What’s in this Episode?

In the church world, we often hear about the need to develop leaders, but most of the time, the reasons and methods people share for why this is so important actually miss the mark. That’s why in today’s episode, we’re going to break down the number one reason why you need to develop leaders at your church. And you’ve got to develop leaders ASAP.

---

Read the Transcript

Dick Hardy 0:22
You know, over the last few years, I watched a pastor in the Midwest to come on the scenes, and he was from Australia. So you know, pastor, Australia, you’re thinking Hillsong. And this guy was a young buck. I’m gonna guess he was maybe in his late 20s when he showed up. And he came into the city and came on like gangbusters. I mean, today, he launched a church, and he kicked that thing into high gear and it was rocking and rolling. And you’re sitting there saying to yourself, this is going to be a Hillsong right here in the middle of the United States. And boom, that thing went up and then flattened. I mean, I don’t know what they flattened at, you know, but it was it was a nice size, maybe 1000 people or something, but then it flattened. And I could predict to you that the reason it flattened is this pastor did not do the number one thing that needs to be done to develop leaders at his church. He was a great preacher. He was energetic. He was a communicator. But he could come out of the blocks. But then it flattened. And that’s what we want to talk to you about today. That there’s a number one reason that you need to be developing leaders and that pastor missed it. And I want to tell you, lots of pastors miss it. Lots of pastors do the development of leaders for the wrong reasons. And we’re going to talk about exactly that today.

Jonathan Hardy 1:49
Yep, before we do though, if you missed yesterday’s episode, episode number 49, you want to make sure to check that out. We shared a massive, massive announcement that we are doing here.

Dick Hardy 2:00
That’s the understatement of the ages. I’m telling you.

Jonathan Hardy 2:03
It was huge. It’s a big announcement. Big for us, because it’s probably one of the biggest changes and adjustments we’ve made and improvements we’ve made to leaders.church.

Dick Hardy 2:09
And that makes it big for you. And so check out Episode 49.

Jonathan Hardy 2:15
You want to listen to Episode 49. You can listen to it, watch it. Bottom line is, this is the perfect time to join the leaders.church membership before the price increases and the new tiered structure begins. But right now, if you join, you get grandfathered in at the highest level of the new structure for the lowest price and so this is a huge opportunity.

Dick Hardy 2:38
Time to do it.

Jonathan Hardy 2:38
Yep. And so simply go to leaders.church/grandfather, you’ll learn more information about it. We’d love to have you check it out and become a member and continue to grow as a leader in ministry.

Dick Hardy 2:50
Well, you know that link we thought was kind of a unique link but we knew you would remember it so leaders.church/grandfather. You know, also in Episode 34, when we’re talking about leaders, we shared a six step process to double the number of leaders at the church. And in that episode, we talked about the how to do it. But in this episode, we want to go to the why. Why it is that you need to be doing this number one thing and having the focus exactly right.

Jonathan Hardy 3:21
Yeah, well, go ahead.

Dick Hardy 3:23
Well, so yeah, jump into what it is that pastors think, and how it’s the wrong approach to developing leaders.

Jonathan Hardy 3:32
Well, when it comes to developing leaders, one of the things I think you often hear is you need to replace yourself. And the thing is, that’s not a very motivating reason to develop leaders and a lot of times you hear this all throughout leadership circles, not just in the church world, but I mean, just in leadership in general. That’s, oh you gotta work yourself out of a job, you got to replace yourself and then do all this and that’s, that’s not very motivating. It’s the wrong… it’s really the wrong reason to do it. Because that’s not going to help you accomplish what you need to accomplish for the ministry. And, you know, working yourself out of a job is like, well, you know, then what? Now certainly I understand the idea of, hey, the concept is, I’m going to develop leaders and I’m going to hand off some of these tasks to other people…

Dick Hardy 3:36
So that I can do higher level stuff.

Jonathan Hardy 4:22
But when it comes to it, I think just mentally, it’s like, well, but that’s just it’s not very motivating. And some people are like, well, I kind of like doing some of those things I like to do, and so why would I want to do that? So there there is a, what we would say, is a more appropriate reason for developing leaders and so Dick why don’t you share that with us?

Dick Hardy 4:40
Well, I will but I want to mention you know, there will be some people very pragmatically saying I don’t want to work myself out of a job I need this job. You know, there’s another wrong reason for doing it or, or I don’t want to, I don’t want to, you know, get myself replaced because these people can’t do it as good as I do it. Well, see these are all wrong reasons to to replicate or to develop leaders. The right reason… you ready for this? The right reason is to prepare the church, for the people God wants to bring. Now that gets to be a whole lot more motivating. When you begin to think of the life transformation of people all around your church, there needs to happen, and it’s going to happen as God brings people to you. But God can only bring people to you. Well, God can do whatever he wants, but he’s only gonna bring people to you for a church and a pastor that’s prepared for those people.

