2012 Emphasis #2: move from “having” to “producing” good church leaders

Posted by on Jan 12, 2012 | 2 comments

We’re taking time on the blog this week to roll out four major things our elders believe God is calling us toward in 2012.  Yesterday, we hit an urgent emphasis for our church body HERE.  But the thing that will affect the DNA of The Bridge the most in the long haul is…

Move from “having” to “producing” good church leaders

About a year ago in one of the most important staff meetings we’ve ever had, we drew this image on the board and talked about it for about 40 minutes…

Both of these images represent churches (see the steeple?), but these two diagrams are VASTLY different.  The fundamental difference between the two is…
  • The church on the left is oriented toward “getting” and “having”. It measures success by seating capacity.
  • The church on the right is oriented toward “going” and “sending”.  It measures success by sending capacity.
During this year, even in the midst of many “coming”, we’ve been orienting The Bridge increasingly toward “sending” in our HG Network, our philosophy of mission, and even the language we use to articulate our vision (Gospel > Church > Mission).  But what we’re realizing is that God is calling us to apply this at the leadership level as well.
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IN THE BIBLE…

  • Ephesians 4 says the role of church leaders is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry”.  It’s not simply the job of church leaders to “do ministry” – actually, that’s not even their primary job!  Their primary job is to attract, identify, and equip others to lead, pastor, shepherd, and minister well.
  • The pattern of the New Testament is that healthy churches reproduce to plant other healthy churches.  You cannot reproduce healthy churches without reproducing healthy church leadership.  See the entire book of Acts for this.
Alongside of us seeing this in Scripture, God has been working this within our church body.  For a church of around 450 people we have had a veritable UPRISING of people passionate about church leadership inside of our body this year.  Additionally, as The Bridge has grown and more people are aware of us, we’ve begun to have people ask about moving to Spring Hill for the sole purpose of becoming a part of The Bridge to learn about church leadership.  The ocean of God’s grace has chosen to wash on us, giving us both a church and a staff that is passionate about seeing Jesus made famous FAR outside our walls and LONG after we’re dead and gone.  This will only happen through aggressive reproduction.
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HERE’S WHAT THIS MEANS…

  • God is going to call many of you to significant leadership.  Yes, you.  God has SUCH a bigger vision for your life than “seat filler” in his kingdom.  Like Alan Hood, Lance Howerton, Shivonne Hood, Jennifer Williams, John Howard, Dennis Knisely, and many others, God is going to use many of you to take on significant roles in his church. Get ready.
  • We’ll be launching structured, formalized theological training available to anyone who wants to be equipped for church leadership.  Right now, we’re looking into the Porterbrook Network for training to implement here.
  • We may need people willing to house ministry residents who move to Spring Hill for a season of training at The Bridge.
  • The top item on every staff job description is now “attract, identify, and equip leaders in all areas of ministry”.
Bridge Family, we must be unselfish with the people that God entrusts us with.  NONE of us moved to Spring Hill or are laying down our lives for anything short of launching a unstoppably, God-empowered movement that results in gospel riots peppering this region.  Join me, for the fame of Jesus, in moving from simply wanting to HAVE good church leaders to wanting to PRODUCE them…

2 Comments

  1. Mike Pollard | January 13, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    Refreshing and right on vision!