Building Healthy Leaders Part 1 - Introduction

Summary

In Part 1 of 'Building Healthy Leaders', LeaderSource SGA delves into the challenges and necessities of cultivating robust leadership within the Christian church. The video stresses the importance of not only evangelizing but also nurturing and developing strong leaders to sustain the growth of the church. Using an illustrative story of a church planting team whose efforts were undermined by negative forces, the seminar highlights the indispensable need for leader continuity and robust discipleship. Key takeaways include the differentiation between urgency and importance, and the vital task of preparing successors to continue the ministry's legacy.

Highlights

• The story of a church planting team whose success was compromised by a cult highlights leadership challenges. ⛪
• The significance of discipleship and strong leadership continuity is essential for sustainable church growth. 🌱
• Understanding the fine line between urgency and importance is crucial for effective ministry management. ⏳
• Ministry is not just about immediate results but about preparing for future leadership. 📈
• The unique Connections Model offers exciting new methods for leadership development. 🧠

Key Takeaways

• A preacher's story illustrates the need for strong church leadership. 🏛️
• Building leaders is about quality, not just quantity. 📊
• Good leadership is essential to prevent negative forces from destroying the church's foundations. 🚫
• Jesus focused not only on ministry but also on training future leaders. ✝️
• Leadership training should be adaptable to diverse cultural and educational contexts. 🌍

Overview

Tonight's seminar kicks off with a captivating story designed to spark discussions on the importance of a solid leadership foundation within religious movements. Set against the backdrop of a large movement with two million members, the tale underscores the challenges faced when proper discipleship and strong leadership are absent, leading to the loss of newly planted churches.

Emphasizing the need for building not just any leaders but healthy ones, the seminar addresses the disparity between the rapid growth of the church and the slower pace of leader development. With a witty take on Jesus' methods, it encourages participants to ponder the difference between importance and urgency, emphasizing sustainable, quality leadership as a pillar for enduring church progression.

The session introduces the Connections Model, which has shown promising results in creating impactful leaders through its adaptable framework. By looking at Jesus' strategic focus on mentoring the 12 apostles, the discussion frames leader development as an active, ongoing endeavor crucial for legacy and future growth of the church. Participants are prompted to identify and mentor their successors, ensuring the mission’s values and teachings are carried forward beyond their tenure.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Introduction and Story The chapter begins with an introduction that sets the stage for a story to be shared. The story is derived from the author's experiences from five or six years ago. The chapter hints that the story has a moral or point to convey, and the reader is informed that they will be asked questions about it after its conclusion.
• 05:00 - 10:00: Discussion on Church Needs In this chapter, the focus is on discussing the needs of a church. The narrative involves a large religious movement comprised of approximately two million members. The chapter recounts an encounter with the top leader of this movement who visited and decided to have a personal conversation with the narrator. This discussion took place over lunch in a separate room, where the leader shared a story that the narrator wants to relay as it was originally told.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Challenges in Leadership Development The chapter discusses issues related to leadership development, starting with a narrative where the speaker expresses a desire to ask questions about a story being told. It centers around a conversation about a church planting team sent two years prior, from whom there had been no contact for almost a year. The speaker narrates their relief and happiness upon finally receiving a phone call from the team, indicating a communication gap or challenge in the leadership structure and support system in place for the team.
• 20:00 - 30:00: Personal Experience and Connections Model In the chapter titled 'Personal Experience and Connections Model,' the narrative focuses on a conversation where a team leader shares news of their mission. The leader highlights the positive reception they received while traveling from village to village, sharing the gospel. Many villagers were receptive and pleased to learn about Jesus Christ, resulting in successful dissemination of their message within a short period. The chapter underscores the theme of grace and successful communication of spiritual teachings.
• 30:00 - 45:00: Relay Race Demonstration The chapter titled 'Relay Race Demonstration' describes the success of spreading Christianity in a series of villages. The narrator outlines how they were able to plant churches in different villages, with each successive village welcoming the message of Jesus Christ and converting to Christianity. This effort resulted in the establishment of 40 churches in total. The leader of this movement was incredibly impressed and amazed by the team's achievements.
