Podcast

031 – 10 Leadership Training Topics (Part 2)

Posted on July 30, 2020December 4, 2023 by Ryan Sparks

What’s in this Episode?

One of the most important things for pastors to do is to train the key staff and volunteer leadership that they have at the church. And yet, where do you begin? What topics do you cover? Well, in this episode, we’re going to continue our discussion of the 10 church leadership training topics that you can use to implement in your training at your church.

Read the Transcript

Jonathan Hardy 0:25
Hey, I want to welcome you to this episode today as we continue our discussion of the 10 church leadership training topics that you as a pastor or ministry leader need to be considering as you’re training the staff or volunteer key leaders that you have at your church. Now, in that previous episode, Episode Number 30, we talked about the first five training topics and now today we’re going to talk about the next five training topics. Again, these are topics that we suggest you consider using or talking to your team about. So it’s staff. This is your volunteer leaders. We want to make sure that you do your part to train the leaders that you have, because training leaders is massive. I mean, if you’re not training, I mean…

Dick Hardy 1:06
Then you’re trying to do it all by yourself. And you’ve got a lid on your ministry in doing that.

Jonathan Hardy 1:10
So let’s go ahead and jump into the 6 through 10 training topics that we’re going to be talking about today.

Topic #6: How Do We Start New Ministries And Stop Old Ones?

Dick Hardy 1:15
Here we go. Number six is how do we start new ministries and stop old ones? I’ve done discussions with pastors on this for years, because churches are notorious for starting things, and not stopping, because it’s somehow unspiritual to stop things. But the reality is, there are things that you did in the past and ministry that need to stop if you’re going to go forward and you have to help your leaders understand that it’s okay to stop the things you used to do in order to do the new things. You’re helping build in a culture of change. Stopping the old, start the new. Help leaders think new, change, entrepreneurial because the more your leaders can think that way, the further it’s going to take the church, you need to tie the starts to mission starting new ministry and the stops to their lack of relevance to mission. Because people will get married to these things that you’ve done in ministry, and somehow you’re not spiritual because you stop. But if you tie the starting of a new ministry to mission and the stop to the lack of relevance to mission for this thing you’re stopping, you’re gonna find yourself to be in much better shape than if you just tried to go full steam ahead without explaining the difference in change. Seventh thing!

Topic #7: How Do We Lead In Tough Times?

Jonathan Hardy 2:42
So yeah, seventh thing would be to talk to them about how do we lead in tough times? Because the reality is we’re going to face tough times. I mean, most recently, we know we had the tough times with the Coronavirus, and that was a massive change that churches had to deal with. How do we how to navigate this massive, you know, thing that just resulted in a, you know, crazy shift in the way we do ministry? Well, there’s going to be tough times all the time, there’s going to be something in the future, that’s going to happen. And so we need to be training them now and talking to them now about how to lead through tough times, because you’re not the only leader. They also are leaders and so they need to be able to lead their teams through the tough times. And so helping them to step up and to own that with you and to, you know, to understand how they need to step up, how to be calm, how to respond and be agile, those are all things that they need to do. And so we need to be training them. And so this is just one of those topics to be able to really invest in them now before that next tough time comes.

Topic #8: Navigating Change

Dick Hardy 3:51
Exactly, exactly. The next one. You want to help your leaders navigate change. Now, you’re modeling this because you’re navigating change and they’re watching you, but as a pastor, you need to make change a centerpiece of the church. There’s that old statement that the only thing permanent around here is change. That needs to be true for your church. And again, you know, we’ve referenced it before, that you need to help people understand that change is gain. Change is not loss. People fear loss. They think when you’re changing something, you’re going to lose, but the reality is, you want to help tie change to gain and help people understand that change has to happen here all the time. Help your leaders understand that. Keep change centered on the method to attain mission and then tie change to gain in successfully attaining that message.

Topic #9: How Should Leaders Make The Best Decisions?

