tVB 55: 1 CHURCH WORK TRAINING: BEFORE RELEASING THEM…

tVB 55: 1

CHURCH WORK TRAINING:

BEFORE RELEASING THEM…

By reason of Vision Builders’ work with pastors, appointed church leaders and church workers, I have seen that Preparation by focused training, even more than qualification, is vital before people are released to positions of responsibility in a church or fellowship. I believe this was the apostle’s mind when he wrote, “Let them prove themselves first. If they show they can do it, take them on.” 1 Tim 3:10 (The Message bible) Through focused training, prospective leaders get the opportunity to prove themselves capable or otherwise before you finally appoint them.

Qualification is important, no doubt. However, you and I know that as humans, what we see can be at variance with what God sees where spiritual service is concerned. This was the Prophet Samuel’s experience when God sent him to the home of Jesse to anoint a new king for Israel. The bible states in 1 Sam 16:6-10, “So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him!" But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." So Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, "Neither has the Lord chosen this one." Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, "The Lord has not chosen these." After a parade of seven seemingly ‘kingly’ young men, God chose none of them!

Unlike the corporate world where people can directly focus their personal and professional development efforts at set professional positions and goals, church work does not usually pan out the same way. For example, how exactly do you develop yourself to become the choir director, or assisting pastor, or head usher?

For example, a private, calm and quiet person who heads a team of 50 staffers at the secular job may cave him when dealing with a group of 5 church members whom he cannot order around like his secular job permits him to. A housewife needs certain level of relationship and people skills to deal with corporate leaders under her newly appointed authority. Nothing falls into place simply because the pastor announced on Sunday that, “Bro so-and-so, and Sister so-and-so, are now our new officers in charge of so-and-so units of the church. Please give them all the support and encouragement they will need.” Usually the congregation will give them a roaring handclap, and from then their leadership skills take over. Ad God help everyone if they lack a sufficient level of leadership to do the work.

Usually, while the founding or resident Pastors rises and grows to the demands of their job in order to succeed in your ministry call, the vast majority of appointed leaders may not feel the need to change anything about their lifestyles since they were merely appointed and not particularly called by God into those positions. This is why a homely man may have problems from being kept away from his family every now and then because of the responsibilities of his new appointment in the church. Without focused training, such will probably operate on a negative pole. He or she will either inadvertently neglect the assignment or neglect the family.

Truth is, church work creates trouble for the unprepared hand. There is no level of corporate management or leadership skills that can quite prepare you to properly handle God’s sheep as He needs you to. Moses had royal training in leadership, but it took Jethro to show him basic human resource management for the ministry. And even then, the people he led made him miss the Promised Land! You cannot underplay the need for focused training in preparing your people for leading others in spiritual service.

As a leading or founding pastor / minister, it is God’s will that you succeed in your work. Your success is directly tied to your effectiveness of your available human resource. The more effective they are, the more rest of mind you will have and the more creative and successful your ministry will be. There’s a proverb that states, “Teach your children when they are very young, so they will give you peace in your latter days”. The same applies to your appointed officers. Incorporate focused training into the selection and appointment process for your prospective leaders, and anyone being given any reasonable level of authority. And in case you never did for your current set of leaders, it is not too late. We have programs that will help you assess and identify their training needs, and create a training curriculum. We’ll also be glad to provide training resources. You only need to call.

Focused training as a part of the selection and appointment process exposes your prospective Appointees to the imminent changes in their lifestyles, and skills for handling the new job’s demands without losing their personal lives.

UNDERSTANDING FOCUSED TRAINING

Focused Training is the implementation of a specific training curriculum directly relevant to the responsibilities and foreseen challenges of a prospective church leader’s new job. Different jobs pose different needs and challenges, for example, leading a Prayer Group requires different leadership and people management skills. Often however, church leaders focus pre-appointment training (where training is even considered) on general topics like good character, spirituality and leadership example.

DETERMINING FOCUSED TRAINING NEEDS

How do you identify focused training needs for each unit?

By now, you will have realized that each church unit should be treated as a single entity, but as a part of an organization. You will have to set operational parameters for each unit. Please do not generalize because needs and challenges are different. While some units can be run by unskilled volunteers, some others require highly skilled personnel, and so the recruitment styles of each unit will differ. While some departments will do well with short term leaders, some units can only do well with a long term leader.

FOCUSED TRAINING NEEDS FOR APPOINTED CHURCH LEADERS

I want to try and capture the prerequisite areas of training required for both churches and campus fellowships in one go. The issues are similar in some cases but also complexly variant in others. The following training topics are quite vital in their preparation for leadership.

Personality & Private Life
Relationships
People Management
Scope of responsibility
Up-line and Down-line Communication

PERSONALITY & PRIVATE LIFE

Spiritual Leadership duties do not require people to become different persons, but to grow into better persons. The servant-leader, beyond being a politically ‘right’ statement, positions anyone to perform successfully. But Serving as a leader is more than a slogan. You can’t do what you have no information about. This is why Africa’s political landscape is fraught with ‘servant-leaders’ who know what they wish to do, but lack the leadership know-how to execute it. According to Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, “It is in the time of trouble that you know a real leader.” New leaders need to be aware and equipped with the information to handle challenges and possible adversities that will come on the job.

RELATIONSHIPS

When I was appointed as assisting pastor many years ago, I had a challenge with some old friends who found it tough calling me ‘pastor’. We’re still friends today and all that is history but it called for tough people-skills. People usually have challenges adjusting to the realities that someone else got appointed and they did not. Someone is suddenly more honoured and that person is not them. This reality creates cold attitudes in some folks. New leaders should be prepared for these shocks. The interesting thing to note is that the first points of resistance are usually close friends. If new leaders know this ahead, they will be better prepared to handle such challenges.

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

While preparing to speak at a church, I felt a strong desire to talk with the leaders so I asked my host and was obliged. In our brief session, there was a question about how a leader could earn the respect of older members of the unit – a major problem area for many leaders even with handling younger unit members). So I offered this - respect begets respect. You get as much as you give, especially with people older than you. Giving respect, as every other people management skill must be learnt. New leaders should be equipped with this knowledge. It makes leadership easier.

UP-LINE AND DOWN-LINE COMMUNICATION

Administrative structures will either support or inadvertently frustrate new leaders. Make your new leaders understand the nature of your administration so they know when, how, where and through whom to route their needs as they strive to deliver. It is amazing that secular jobs lay out our job expectations and operational processes but the church/fellowship administration does not usually take the time to do same. There is always the oversight or assumption that once hands are laid on new appointed leaders they will ‘supernaturally’ know what to do. Only for a few weeks later and many disappointing surprises begin to show up. Information enables competence.

These are some of the things that the Lord Jesus taught the disciples before leaving them to disciple the nations. Little wonder twelve ordinary men affected such a difficult world filled with complex people in such profound ways. Society is getting more complex, and the wise leader will brace for up for the realities of people management in these times by properly preparing his or her new leaders well before releasing them into different areas of responsibilities.

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