• 45:00 - 55:00: Emphasis on Building Future Leaders In this chapter titled 'Emphasis on Building Future Leaders,' there is a discussion on the swift progress made by a team in establishing churches in various villages. However, the good news is accompanied by a setback as a Christian cult follows behind them to these locations. Although this group has the outward appearance of being Christian, they propagate cultic teachings, representing a challenge and a need for discernment and strong future leadership to address such issues.
• 55:00 - 65:00: Three Main Components of Leader Development The chapter discusses the challenges faced in church planting, where a cult repeatedly destroyed newly established churches. Each time a new village was reached, the church initiated there was eventually lost, leading to the uprooting of all 40 churches planted.
• 65:00 - 71:00: Conclusion and Reflection The chapter titled 'Conclusion and Reflection' wraps up the main themes and lessons discussed throughout the work. It presents a story shared by a prominent church leader in response to an inquiry about the most significant need of the church. This story serves as a case study for examining the universal principles applicable to churches worldwide, including in the United States. The chapter encourages discussion among readers or participants, prompting them to engage in conversations at their tables to delve deeper into the themes presented.

Building Healthy Leaders Part 1 - Introduction Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] tonight with a bit of a story i think that's a good place to begin and this story comes from some of the work that i did maybe five or six years ago and let me set the stage for you and then let me share the story this is one of those stories with a point and i'm going to ask you some questions about the story once it's finished okay
• 00:30 - 01:00 so it's going to be one where you get to jump in and participate too so i was working with a very large movement this one was reputed to have about two million members one of those days the top leader came to visit as they often would and he wanted to sit down and visit with me for a minute as well so during our lunch we went aside to another room there and began to visit and he told me this story and that's the story that i want to tell you i'm going to tell it as he would okay or as he did and then after we
• 01:00 - 01:30 finish the story i want to ask you some questions principally i want to ask you what was he telling me so he said two years ago we sent a church planting team and we didn't hear from that team for a very long time finally almost a year it passed before they they contacted me and i got a phone call hello hello how are you i'm fine how are you i was so happy to hear from them what's been going on tell us tell me the
• 01:30 - 02:00 news well there's good news and there's bad news and he said well tell me the good news and so he did so the the team leader did so that the team leader explained he said in the time we've been gone god has given us tremendous grace we went from village to village where we shared the gospel and in each village people were happy to hear the good news of jesus christ and in just a matter of days or weeks
• 02:00 - 02:30 there were people who wanted to follow jesus christ and we were able to plant a church in that village and as we were successful in planning the church we moved on to the next village and again people were happy to hear about jesus christ and were happy to give their lives to him and again we were able to plant a church this happened again and again and again so eventually that team leader said we planted 40 churches wow the leader of the movement was so impressed he was amazed at their
• 02:30 - 03:00 progress in such a short amount of time he said what could be the bad news after such good news well the team leader went on to say what we didn't realize it was happening was that as we went from one village to the next where we planted a church behind us came another movement that was a christian cult they had all the outward appearance of being christian but in reality they were a cult and they taught
• 03:00 - 03:30 terrible heresy and their goal was to destroy the church and as we left to go to the new village that cult came behind us and uprooted the church we had just planted and it happened again and again and again as we move to each subsequent village the previous church was lost and in the end after 40 churches being planted all 40 churches were uprooted
• 03:30 - 04:00 can you imagine such a story that's where the story ended this great leader in the church shared this story and answered my question what's the greatest need of the church and i'd like to use this as a case study for us as we look at the church worldwide i'm sure there are principles that apply all over even here in the united states and what i'd like you to do is to talk with each other at your tables and try
• 04:00 - 04:30 to put words to what this leader was saying and sharing this story with me okay so what's the answer to my question discuss that with one another at your table and i'm just going to give you two minutes and then we'll collect some of your answers all together okay so what is the need then how does a story illustrate the need they it's easy to become a christian milan is saying but it's more difficult to maintain christianity so what need is illustrated bob said
