How Shall a Church Grow Its Own Leaders?

Ask any gathering of church staff what their #1 concern is, and the answer invariably sounds something like this:

How do I get more leaders to help in our church?

I've written about it before, but it's a question that keeps coming up. Interestingly enough, it's a question with a lot of history behind it, too.

The question is not just for today's fast-paced, multiple-ministry churches. It was also being asked back in the 1920s-30s. Gaines S. Dobbins, professor of religious education at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote the following in his book "Building Better Churches":

Varied places of leadership in the church call for a variety of leaders. In the main, types of leadership may be classified in four divisions:

• Promotional - a church has nothing to sell, yet it has that which it would commend to the people, a message and a service of supreme value. Someone must take the lead in promoting publicity, attendance, special activities, service, and good will.
• Administrative - a church needs men and women whose aptitudes and special training fit them to take the leadership in carrying out plans which have been made and approved. Such people know how to organize, systematize, routinize, delegate responsibility, prevent failure through wise counsel, check up on results, and utilize experience in making one effort contribute to the success of the next effort.
• Educational - leaders do not succeed by magic - they must be given continuous training and supervision. Churches need a combination of directors, teachers, sponsors, assistants, trainers, and counselors to fulfil the complex education program of a modern church.
• Inspirational - these leaders do not form an exclusive group, but emerge in all the other groups and from the congregation as a whole, furnishing the very breath of life to the total church body. Their spirt, zeal, devotion, loyalty, and character provide and sustain much of the motivation of the church.

Dobbins also suggests four ideas about discovering and developing leaders from within the church:

• Leaders are made as well as born
• Leaders emerge in response to need
• Leaders grow under the stimulation of study
• Leaders are inspired by confidence and appreciation

Some of the words and phrases may be a little dated, but the truths behind them are rock solid and pure gold.

If you are a leader in ChurchWorld, how are you producing other leaders?

Community Context

The community does not exist primarily for the church

but the church for the community.

This quote by Gaines S. Dobbins in "Building Better Churches" underscores the importance of understanding the context of the "place" a church finds itself in. Here is a sampling of some questions church leaders ought to be asking on a regular basis:

• Has the church a plan for studying and knowing its territory?
• Has the church a map or maps of its territory and outlying districts?
• Has the church accurate information as to population statistics such as age, race, and occupation?
• Is the church reasonably informed as to economic conditions in the community?
• Has the church ever made a study of community health conditions?
• Has the church any plan of active cooperation with the schools in the community?
• Does the church take an active interest in providing or encouraging better cultural advantage?
• Is the church aware of and making any contribution toward the solution of the problem of delinquency?
• Has the church any program for the improvement of family life?
• Is the church building wholesome community consciousness and developing civic pride?
• Is the church promoting good citizenship?
• Is the church promoting neighborliness?

Sounds like questions taken from the latest writings on leadership and vision, right?

Wrong - they were written in 1947, near the end of Dobbins' career as a professor of Christian education. For over 25 years Dr. Dobbins used knowledge like this to train young pastors as they prepared to begin serving in churches across the world.

We would do well today to remember his teachings.

Old School Thinking

Translating New Testament Principles into Present-Day Practices

I discovered a treasure in the form of the book "Building Better Churches" by Gaines S. Dobbins, prominent Southern Baptist educator from the 1920s-1950s.

He asks some great questions:

• What sort of church would it be that undertook intelligently and fearlessly to fashion itself according to the basic principles of the New Testament?
• On what vital functions would it major?
• What would be revealed to be its strengths and weaknesses?
• What would it give up as encumbrances inherited from a traditional past but clearly of doubtful value in the living present?

His answers? He thought the church should be a

• Regenerate body - an inward change growing out of a personal experience in which the shift of life's center has been from self to Christ
• Beloved community - sacrifice for the common good is the essence of true community; love cannot flourish in an atmosphere where some assume an attitude of superiority over others as their inferiors
• Company of worshippers - the object of worship is the God of the Lord Jesus Christ made real through the presence of the Holy Spirit. The practice of worship is in spirit and truth; the purpose of worship is to maintain vital unity between the worshiper and God through the mediator, Jesus Christ, and the illuminator the Holy Spirit. A church may do much else besides worship, but it will do little else of consequence without worship
• Winner of believers - the process of intelligent persuasion began with Christ's invitation to "come and see." It continued throughout His ministry and Paul expanded it. There is no mistaking the proposal of the New Testament that believers be won to saving faith through persuasion
• Teacher of disciples - preaching and teaching are indispensable means of leading toward Christ, to Christ, and into the service and likeness of Christ. A church is essentially a school with Christ as the Great Teacher; the Holy Spirit as His interpreter; the Bible the chief textbook; the minister the chief officer of the school with other leaders gathered around him as teachers and staff; every believer an enrolled student; and all others who can be reached are sought as learners to be led toward Christ
• Server of humanity - the early Christians caught the spirit of Christ and like Him, "went about doing good." It must send regenerate men and women out into an immoral society to transform evil into good, wrong into right, injustice into justice, not so much by political measures as by the leavening process of Christian influence
• Agency of the Kingdom - the Kingdom of God is a present and future reality. It is not an organization to be promoted, nor a movement to be advanced, nor a social ideal to be realized, but a relationship to be entered and a spiritual order into which others are to be brought through persuasive witnessing

Dobbins, after a lifetime of service to the church, but writing this in 1947, had this final thought which I leave for you to consider:

Ours is an age of revolution. Inevitably the churches are undergoing change. Why not seize on this opportunity to make changes back to the New Testament rather than farther away from it?

Facing A Changing World

In researching and working on some leadership development material for an upcoming seminar, I came across the following:

Christianity is a religion of change. Jesus' call in Mark 1:15 (the kingdom of God is at hand) was a call to change - change of mind and heart, of conduct and character, of self and society. By its very nature Christianity is a religion for a changing world and has always had its greatest opportunity during times of upheaval.

The Christan leader has no option; he must face a changing world. If the leader is to render maximum service, he must both adjust himself to the phenomena of change and address himself passionately to the business of producing and guiding change. Here are some elements that constitute the changed world in which the Christian leader today is called to fulfill his ministry.

• Changed world outlook
• Changed economic philosophy
• Changed social consciousness
• Changed family life
• Changed community conditions
• Changed moral standards
• Changed religious viewpoints
• Changed conceptions of the church
• Changed media for molding public opinion
• Changed demands made upon the leader

Pretty good list, right? Dead on. Taken from today's headlines.

Nope.

The author was Gaines S. Dobbins, distinguished professor of Religious Education at my alma mater, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville KY.

Written in 1947.

As the introduction to the book "Building Better Churches: A Guide to Pastoral Ministry."

Dr. Dobbins retired before I was born, but I had the privilege of sitting under a couple of professors who were students under Dr. Dobbins. When I came across this book in a used bookstore recently, I bought it on impulse. After flipping through it, I realized it was a treasure of leadership wisdom.

Time to go back to school...