Filling Your Leadership Pipeline to Overflowing

A common belief among staff, as well as the average church member, is the staff is responsible for recruiting new leaders. This mentality is concerning because it limits recruitment efforts and creates a shortage of leaders in the church.We must remember one of the biggest factors for getting new people into leadership is their relationship to the person making the ask.Do you remember your first invitation into leadership? I do. Marjorie Willis, my hgh school English teacher asked me to consider leading the Christian Club on campus. Why she choose me I don’t know, I was the shyest kid in the entire school, but something prompted her to ask me. Because I had a close relationship with her I said I would pray about it. Had anyone else asked me I would have given them a flat out “No”. Over the next couple of weeks her voice guided me to a place where I couldn’t deny it was God calling me into that leadership role – So I said “yes”.

• I said “yes” to her because I believed in the fact that she believed in me.
• I said “yes” because I knew she would walk along side me and coach me.
• I said “yes” because God knew it was her voice I would respond to more than any other.

You see there are potential leaders in your church who will not respond to your invitation to lead, but would consider it if it came from a trusted friend. I’ve learned that people who may not respond to my voice will respond to another.Could you imagine what could happen if we would empower the voices of all our leaders to call others into leadership? I believe this would unleash an army of leadership recruiters that would keep the funnels of our leadership pipelines running full of growing leaders.So today’s question is not: Who are you challenging to step up into leadership? But instead, “Which of your leaders are you challenging to identify, recruit and raise up new leaders?”