• 04:30 - 05:00 need for strong leaders acacia said need for strong foundation and you said we need someone to stay to weed into water all right any other answers the need for discipleship all right we need some way to help them grow in their faith stronger foundation greater development of faith this story illustrates many of those needs and the reality is that it's not enough as you said just to plant the seed but we need to some way to help the
• 05:00 - 05:30 people to grow in their faith as disciples followers of jesus christ and so this illustrates i think what's happening all over the world on your in your booklets on page number eight you see that there's been tremendous fruit from an emphasis on evangelism over the last one or two decades and because of that emphasis on evangelism we've seen as many as 40 000 people
• 05:30 - 06:00 coming to christ every single day isn't it incredible you know i used to think well wouldn't it be great to be part of uh that small band of believers on pentecost sunday when the spirit fell and 3000 were added to their number in one day and i think wow i wish i could have been there and yet the reality is that we live in even more exciting times because in our generation 3 000 people are added to the church every
• 06:00 - 06:30 hour of every day and i'm wondering if the apostles knew of what was to come if they would not have yearned to live in our day and age that's how exciting these days are and as wonderful as that is as great as the news is it is tremendous news it's great news it presents a problem it presents a problem and it's a problem that jesus himself captured when he talked to the disciples and he
• 06:30 - 07:00 drew their attention to the harvest jesus himself said look at the harvest fields they're ready they're white ready for harvest but what did he say how does that verse go on do you remember the what does he say the harvest is great but the workers are few but i want you to see that jesus is a realist
• 07:00 - 07:30 he sees what's good but he also sees what's lacking and just like the story there's good news and there's bad news the harvest is great but the workers are few there are not enough workers and that is the reality of the world that we live in today and you notice where does jesus ask them to focus their prayers where do they where does he ask him to focus
• 07:30 - 08:00 on workers i find this staggering he doesn't here at least ask them to focus their prayers on evangelism instead here he asks them to focus their prayers on what workers the development of workers that's the subject of this seminar the development of workers how do we raise up workers now there are many leadership courses that are offered both in the church and outside the church but
• 08:00 - 08:30 this seminar is unique and that the focus is not so much on leadership as it is on leadership development or leader development and that's why we call this course building healthy leaders let me just explain the seminar by looking at those three key words first of all what is a leader we believe a leader is anyone that has influence there's positional leadership of course where a person is recognized to be a leader but very often there are people who have influence
• 08:30 - 09:00 without any particular role a leader is someone who exerts influence on people whether that influence is positive or negative a leader can be a positional leader with great authority and influence a positional leader could be a parent who sometimes asks the question what am i doing here i don't know what i'm doing but because they have influence over their children they are also leaders so when i use the word leader
• 09:00 - 09:30 i prefer that you not think of it as a capital l leader but instead think of it with a small l is that anyone who has influence and so i believe in in some situation or another all of us would fall into that role as a leader somewhere sometime amen so first of all we're building leaders but second of all it's not enough just to build any kind of leader you see what we can do in order to address the need for leaders we can accelerate the process right gee
• 09:30 - 10:00 if if we need more leaders then let's get on with it let's just train them and let's get them in the seminaries or in the bible schools and out again and set up this process almost like a factory assembly line where we're putting out gobs and gobs of leaders but you know what you'll see this in your notes here that even if all of the seminaries and bible
• 10:00 - 10:30 schools that exist in the world today operated at a hundred and twenty percent capacity we would still produce only ten percent of the leaders needed in the christian church isn't that amazing we can't work at a higher level in our own capacity but even if we could work at 120 percent of our capacity all the bible schools all the seminaries everywhere in the world still we'd only produce 10 percent of the christian leaders were needed
• 10:30 - 11:00 my friends you know that you see the stat here 85 of the churches are pastored by men and women who have no training at all and when we rush the process or we rush people into the role in trying to address the problem of quantity we create another problem and what is that problem say it a problem of quality and so we're caught on these two horns
• 11:00 - 11:30 either the horn of the problem of quantity or the horn of the problem of quality if we rush the development of leaders to address the lack of quantity then we exacerbate the problem of quality and we get a leader that's not sufficiently prepared for the trials the tribulations the demands the opportunities that christian leadership presents and so if we're going to do an effective job of building healthy leaders it's not enough just to build any kind of leader we need to build healthy leaders and
