My friend Che Chowan from Church on the Rock in Ocho Rios, Jamaica (yep, that’s me and him in the pic, taken at a recent seminar I did in Florida) sent in this question from the Ask Nelson button on the right —->

“Hey Nelson. Good blog.

Do you personally disciple a group in your church for leadership
development, outside of your staff? If so, what does that look like?”

Short Answer: I used to, now I focus almost exclusively on staff development.

Long Answer: I believe you need to be developing leaders at all levels of your church.  Here’s how the flow works (in an ideal world.  Unfortunately, that’s not the world I live in, but this is what we try to do):

•    I develop myself
(If I’m not growing, its doubtful anyone else will be)

•    I develop the staff and teach them to develop themselves and others

The staff then takes responsibility to develop the following (with my help):

•    High Capacity Volunteers
•    Regular Volunteers
•    Church-at-Large

Right now I focus primarily on the staff although I do leadership development with High Capacity Volunteers at key gatherings (such as Growth Group Leaders Training) but month to month this is done by our staff, mainly through reading and discussing  books together or going to events like The Leadership Summit.

We try to do a little bit of Leadership Training each week with our regular volunteers before they begin their weekly volunteering or through scheduled emails that highlight certain leadership skills.

If you are leading a church of 250 people or less then you may have do leadership development with all the levels above.  Beyond 250, you have to share the leadership development process.

One last note: I think of leadership development as ‘helping people be better people’ (core leadership principles, time management, etc.) and I think of ministry development as ‘helping people do their ministry job at church better.’  You need both but this question was about developing leaders.  Make sure each gets the time and focus needed – don’t try to do them both at the same time.

Thanks for the question Che!

If you have a question, send it my way.  I’ll do my best to answer it.

Nelson Searcy

P.S  For more on a proven system to develop yourself as a leader, check out my “Developing A One Year Personal Growth Plan.”  Growing churches are led by growing leaders.