Planting Space

Developing leaders is a common struggle for church planters. I learned a good lesson in leadership development last night. While in Charlotte at LifePointe, I worked really hard on a particular group of people. I baptized most of them, took ownership in teaching them, and frequently challenged them to leadership. I did many of the right things. I cast vision for them as a leader. I trained them. I had them serve alongside me. The frustration was that there was something keeping them from pulling the trigger of really engaging in leadership. The problem was I had done everything accept get out of their way. Now that I’ve been gone a while, I hear story after story about how this group of people I invested in has stepped up into significant leadership roles in the church. I failed to create a compelling need for them to be leaders. There was no leadership hole. I wanted the leadership positions I held to be filled before starting something new in the church. It seems that I put the chicken before the egg. The lesson learned is that a good leader gets out of the way.

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