• 11:30 - 12:00 when we use the word healthy that's our way of trying to say we want to address the issue of quality that it's not enough just to produce a leader it's not enough just to get someone through a training program but we actually have to do our best to produce a leader who has what we will call we will define later as a healthy leader and we'll spend quite a bit of time defining what does that mean to be a healthy leader right third word building
• 12:00 - 12:30 now jesus in this passage where he says the harvest is great but the workers are few he asked the disciples to pray pray to the lord of the harvest to raise up workers for the harvest now is that the only thing we can do again in this passage that's what jesus advises pray but can you think of another passage where jesus invites us to do more than pray what passage comes to mind yes matthew 28 the great commission
• 12:30 - 13:00 where jesus says make disciples so we see very clearly that the command is a command to our active participation in the process some people they respond to leadership development in a very passive way one leader said well i just wait for the cream to rise to the top but that's not your development we believe that we have an active role and when jesus commanded us to make disciples he invited us into that role of building
• 13:00 - 13:30 people and you'll hear me go back and forth during the seminar talking about discipleship and leader development because the two are intertwined this course could be equally labeled building healthy disciples okay so i'll talk about discipleship i'll talk about leader development and i'll i'll talk about them in a way that they are almost intertwined with one another okay so that's what this seminar is about not so much about leadership but about developing leaders developing
• 13:30 - 14:00 disciples we're trying to address two key problems number one problem of quantity we don't have enough leaders in the world christian leaders in the world and secondly the problem of quality the leaders that we have don't often have the training now i'd like you to just reflect on your own experience and being in the body of christ what kind of quality problems have you seen with christian leaders just based on
• 14:00 - 14:30 your own experience and just just call it out immaturity yeah lack of knowledge okay what else lack of accountability lack of character they may embezzle money or they may involve an affair uh yeah uh that never happens in our
• 14:30 - 15:00 church just does it no no the reality is that this is happening all over the world and the leaders that we esteem so often disappoint us and we never saw that they have clay feet so when we talk about building a healthy leader we recognize that there's a considerable challenge in doing so and so if we're going to do this effectively we really need a very robust approach and that's what we hope
• 15:00 - 15:30 to be able to offer you in these next four days i want to share a little bit personally when i went to i came into ministry and full-time ministry late after a previous con career as a petroleum geologist and uh i did a little bit of experimentation in the mission fields and after that time god directed me to go to a seminary in california and still trying to sort out exactly where god wanted me but i knew
• 15:30 - 16:00 that making disciples was important and so that was one of my uh training emphasis how to make disciples and so when i started my work in the local church this was in texas i i really spent a lot of my own time trying to learn how to make disciples and in terms of programming put a lot of time and energy into disciple making but after trying various approaches using the latest curriculums from the you know the biggest and most well-known churches in the united states i found that i was not being very
• 16:00 - 16:30 effective and that my results and making disciples were kind of hit and miss you know what i mean and i got to the point of of just despairing and thinking i don't really have a clue i really don't know what i'm doing lord you told us make disciples of all nations and i have to tell you lord i don't know how to do that i've been trained as a pastor and yet i don't know the simplest thing how to make a disciple
• 16:30 - 17:00 and it was really interesting to me how god answered that prayer because it was i think within a year or so that i end up meeting a fellow by the name of dr malcolm weber and he had developed the initial stages of what we now call the connections model and he was experimenting with it overseas and experimenting with his home church this church right here and so he invited me to come to elkhart indiana to take a look at what you all were doing and uh i fell in love with that particular approach and went
• 17:00 - 17:30 right back home and started my own version of a connection school and i ran that for two years and the results were far and away better than anything i'd ever done before so i became a believer so to speak uh because not because i heard about it but because i tested it i i put it through my own grid theologically i put it through my own grid experientially and it came out with
