Despite my best efforts of scouring the web and networking with some of the greatest church minds around, I’ve yet to find the perfect formula for developing amazing church leaders. If anyone ever does figure out the perfect formula, they wouldn’t have to work another day in their life.
I have, however, developed a system I really like, although it’s hardly a system. It’s really just being intentional about spending time with the right people.
We call it Second Sunday. As in the second Sunday of each month, we gather all of our leaders together to basically hang out. Here are the specifics in case you want to borrow the idea.
- Greet / Eat / Play (40 minutes)
The majority of the night we spend eating, laughing, and playing games. Fun is a prerequisite of being on our team. If you don’t like having fun, you’re not going to like hanging out with us. I’ll let you in on a little secret: if you’ll make your meetings fun, more people will show up to them. So, we play really fun games, laugh a lot, give away prizes, and work on our team building. There’s food normally involved as well because everyone loves food. I could’ve easily called this section fun, food, and fellowship, but it sounded too churchy.
- Leadership Talk (30 minutes)
Once we’ve had our fun, it’s time to learn something. One of our other pastors or myself will give a short leadership talk to stir the hearts and minds of our leaders. If we’re feeling really brave, we’ll follow it up with some question and answer time. There are tons of topics to teach on. If you’re struggling to come up with something each month, just pick up John Maxwell’s book The Twenty One Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and teach through it.
- Worship (10 minutes)
After the leadership talk, we like to sing one or two worship songs in thankfulness and celebration of all that God has done for us. You can do this before the talk if you want, however we’ve found that it’s easier to eat and listen than to eat and sing. And a lot of times our people are still eating during the talk.
- Need to Know / Volunteer of the Month (10 minutes)
The last ten minutes of the night are spent on announcements that need to be made including upcoming events, dates, or something we need to work on. For example, we might say we’re in need of more kids’ ministry volunteers, so let’s be on the lookout for someone we can ask to start serving. Then, the last part of the night is announcing our volunteer of the month and celebrating them. Remember, what gets celebrated gets replicated.
That’s it. Pretty simple. It’s basically just hanging out with each other. And if you think about it, isn’t that what Jesus did? He basically rounded up a group of people and hung out with them for a few years. And in the end they became incredible leaders. We’re just trying to do the same.
How does your church handle leadership development? Do you think it’s working? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments below, and if you haven’t already make sure to subscribe to the blog to get tips on church growth, leadership, and more delivered straight to your inbox.
