relational leadership. My good friend Joey Bonifacio always says, “discipleship is relationship.” So is leadership. Our influence in the lives of those we hope to lead will be directionally proportional to the depth of our relationship with them.
Are you intentionally and strategically developing leadership skills in all three areas to complement your ministry skills?
(Wrote this in Manila, posting from Tokyo airport on the way to Nashville.)
