It is essential that ministry leaders keep growing and
developing their God-given potential.
1 Tim 4:12-16. Until I come,
devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to
teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message
when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters;
give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch
your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will
save both yourself and your hearers.
What do people see when they look at our life? Do they see a life of progress?
Jesus grew in wisdom (mental), stature (physical), favour
with God (spiritual) and people (social).
If you stop growing, you put a ceiling on the ministry and
the people you lead or the ministry begins to outgrow you. In contrast, when
you are growing you lift the ministry and the people around you to a higher
level and the ministry keeps growing with you.
Personal and ministry growth is your responsibility. It’s up
to you to discipline yourself and do whatever it takes to keep enlarging,
stretching and learning new things. Keep upgrading your ministry capacity.
Most leaders have too little input and too much output. This
leads to staleness, sameness and a lack of spiritual and ministry vitality.
You can tell when a leader’s capacity has been reached –
there is a loss of passion, few new volunteers are being added to the ministry,
few new people are being reached, strong or different people become frustrated,
people are beginning to leave the ministry, there is a loss of creativity and
freshness, there are constant feelings of being overloaded and there are no
other significant leaders being raised up.
There are so many ways to keep growing today – on the job
training, books, audio messages, conferences, mentors, etc. Great leaders continually
keep themselves fresh by learning and processing new things. You are responsible to keep you passion and freshness. Don’t stop growing and learning or you will plateau.
Putting Legs on It:
* What are your strengths? Soar with them and build people
around you who are strong in areas of your weakness.
* What are you doing on a consistent basis to grow?
* What time are you investing regularly for personal and
ministry growth? Plan it.
* Who are your mentors – people more advanced in ministry than
you?
* Develop a list of personal goals for the year. Review them
regularly and hold yourself accountable to them.