3 Ways to Call Leaders to Increase Their Spiritual Conversations

This series of posts is dedicated to giving you ideas to help you, your team and your church in developing a plan for increasing your spiritual conversations this year.

1. Own it as the leader.

2. Expand the effectiveness of your staff.

3. Call your leaders into the mission.

Are your board meetings filled with a burning passion to see every man, women and child reached with the gospel in your community?

Three ways to call your leaders to engage in more spiritual conversations:

First, reinforce the vision of your church.  Calling your leaders to the mission of Jesus should be what permeates your every leadership meeting in the church; business meetings, elders meetings, deacon meetings. finance meetings, youth meetings, children's ministry meetings, worship practices, etc.  Everyone leading those meetings should lead them in a way that reinforces the vision to reach the community with the gospel of Jesus, not just to maintain their ministry area.

Second, create a sense of urgency.  If your leaders have no sense of urgency they will never seize the evangelistic opportunities that God gives them. 

How does one create an ongoing sense of urgency among their leaders? 

John Kotter in his book, A Sense of Urgency, describes five ways we can create a sense of true urgency every day:

• Purge and Delegate – Don’t let an overcrowded calendar slow you down; purge low-priority items, don’t get distracted, and learn to delegate.
• Move with Speed – Respond quickly to people’s calls, requests and emails. Never end meetings without clarity about who will do what and when.
• Speak with Passion – Talk to others with feeling so others catch the urgency and passion of your message.
• Match Words and Deeds – Don’t just talk about something and then not do it yourself; be real and be an example to others.
• Let Them All See It – Be visible as often as possible to as many people as possible. Let them see your sense of urgency.

Third, make sure every leader can share the gospel in a compelling manner.

Assumptions kill evangelism!  Thinking a person that is in leadership knows how to share the gospel effectively is a big mistake.  Continual training and retraining of leaders is imperative.

 "Helping to fulfill the Great Commission is the single most important task of the Church. Therefore, developing evangelistic leadership to carry out that mission should be a top priority." - Bill Bright

Four Take-Aways:

• Equip your leaders in how to reinforce the vision of mission through every level of the church.
• Model the urgent reality of the harvest (John 4:35) in all you do.
• At every leadership meeting ask the following question: Who can we pray for in your life that needs Jesus?
• Schedule an evangelistic training opportunity just for your leaders & staff.

Additional Resources 

 5 Steps to Increasing Your Spiritual Conversations in Your Church

1. Own it As the Leader
2. Expand the Effectiveness of Your Staff
3. Continually Call Your Leaders Into the Mission
4. Provide Training Opportunities for Your Congregation
5. Create Immersion Experiences for Your Congregation

Comments

[Aaron]

Great post Pastor Gary. Thank you as always for keeping evangelism in front of us and helping us to teach others!