Jonathan Hardy 5:31
Yeah, exactly. That’s the thing I think that we often don’t talk about a lot in ministry circles is God set this whole thing up to use people. I mean, so it’s even while you said God can do anything at any point in time he wants to do, he has chosen to use people to accomplish his mission. And so, I mean, you can’t look at scripture without seeing the need. I mean, Moses is one of the classic examples right, where he was trying to do it all on his own. Jethro, his father-in-law’s like, hey, what you’re doing is not good. You need to, you need to develop more leaders. So that way you can do more ministry, you can… and that applies to us. We can do more ministry, we can see more people come to know the Lord, more people can be discipled. But if we’re not prepared, this is the thing I think that we don’t think about, or we don’t maybe like to talk about. If we’re not prepared, and I don’t know the mind of God, okay, I don’t have the mind of God. But logically, why would God want to send people to our church when we’re not prepared for them? You know, just think about that for a minute. Like, would he really want to send them to you? If you’re not prepared to handle the growth?

Dick Hardy 6:38
Drop the ball? Yeah.

Jonathan Hardy 6:39
Are they going to just slip through the cracks? Is that what God wants? No. So that means we have to be prepared. It’s kind of like what comes first chicken or the egg? Well, in this case, leaders need to be developed first. If you’re not prepared then…

Dick Hardy 6:50
the Lord’s not going to bring them your way. You know, we got a pastor, Pastor Jerry, who is you know, he’s using the leaders.church material. The content for his staff to help them I don’t know, to two or three times a week where he’s meeting with them. They’re consuming the content, all for the purpose of Jerry helping prepare the church for the people, there at Endurance Church, that God’s going to bring his way. See, he’s been intentional about preparing the staff to be prepared for the people God’s bringing. He’s not doing it to work himself out of a job. He’s not doing it just to replicate himself. He’s doing it for the right reason. And we commend Pastor Jerry for doing that.

Jonathan Hardy 7:33
And he even told us that, which I thought was really cool, that what he’s seeing is not only are they doing great in terms of leading in the church, but it’s overflowing in their life. And as they go to their homes, as they work in their workplaces. These are volunteer leaders that he has, yeah, they’re all like the whole, the whole…

Dick Hardy 7:53
The whole ship is rising.

Jonathan Hardy 7:54
The whole ship is rising. The capacity of all these guys and gals is rising because of that in investment that he’s making so it was really cool.

Dick Hardy 8:02
You know, and I can tell you, Jerry is gonna see it. And is seeing it, and you’re going to see it, if you’ll process the development of leaders, because of what God wants to bring you, you’re going to see more ministry, you can see more salvations, more discipleship, more baptisms, more, more, more of all that God wants to do in your church, and individually in the lives of the people. God is sending your way. Frankly, I get all pumped thinking about it, just thinking of what could be for your church, if you’ll make the investment in your team to prepare for all that God’s bringing you.

Jonathan Hardy 8:38
Absolutely. It’s really exciting. So remember, don’t do this because you want to replace yourself.

Dick Hardy 8:44
That’s the wrong reason.

Jonathan Hardy 8:45
Don’t. Don’t do that. Do it because you are wanting to prepare for the people that God wants to bring your church. We believe God wants more people to come to know him. His desire is that none would perish. So if that’s the case, and he wants to bring them to your church, your local church, wherever you meet anywhere in this entire world, then we want to encourage you, be prepared for them. And that happens when you’re developing leaders. So that is the number one reason why you need to develop leaders ASAP.

Dick Hardy 9:12
Well, and we think it’s just a great reason that you need to be considering the leaders.church membership, that honestly, we’re giving you this window up through midnight, September 3, that you’re grandfathered in at the, introductory rate of $37. Maybe you can give just a little snapshot, Jonathan, of what that offer is that goes away when you wake up on September 4.

Jonathan Hardy 9:41
Well, you’ll listen to it in Episode 49. I really seriously would encourage you that we break it down way more than I’m going to be doing here over this short window. But basically you’ve got standard, advanced, and premium membership levels. Each tier offers additional features that are going to help you so that way, you’ll be able to select what fits your needs best. You might not need the coaching call, you might not need the potential on site visit for what’s going on in your church. And so then you might not choose the higher premium plan. You may go with more the advanced and you’ve got a few people you want to invest in, or maybe you just want the individual plan that’s just for one person, that option is available as well. So check out Episode 49 you get more detail on that. And then as well just go to leaders.church/grandfather and you can read more about it there as well.

Dick Hardy 10:26
You’ll be in and good to go.

Jonathan Hardy 10:27
Yep!

Dick Hardy 10:28
Anything else?

Jonathan Hardy 10:28
That’s it. Thank you so much for just being with us today, listening or watching wherever it is. And we’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, be blessed.

So, develop leaders ASAP!

Subscribe & Follow:

• Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
• Follow on Spotify
• Subscribe to YouTube Channel
• Subscribe on Google Podcasts
• Like us on Facebook
• Follow us on Instagram
• Follow us on Twitter

Other Resources:

• Leaders.Church
• Leaders.Church Blog
• Church University
• Take the Free 5 Day Leadership Challenge for Pastors
• Get Free Access to the 4 Secrets Masterclass

Share This Article

---