Have you ever read the "Present with the Lord" sections in your Alumni magazines or newsletters? Many of us may have because we know that one day our name will be listed there. Years ago as I was Ieafing through mine I came across a couple of pastors who where remembered for their faithful service in local churches, faithfulness to their families and interestingly enough, they were also remembered for the number of men and women they helped enter into full-time ministry. So with that thought in the back of my head, the next time I scanned through another Alumni magazine I saw another pastor remembered for his service, his family and those he mentored into full-time ministry. Was I starting to see a pattern here? I saw it again and again! Then I noticed that these pastors served during the 30's, 40's and 50's! My conclusion was people remember what is important to them. Faithful service and loving family, along with the raising up and the sending out of leaders were badges of honor to these generations of leaders. I am very confident that faithful service and family are very high on our list, but I have to wonder...is raising up and sending out leaders in the harvest field a value for our generation? We celebrate building, budgets, attendance, the number of staff we have but there is little talk about the leaders we send out.
This leads us to our fourth prayer that will enlarge the heart of a missional leader: “Father, help me empower others and release them into your harvest field.”
This can be a dangerous prayer for a leader because leadership development is a costly and risky business. The making of leaders is filled with all sorts of pitfalls, setbacks, and victories. Consider the example of Barnabas, the first century "leader maker". At great risk to himself, he invested into the life of a young convert named Saul. He risked his very life and he risked his reputation in bringing him to the rest of the Apostles (Acts 9:26-27). Years later, at great cost to himself, he went to find Saul in Tarsus and gave him a platform in the Church in Antioch (Acts 11:25-26). When the Holy Spirit spoke and told him to leave Antioch with Saul to take the gospel to Asia Minor; it was no mistake that he brought along a young apprentice, named John Mark (Acts 13:5). When he saw God uniquely empowering Saul, who become Paul, he stepped back and in an enableing move, let Paul take the lead (Acts 13:42-46). Finally, when a decision to reinvest in a wayward apprentice needed to be made, Barnabas took an empowering posture and put the development of a young leader ahead of the task. This decision cost him dearly (Acts 15:36-42). As leaders we need to count the cost of praying this prayer because investing, empowering and releasing leaders can be a messy business.
We are called to pour our lives into others, first on a discipleship level (Matthew 28:19-20) and second on a leadership level (II Timothy 2:2). It is surprising how little we pray about identifying, raising up and sending out workers into the harvest field. Praying for workers was critical to Jesus' missional training process. "After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'"(Luke 10:1-2)
As he was sending out workers he taught them to pray for more workers. Let us earnestly ask the Lord of the harvest to bring us more workers to send out into His harvest.
Next time: “Father, grant me the courage to make the right missional decisions.”
Excerpt from Gary's book: NextSteps for Leading a Missional Church
Join Gary "live" at an upcoming "NextSteps Workshop"
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