• 17:30 - 18:00 flying colors and so as i shared with you these three days through four days i'm not sharing with you uh work that someone else has done but i'm sharing with you what arises out of a thorough examination of the scripture what arises out of a lot of field study and experimentation uh what arises out of my own work in using this particular model and so i'm really excited to be able to share what we call the connections model with
• 18:00 - 18:30 you about how to build healthy leaders and as we do that we're going to look at jesus as the premier example of a healthy leader i don't think i have any argument about that one right i don't think we could find a healthier leader than jesus and so i want to use him as an example in our time together and tonight in particular i'd like to ask you to think about his ministry and where would you say that jesus
• 18:30 - 19:00 focused his efforts when he was here on earth what was his principle focus and if you will turn with me on your books to page 11 and we're going to try to answer that question of jesus focus and you'll notice that there's three possible answers but i'd like to first of all brainstorm the question with you and see what you come up with so he uh he
• 19:00 - 19:30 he came here with very express purpose now if we use jesus as a leader an example for us we can think of all of these things and realize there's so many things for us to to do that we can easily be overwhelmed so what i'd like to do is to take this list and see if we could combine a few elements and to reduce it to the essential elements and in particular we we think there are three i'd like to share those with you now um the first is
• 19:30 - 20:00 to providing the atonement number one jesus came to redeem the lost to save us from sin death and satan and he did that we know through his perfect life his sinless death and his resurrection from the grave this we refer to as atonement how jesus death provides for our eternal life and so if he had not done that of course
• 20:00 - 20:30 where would we be yeah we would be dead all right secondly let's take a look at the next one secondly jesus came to do ministry now that's a broad category isn't it jesus came to do ministry that covers a lot of ground that includes everything jesus did in in his words and his work so that covers a lot of these things what would what would apply here certainly these right to heal the sick cast out demons to proclaim the gospel this is number two
• 20:30 - 21:00 uh to reveal the father this is part of that ministry to love people to give an example to establish the kingdom i think that's part of that i'm going to hold that one to build relationships with the father to destroy the work of the devil that brings us to our third item jesus third purpose is to equip emerging leaders now we have that here too we have that under building disciples three
• 21:00 - 21:30 and i think that was jesus strategy to doing these others to building the church to establishing the kingdom jesus came to equip these emerging leaders now as we look at this list this gives us a pretty clear focus on our own involvement in ministry the good news is we don't have to do the first one right so we are left with two purposes doing ministry and equipping
• 21:30 - 22:00 the next generation now i want you to just think practically just reflect on your own experience in ministry i'll tell you mine briefly i found that you know i loved going to seminars leadership seminars whatever they were and as busy as i was the last thing i wanted was someone to add to my to-do list you know what i mean i already had a full day and i would find that i would get to the end of my day which was a long day 10 hours 11 12 hours a day and i'd eat supper late i'd get in bed
• 22:00 - 22:30 and i'd lay down try to go to sleep and all of a sudden i'd pop up i forgot to go see mrs miller in the hospital you know you do everything you can and you still can't keep up and you think how can i handle one more thing you mean you mean you're telling me it's not enough to do ministry i've got to also equip leaders too how could jesus do that was jesus busy was he busy yeah he was busy
• 22:30 - 23:00 jesus was busy but he knew the difference between what was urgent and what was important and very often we let the demands of what is urgent interrupt our involvement with what's important now just stop for a minute and tell me what is the difference between urgent and important okay what is important helps us to accomplish our purpose yeah it's funny that the urgent cries for attention doesn't it when the baby is actually crying that
• 23:00 - 23:30 there's something urgent about that we have to answer and it's actually very important too something can be urgent and important at the same time but very often because so many things are crying for our attention we neglect what is important the urgent has a very short time frame and it but yet it doesn't always produce long-term results jesus answered the demands of ministry and his words and his work but he did not neglect
• 23:30 - 24:00 the long-term vision of building the church by building disciples let me ask you a question how many churches did jesus plant that many all of one and how many churches exist in the world today hundreds of thousands of churches in fact did you notice in the book
• 24:00 - 24:30 how many churches are planted every day there are several thousands of churches that are planted every week so who planted those churches if jesus did not who did yeah his disciples his disciples so where would the church be if jesus had neglected number three where would the church be
