I was reading Scott Thomas's blog on The Ten Qualifications of a Church Planter over at Acts29 blogs - and wanted to pass it along to you as an excellent resource.
A few sentences in his opening paragraphs caught me:
He followed up later with this:
Church leaders need to hear this - and answer the call to replicate leadership, even if the leaders they are raising up are better leaders than them and might threaten their own comfort zone in leadership. If a leader can't do this, he should step down and get out of the way of the Spirit.
A few sentences in his opening paragraphs caught me:
Every church leader should be able to spot a church planter and then send him to plant as soon as he is ready. The problem I am seeing is that we are so desperate for good men that we are not sending them into the field. We take warriors and make them into administrative clerks.
He followed up later with this:
We prefer the men in our church to be mules. A mule does not act like a jackass and they are able to carry larger loads and endure longer than a horse. They are tamer than a jackass but do not seem to want to run like a stallion. I think many pastors prefer a mule to a stallion. Stallions are designed to run and not be penned up in a stable. We are generally afraid of stallions because we are afraid of our own masculinity, our leadership, and our "importance" to the Christian community. We are afraid that the stallion will steal our oats and our affirmation by "our" people. Since our own fathers did not affirm us, this is seen as a threat. We value Steady Eddie instead of Daring Dan. Christianity is a radical following of Jesus. The problem with being a mule is that it is almost always sterile.
Church leaders need to hear this - and answer the call to replicate leadership, even if the leaders they are raising up are better leaders than them and might threaten their own comfort zone in leadership. If a leader can't do this, he should step down and get out of the way of the Spirit.
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