Jesus attracted crowds and preached to 1000′s but He invested most of His time with the core team of twelve.
Too often we put too much emphasis on one leader instead of building a team.
The ability and capacity of your leadership team determine the size and effectiveness of your church.
The best resource I can recommend that will help you in the area of becoming great at gaining, training and retaining church volunteers is Church Fuel.
Take Your Church To The Next Level 📈
Also, take a look at 7 Surefire Ways to Recruit More Church Volunteers for some pointers to get you started.
For truly phenomenal church growth you have no choice but to invest your best into your leadership core.
Start now and look for people you can start raising up and mentor them. Make it easy for people to step up and volunteer.
Again, growing your leadership team will not just happen – you must be intentional about it, pen it into your schedule, and it’ll pay dividends.
In order to make a lasting impact it’s going to take building teams.
Leaders are not born, they are made!
As a boss in the secular field, you look for the faithful, hardworking and loyal employee.
The same is true in Christian service.
In the secular world, however, it is common to look for the brightest, most talented, good-looking, charismatic personality to promote – this method could be disastrous in Christian service!
Ever pointed at someone and said, “He’s a born leader”?
Some people just naturally have personality traits and abilities that tend towards leadership, but unless these qualities are nurtured and developed they will never truly become a leader.
On the other hand, a person who may seem to have no natural ability at all, but who works hard and commits to developing his/her leadership skills will quickly surpass those who do nothing whatsoever.
Make Sure You Have A F.A.T. Leadership Team
When considering potential candidates for your leadership, test them by the F.A.T. criteria and ask yourself…
Are they:
- Faithful
- Accountable
- Teachable
Let’s go through each one 👇
1. Are They Faithful?
“He who is faithful in little things will be faithful in much.”
A good follower makes a good leader.
Time will tell you if they have caught your vision or if they just have their own agenda.
The Latin word for two is ‘di’. ‘Di’ + vision = Division!
Just as a building contractor has a multitude of personnel with varying skill sets, they must all be working off the same blueprint or you’re asking for trouble!
2. Are They Accountable?
Will they willingly submit to your leadership and to the leaders placed over them?
The last thing you want is self-important, self-serving arrogant know-it-alls leading your people!
How do you test this?
Ask them to change something, whether big or small, within the first two weeks.
It doesn’t matter how insignificant the adjustment is – you’re just checking their attitude. A potential leader needs to be servant-hearted; serving others, not promoting themselves.
3. Are They Teachable?
This next one took me a long time to get my head around: don’t make the mistake of valuing competence and ability above character.
Skills can be taught but you either have character or you don’t, and putting abilities before character will hurt you every single time.
For more on the importance of character in Christian leadership see ‘Top 3 Qualities of a Good Pastor‘.
It doesn’t matter what their current abilities are, these can be learned.
See past where they are now and see what they could be.
Learn to spot the undiscovered, untapped treasure trove of giftings, skills, passions and raw talent that is buried deep down inside of them.
What a privilege to be able to draw that out of them, watch them come alive and realise their potential!
Growing Your Leadership Team: Bottom Line
If you seriously want your church to grow then you need to raise up leaders around you.
Your legacy as a leader hangs on this.
Adding followers is important but this limits growth.
Adding leaders multiplies growth.
It’s Time To Grow Your Church ⛪
Join Church Fuel today and access 15+ insanely practical courses, 1-on-1 coaching and a community of 4,000+ pastors all aimed at helping you get more volunteers, increase giving and create the systems you need to grow your church.
What’s Been Your Experience?
Would love to hear from you on this one!
What do you look for before investing your time into a person?
How do you spot a potential leader?
Share your insights below! 🙏
Pastor Simon I thank God for making you a blessing to others, and God bless you for allowing God to use you ,this article you shared has really inspired me , I understood that leadership is all about God and servicing, and for us to lead,we must have a vision. It is fire lighter for those that follow us and F.A.T is necessary without it ,there is no leadership.
Recruiting and training people to have a teams as Jesus did ,is another thing i learned from you ,cos it makes work easier and faster,spend quality time with them in other to be inside them . PST simon I’m really bless , more grace upon your life. I’m the PST of Rock of living water chapel
Learn to spot the undiscovered, untapped treasure trove of giftings, skills, passions and raw talent that is buried deep down inside of them – what a privilege to be able to draw that out of them, watch them come alive and realise their potential!
This is what my pastor Cymaron Dawson did for me. When I joined my church I knew I wanted to be saved but I did not know my potential like I know it now. I have God and my Pastor to thank for this. Now I am a Hospitality leader and I am doing what I’ve found is my true passion serving others and cooking. I came on your site to get better understanding and ideas about how to be a good leader and I do thank you for all of your assistance. God bless you
This is surely the greatest privilege of becoming a leader who trains others – taking those people who’s potential is yet unrealised and coaxing that out of them. At times all you need to do is encourage, other times inspire, challenge and give opportunities for growth.
Thanks for sharing your experience Catina, it sounds like your leaders are doing just that! I honestly believe the abundant life Jesus talked about in John 10:10 is not a ‘happy life’, but a ‘purposeful life’; finding why God put you on this planet and taking steps to grow in a way that gets you closer to God’s plan for your life.
“I honestly believe the abundant life Jesus talked about in John 10:10 is not a ‘happy life’, but a ‘purposeful life’; finding why God put you on this planet and taking steps to grow in a way that gets you closer to God’s plan for your life.”
The stuff in this your remark is insightful, full of wisdom and also encouraging.
Thanks so much Alex, that’s really encouraging to hear 🙂
Hi Simon,
Thanks for a great sharing of thoughts here. I have carefully digested the information here and realised that this F.A.T can actually make a church fat in terms of growth and quality. The language is simple to understand and the points are very realistic in choosing a functional team for any church. I think the information shared here can apply globally. I wish to share this with more people in my vchurch group
You’re completely right Paul, these simple, easy to remember principles can be applied anywhere for anyone looking to grow their church leaderships teams. I hope it helps people from pouring and investing time in to the wrong kind of people and instead focus on building a strong team.
These articles take a long time to right and I make my brain work really hard, so please feel free to share if you know of pastors or leaders who will find this helpful and useful – let’s help as many churches as possible!
Hi Pastor Simon. Thanks for this helpful article you shared on recruiting volunteers and training a team of leaders. I hope I could get as much of this kind of article that would help my church here in the Philippines. I’m just thingking about the rate of your monthly subscription of your materials..Do you have an adjusted rate for the Asian pastors living in a 3rd world countries? I am just asking..thanks!
Hi John, great to hear from you. Nothing makes me happier than to know this is helping church leaders like you all over the world!
I serve in Thailand as a missionary and was actually in the Philippines for 4 weeks just a month back! I had the incredible opportunity to speak at a church in Valenzuela and spent a lot of time with Metro World Child (a brilliant organisation) doing Sidewalk Sunday schools in compounds and slums across Manila – I will never forget that experience (and the Manila traffic!)
To answer your question about the monthly core coaching programs, as they offered by The Rocket Company, I myself couldn’t do anything about the monthly membership subscription…
I would recommend you to check out the blog on their website and of course, Grow Church is completely free -if you haven’t done so already, sign up to weekly emails from me where I share in-depth articles and how-to tutorials and how to grow your church and give you proven strategies to take your church forward.
I hope this helps, thanks for being part of the community, see you around the blog!