• 24:30 - 25:00 we don't like to think about that do we because we know god is perfect and he could not have failed to foresee the needs of the church but if you wouldn't mind just using your imagination where would the church be if he had not equipped the 12. thanks bill we would be right where those same 40 churches were in the story i told at the beginning
• 25:00 - 25:30 that's the point we would still be needing to be built up the enemy would come in and steal to kill and destroy so we we need to look not just at how do we do ministry but we need to ask the question who will follow us in doing ministry i'd i'll do a little demonstration with you can i uh are you game for a
• 25:30 - 26:00 demonstration i need two volunteers could i did anyone happen to run track in school anybody run track in school did you john kathy did you all right um you know what we're gonna we're gonna do uh we'll do a little uh a moving demonstration would you mind what no okay all right all right no okay let me have two people to be willing to move one will prob may have to move a little fast do i have any volunteers whether you're a ran track or not all right come on up craig craig you're going to represent
• 26:00 - 26:30 the growth of the church worldwide okay and uh these people here are going to be your coaches though instead of having like a whole team and one coach we're gonna reverse that we're gonna have one runner and a whole room full of coaches is that all right so they're gonna they're gonna coach you on how fast to move so if you think the church is moving if the church is growing fast you're going to move fast if you think the church is growing slowly you're going to move slowly now bill is going to go behind him all
• 26:30 - 27:00 right so craig will probably take out you you can go well there's not a lot of room here so you're going to margarita if you don't mind moving your chair in you're going to go around these tables and make a lap and you'll make several laps but just you go as fast as you think you need to go to represent how fast is the church growing worldwide all right now bill you're going to represent the growth of christian leaders worldwide so you're going to follow in his path but you're going to go at your own pace so again if you feel like the church's
• 27:00 - 27:30 leaders are growing fast you move fast you think they're growing slowly you move slowly and you do have a room full of coaches all right so again this is craig this is bill and you can shout out your advice you know use their name faster slower okay so this is you get to participate all right so again it's a demonstration to show the relationship between the growth of the church on one hand and the growth of christian leaders on the other hand
• 27:30 - 28:00 the church was lapping we call yeah passing the leader again and again yeah so in other words there's so much growth so much more growth in the church that we've got a gap growing between the growth of the leader and the growth of the church so i want you to see this there's a gap first of all but secondly it's a growing gap it just gets bigger and bigger the leader is moving maybe although some said well slow down so
• 28:00 - 28:30 maybe sometimes the leader goes backwards but this gap keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and this is what i'm trying to demonstrate when i say to you that even if all of the seminaries all of the training schools all over the world operated at a hundred and twenty percent capacity which is impossible we still only prepare ten percent of the leaders we need we need another approach it's not enough
• 28:30 - 29:00 just to retool the existing schools we need another approach if we're going to address quantity inequality and i think jesus offers us the clue he managed to train 12 who then helped spark a movement that has spread worldwide and we want to look back at how jesus did that because we know that he did everything he needed to prepare leaders for the growth of the
• 29:00 - 29:30 church even if it went viral even if the gospel went viral jesus showed us a way to train leaders for that growth too amen all right one more demonstration this time i need three volunteers now what do you know about a relay race what's what's what makes a successful team in the relay race the passing of the baton that's right so if we don't have a good passive baton
• 29:30 - 30:00 you can be way ahead and end up way behind and so the three of you are going to be relay runners so i'm gonna have you go first and you're gonna go second you're gonna go third and we've got a mystery runner running forth okay that person will appear on the scene later okay yet to be named okay so what happened we were winning we were leading but there was no fourth runner
• 30:00 - 30:30 you can run a good race you can have a sterling ministry but if you don't have anyone to pass the baton to what becomes of your ministry that's what i want to ask you can sit down because the issue is that many of you are already involved in great ministries but my sense is that we're not going to our effectiveness is not going to be measured so much
• 30:30 - 31:00 by what we accomplish in our lifetime as it will be measured by what our successors accomplish in their lifetime think about jesus again when we look at the growth of the church we know that we can't do anything apart from christ sure i'll agree with that theologically we can't do anything without him but jesus was serious when he passed the baton to the 12 and said make disciples of all nations
