Empowering Leadership

We are in the third year of the Natural Church Development process here. Every year we have a group of people take a survey that helps to give us some guidance as to areas the church can grow in, and then we spend the year working on one of the areas. For the past two years the area we spent most of our time on was Passionate Spirituality. At the July board meeting we will get the results from this years survey and start the process again.

One of the areas that we have scored high on for the past two years has been Empowering Leadership. Basically, this area has to do with how we empower different people in the congregation to grow in their leadership abilities. it all has to do with finding out what things people are passionate about, and then finding ways to use that passion in the life of the church and the world.

I think one of the struggles that the big "C" Church has had in the past was that that pastors did everything - and in the process the laity were left out of leadership roles. In my opinion, this goes against the very grain of what it means to be the church. We are all blessed with a wide variety of gifts in our lives, and these gifts vary from person to person. We need other to make us complete, to make the church complete. So empowering leadership is essential as we look at ways to help others experience the love of God in their lives.

So today, my challenege to you is to take time in prayer to discern what your gift are. What are you passionate about? What do you love to do? And how can you focus these passions to show others about the love of Christ? May we all be blessed by knowing that we have been given gifts and find ways to us these gifts to build up others.