Empowering Leadership
It is recognised that a church with quality and health will grow.
Eight quality characteristics have been recognised in growing churches. The first of the qualities is that of Empowering Leadership. This quality pictures a church that is people centred rather than project centred.
A church where empowerment is important sees the different leaders within the church deciding that rather than grow their own goals and fulfilling their own visions empowering leaders consciously set out to empower others to lead and grow.
That picture is seen well in a Bible passage that we should all become very well aware of, Ephesians 4:11-13 ...
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. “
The Seventh-day Adventist Elder’s handbook follows that idea up with the following,
“A better example of leadership is modelled for us in the early Christian church. The style of the New Testament church was an enabling style where every member was a minister, where pastors and elders became the servants of the church, working together to develop the potential of each individual.”
The Seventh-day Adventist Elder’s handbook. Page 63
How can a healthy church that is aiming for real quality create that?
Elders and Pastors can act as talent spotters. Rather than acting like X Factor judges they can seek to recognise individuals, who may well be young in faith or age, and set out to model an effective and active Christian lifestyle. Opportunities can be taken, at appropriate times, to help such people take steadily growing opportunities to minister to the Saints and to the observing world in need of guidance, direction and health.
How does Ellen White put it?
“Leading men should place responsibilities upon others, and allow them to plan and devise and execute, so that they may obtain an experience. Give them a word of counsel when necessary, ... All our workers must have room to exercise their own judgment and discretion. God has given men talents which He means that they should use. He has given them minds, and He means that they should become thinkers, and do their own thinking and planning, rather than depend upon others to think for them.”
Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers. Page 302
A healthy church, a growing church is one where the leaders empower others to grow and to lead.
That is the kind of leadership we are aiming for at Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church.