• 31:00 - 31:30 how many nations did he himself walk in as a man how many and yet now the gospel has spread to the nations all across the globe jesus passed the baton not just to one runner but to multiple runners it's a little different kind of a relay race isn't it he has that ability to do that and i
• 31:30 - 32:00 would like to remind you of that tonight because each of you are running a race each of you desires to leave a mark each of you desires to leave a legacy otherwise i know that because otherwise you wouldn't be here and what i want to ask you tonight as we begin is who are you preparing to run the race after you
• 32:00 - 32:30 who are you preparing to run you may be running a wonderful lap you may be winning in your own mind but the question is what happens when you stop running and you pass the baton will there be anyone there and how will they run will they drop the baton they know how to run will they run the
• 32:30 - 33:00 true course will they finish the race that's why it's so important for us if we want to be leaders like jesus not just to emphasize our ministry number two doing ministry but if we want to lead like jesus we need to be equally attentive to the question of raising the next generation of leaders
• 33:00 - 33:30 and that starts with asking the question who are we building up to run the race after us and so i want to ask you to stop for a moment tonight this is just a little for a period of reflection and if you'd like just to make some notes i would like you just to write down the names of the people that you are preparing to run and again you can give the baton to more than one and i'm not talking about giving the baton to your colleague that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about giving your baton
• 33:30 - 34:00 to the next person perhaps in the next generation or next half generation down who will that be and if you don't have anyone in mind i'd like to pray with you i'd like to stop and pray right now that god would bring to mind names that you hadn't thought of and it doesn't matter whether you're a young person just starting in ministry or a person with many decades of experience of ministry the question is still
• 34:00 - 34:30 the same who are you preparing to run the race who will you pass the baton to so let's pray shall we lord god we thank you so much that you have brought us to life in christ we thank you so much that by your holy spirit you have made clear the scriptures that call us to faith and make clear the fact that you have redeemed us to live a new life in christ
• 34:30 - 35:00 and we thank you that you've not only to call you've not only called us to live life with you but you've called us to minister with you and to equip others just as you equip the twelve and so lord we pray with thanks for the ministry that you've given us whether we're in it now or still waiting for it we thank you for the ministry you've given us but we also thank you lord that you've given people to us people that we are called to mentor people that we are called to disciple
• 35:00 - 35:30 and we want to know clearly who they are and so lord i pray that you would just cause names to filter to the top of our mind or or their faces to to flash before our face help us to realize who it is that we are called to raise up to run the race and help us to have the same conviction
• 35:30 - 36:00 about that that you had in training the 12. this we pray in jesus name amen so just for a moment just reflect on that and write down whatever names come to mind because we want to use those people as we think about practical ways to build leaders as we go through the seminar in the next few days okay keep bringing these people to mind so let's start with concrete names not just like young people think of real people okay name the names
• 36:00 - 36:30 okay now before we close our session tonight just one more thing on page 14. i'd like to introduce you to what we believe are the three main components of leader development and you'll see that diagram on page 14 with a circle a square and a triangle i've got a different symbol on the far left and i'll explain that later i i didn't
• 36:30 - 37:00 make that adjustment in in making it sync with this particular diagram but let me explain this real quickly we believe that we need to start with our goal and uh we're going to talk more about that goal and here you see an image of a bullseye because we want you to think in terms of a target we have a target in mind and when we think about developing leaders we need to get a very clear idea of what a healthy leader is we can talk about healthy leaders in general terms
• 37:00 - 37:30 but if we don't know what a healthy leader looks like how will we know if we are producing one we need a way of measuring first of all what is the goal and have we arrived okay so that's that's our goal i'll describe that more tomorrow tomorrow we'll be dealing with a question of the goal what is a healthy leader now in order to reach the goal we need a process that will bring us to the goal and you see the image of the square
• 37:30 - 38:00 divided into four parts for the process we'll introduce a process to you that brings us to the goal of a healthy leader and from the fact that it has four parts you can guess that our process also has four parts and finally we have this image either the triangle or the one you see on the screen for the design the design in this image above is a combination of the circle and the square which helps us understand that design is
