Contributor—Mark DeVries, President of Ministry Architects
Most of us in the “profession” of ministry were not trained to lead. We were trained to speak. We were trained to teach, to preach, to visit, to exegete, maybe even to manage.
But few of us were taught to lead.
Leaders place a premium on setting a course, galvanizing a team, and moving the needle.
Managers do the important work of keeping the status quo on schedule—meeting deadlines, running meetings, keeping up with tasks. Most who stay in ministry, by necessity, develop management skills.
But leaders are more rare. Leaders take us into unknown places, the places where we have not yet been.
Managers apply grit and determination to stay the course, to help us do better than what we have been doing.
But without a leader, a ministry will find itself, at best, working efficiently to hit yesterday’s targets.
Management tasks flock to us like hungry pigeons. Leadership tasks—at least the game-changing ones—must be sought out one by one.
What would it take to raise up a generation of leaders equipped to walk the church into its next chapter and through the uncertainty and disequilibrium that will comes with that walk?
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