Jonathan Hardy 4:50
Yeah, yeah, that’s good. Another topic that you want to make sure to do or talk about is how do leaders or how should leaders make the best decisions? You know, I mean, the reality is the best decisions, they’re made in prayer, they’re informative decisions, they’re, you know, they’re based on data or facts. They are made in consultation with our leaders. You know, the Bible says, “plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed.” And so training your team on these things, helping them understand how to make the best decisions, and to not make decisions that are in a vacuum, but to be able to see the whole picture. And that’s one of the important things that the lead pastor of a church sees, but so often staff pastors or the key leaders that might be volunteers, they don’t see the whole picture. So being able to help them see the overall scheme of the ministry as a whole is very, very important.

Topic #10: How Do Leaders Grow In Their Own Discipleship?

Dick Hardy 5:49
Absolutely. And the final one here, the fifth one for today and the tenth one overall, is how do leaders grow in their own discipleship? Your leaders are individual men and women with their own relationship with God, and it is your job as the leader to help those leaders grow in their own discipleship. Leaders must learn how to walk the talk, we’ve heard that walk the talk line, but they truly need to do that. And that happens as they grow in their own discipleship. Leaders must grow in their time in prayer. And in the word, leaders challenge other leaders in their growth. And then, see, that’s what you, through all that we’re talking about here in the last episode and this one, this is what you want to have happen. You want to have your leaders challenging other leaders, and it grows and grows and grows.

Dick Hardy 5:48
Now and then the last one, leaders must model what it is to grow in Christ. You’re doing this and your leaders need to be doing this. If you’ll do these things. You’ll see good things happen at the church all the way through.

Dick Hardy 6:52
Now, can I just do a little recap?

Jonathan Hardy 6:54
Yeah, just recap all of them.

Recap:

Dick Hardy 6:56
Recap all 10 of them. So these are 10 topics that you should be going over with your leaders and if you’ll do this, you’ll really set the stage for great growth. Number one, how do high capacity leaders get and stay engaged in the church’s mission? Number two, how do church leaders stay healthy? Three, how does the church engage young leaders? Four, how do we recruit, train and retain leaders? Five, how does the church respond to cultural shifts? Number six, how do we start new ministries and stop old ones? Number seven, how do we lead in tough times? Number eight, how do leaders navigate change? Number nine, how do leaders make the best decisions? And number 10, how do leaders grow in their own discipleship? This is a pretty good list. If you’ll pay attention to these and pour this into your leaders, you’re gonna see good things happening.

Jonathan Hardy 7:49
Yeah, I mean, you might even consider taking one of these topics each month for the next 10 months. And you know, 10 months out of the year, you’ve got just lots of stuff to be informing and training and developing them and when you’re investing in them, you’re going to help them go to the next level. And then in the same way that they need to go to the next level, I would encourage you to go to the next level as well. Now obviously, by listening to the Church Tips, podcast, or YouTube show you are doing that, but as well, I would encourage you to look at other things that might be able to help you and one of those is actually a masterclass training that I put together that I’d invite you to check out. It’s free. You can click to get access very easily, and I would invite you to do so. All you have to do is go to leaders.church/secrets, and this masterclass is the Four Secrets that Pastors Can Use to Lead at the Next Level. So if you do that, that alone is going to help you and in the same way that you’re challenging them to go the next level, we hope that you to go to the next level in your leadership.

Jonathan Hardy 8:51
As well, please, before you go, make sure to hit that subscribe button on YouTube or subscribe on the podcast platform that you are listening to. And please rate and review. We want to hear your feedback. And we appreciate all the insight that we’ve gotten from people so far. And we know that there’s great days ahead as we continue to put out the Church Tips episodes. And so thanks so much for being with us today. We’ll look forward to seeing you next time. Take care.

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Podcast

031 – 10 Leadership Training Topics (Part 2)

What’s in this Episode?

Read the Transcript