• 38:00 - 38:30 bringing together consideration of both goal and process in developing a training program and we'll talk more about design on uh friday our very last day of the seminar okay now why is it that we start with this diagram with the goal on the far right it's because we want to begin with the goal in our mind before we ever begin anything and so you see the arrows in the booklet we're going to start on the right hand side with our
• 38:30 - 39:00 thinking and then we're going to move towards the process and the design then as we act we're going to come back the way we normally move from left to right moving from design to process into goal now to help this become more tangible to you we've got another way of looking at it and you can see that those symbols on the bottom of page 14 the goal is like a destination the process is like the journey we take to get there
• 39:00 - 39:30 and the design is like the map let me explain this just a little bit you know i i came here by plane some of you came by plane as well and uh some of you may have come by car uh for those of us that are choosing a plane or or train before you board the train before you board the plane you got to make sure you're boarding the right one right so you look at the gate information to make sure oh yeah that plane's going to chicago okay
• 39:30 - 40:00 that plane's going to south bend yes that's the plane i want to be on we begin with the goal in our minds don't we before we ever get on the plane where did you fly into when you came here did you fly into miami first or houston okay so you you were looking does this plane go to houston otherwise you were not getting on it in the same way for us we want to know what is our goal what is the destination and we look for that first then we choose the process then we choose that's the plane i want
• 40:00 - 40:30 that relates to what we're doing here where do we want to go how do we get there and finally we use that illustration of the map for the design but it's more than that our goal in this seminar is not to make you map readers you might think that because in most seminars when you when you go to a seminar they give you curriculum they tell you how it's done and they give you the curriculum to do it and they say now follow our map follow our curriculum
• 40:30 - 41:00 but instead our approach is different our approach is not to make you map readers but to make you map makers we want to give you the principles of cartography cartography is that science of making maps but not cartography we want to give you the principles of discipleship and leader development and then when we're done we want you to put them to use in your ministry and apply them however
• 41:00 - 41:30 they would best work for you in this way the result is not so much like taking clothing off the rack but more like getting a tailor-made suit we want you to have a training program that is custom designed for your purposes and what's so unique about that is that this means that you can develop anything that you need and that means it's flexible that means
• 41:30 - 42:00 it's adaptable that means it's culturally appropriate that means it suits your language your people your age your level of education your economic level that means you can use it for youth leaders or for the youth themselves that means you can use it for theologians or the heads of your mission for pastors for church planters it doesn't matter because you decide how to apply it
• 42:00 - 42:30 you take the major principles of the goal process and design and then you work together your own unique design for building healthy workers okay and this this is one of the great advantages to this particular approach you'll see more advantages later but i want to highlight that one tonight that this will be an approach that means you get involved and you develop something and it doesn't matter if your people are able to read and write a masterpiece
• 42:30 - 43:00 or are not able to read or write at all we have used this approach with children and we've used this approach with high high-level business leaders and theologians and you can use it in your ministry too so uh i want to thank you for coming tonight it's already getting late so i'd like to stop for tonight and resume again tomorrow morning tomorrow morning we're going to pick up with our
• 43:00 - 43:30 consideration of the goal and i'm going to ask you to share a little bit about a christian leader that you admire so if you want to think in advance be thinking about who is a christian leader that you think of as a truly exemplary model of christian leadership and we'll use them as a case study in our consideration of what is the goal of building a healthy leader okay so let's close with prayer and if
• 43:30 - 44:00 you want to hang around we can do that after our our closing lord god we thank you for this time we thank you lord for helping us to take a look at your life and to consider how you develop the 12. lord jesus we know that leadership development is is not a simple clear-cut process though there are many many complexities to it and yet lord help us not to be intimidated by that and help us to see that it you have a plan
• 44:00 - 44:30 and help us to follow that plan lord jesus i ask you to be with each and every one tonight and give us rest so we can be fully present tomorrow heart mind and spirit in jesus name we pray [Music] amen you