Marc Estes

It is God’s will that His church grows in both quality and quantity. In order for any church to reach their full potential, there must be a strong healthy leadership team that understands their primary role in reproducing themselves into the lives of those entrusted to their care. A leadership team must not just serve to meet the demands of those currently in their care, but build a leadership pipeline that is prepared to reach the multitudes coming their way.

Growing and expanding the church must be strategic. Being busy isn’t enough, having vision isn’t enough, being unified is not enough, only praying isn’t even enough, and all of these combined is not enough. Building the church also requires strategy and action; words which have been categorized as unspiritual to some. However if legitimate growth is going to occur, there needs to be healthy reproducing leaders in every tier of leadership. Much easier said than done.

Jesus was the master builder. His process was very strategic, methodical and predictable.  He sought out potential leaders and built his future leaders on the foundation of relationship. He then repeated the four stage process of  defining expectations, discerning their weaknesses and strengths, developing them and then deploying them. He had a process of building leaders.  Here are these steps further defined:         

• Relationships as the foundation – No leader was ever developed in the Bible without meaningful relationships as the beginning point. Development of a leader always stretched beyond a knowledge-only strategy. There was a three-fold cord of relationships, equipping and experience. Relationships were established with common vision and purpose. Once relationships were in place he moved into a four-step process:

• Step #1 – Define the Leader – He had a clear vision as to what he was going to build. He knew what it would take in order to fulfill the vision. He knew the type of leaders needed and their knowledge, skill and maturity BEFORE He even began his selection process. He knew the “WHAT” before He selected the “WHO.” 

• Step #2 – Discern the Leader – He would then select the leader and begin to discern where their strengths and weaknesses were in comparison to what He desired to build.

• Step #3 – Develop the Leader – His diagnosis of each person then set him on a path to begin the personal development of each person. Each leader was handled differently based upon their personal strengths and weaknesses. Development must be personalized to each person.

• Step #4 – Deploy the Leader –  As He developed them, His goal was to then release them into fulfilling the call of God on their lives. He set them into action!

Building a leadership pipeline strategy was critical to his ministry and to the advancement of the church.  We all should be following this pattern to build the church God has called us to build.

In the next few blog posts, I will deal with each area individually to further define the process. (see Developing a Leadership Pipeline – Defining the Leader: Part 2).