The need for church leadership development today is crucial. Training and growing an individual or a group of potential leaders takes commitment, experience, and investment.
Whether you are succession planning, in a church transition, or mentoring someone who wants to serve, it will require your time, effort, and energy.
Church leadership development is not an easy task. Every person is different and will require different experiences, interactions, and communication to effectively learn and grow as a leader.
A unique blend of personal investment, opportunity, and education resources can help you with your church leadership development process.
11 Now, these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12, NLT
If you are a pastor or ministry leader, thank you for doing your part to prepare and equip people within the church to do God’s work on the earth.
How Does Church Leadership Development Happen?
Church leadership development is an intentional effort by those who understand the necessity of creating a culture to support growth in others.
Most churches have a leadership deficiency because they haven’t taken the time to build a culture of development. People don’t randomly show up in the leadership pipeline—it requires intentionality. – tonymorganlive.com
If Jesus had to develop disciples and Paul had to train Timothy, we have to build leaders too. Leadership development is a responsibility that wise leaders assume to further ministry and impact.
Great leaders develop others by modeling servanthood by humbly investing their time and resources with individuals or small groups of people.
Church leadership development requires pastors, ministry leaders, and mentors to continuously make room for those close to them to make decisions, influence, ask questions and receive feedback.
Unfortunately, developing leaders is not as easy as having someone read a book or listen to a lecture. However, pairing your investment, unique opportunities, and helpful resources can increase the leadership capacity of those you train.
Thankfully, quality church leadership development resources are available and mostly free to help further train your pipeline. Utilizing church leadership content in your process can spur deeper conversation, inspire new ideas, and provide insight into the nuances of ministry.
Undoubtedly, leadership development in the local church is a complex blend of skills that require mentoring and experience for new leaders to grow. Introducing biblical concepts from various people’s experiences, locations, and perspectives can help prevent thinking in a vacuum.
Keep reading to discover nine helpful church leadership development resources to learn from, share as a team, and help lighten the load of training new leaders.
8 Church Leadership Development Podcasts
A growing number of pastors and professional leadership mentors with experience and familiarity with the church provide incredible content for ministry leaders through their podcast. No matter where you are in leadership or ministry, you can find something to help you and your church.
Podcasts are a convenient yet powerful way to provoke learning and engaging conversations. As a team, create a schedule of episodes to listen to and plan discussion times to review the content. Doing so can help you develop church leaders as you engage with and process the same ideas.
Below are eight helpful podcasts with content from pastors and church leaders, specifically for ministry insight, leadership development, and training.
- Barna’s Church Pulse Weekly
- The Orange Leadership Podcast
- The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
- The Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast
- The Unstuck Group Podcast
- The Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
- Rebuilders with Mark Sayers
- The UnSeminary Podcast
3 Church Leadership Development Courses
Going through a leadership development course together can build unity, strengthen your culture, and help your team prioritize its efforts. There are options for in-person or online church leadership development courses that you can attend together.
One of the best ways to help people develop and share ideas is within a group learning setting. A group course provides ideal moments to facilitate discussions and learning opportunities for developing church leaders.
Working in a group enables you to examine topics from the perspectives of others. When you are required to discuss a topic and negotiate how to address it, you must listen to other people’s ideas.
Their ideas will then influence your thinking and broaden your horizons. Your group members aren’t just fellow learners; they’re also your teachers. – skillsyouneed.com
Group learning and discussions are powerful ways to help develop leadership skills like listening, empathy, patience, negotiation, and effective communication.
The following church leadership development courses are short-term team-building and learning experiences that teach everything from leadership basics to more nuanced skills.
I have participated in and completed Lead A Better Team and Transformational Leadership; both are high-value, leadership-enhancing courses that can help you elevate and develop yourself and others.
I am the creator and facilitator of the Trust Table, an interactive live or online workshop that helps teams eliminate confusion, build trust, and make a greater impact.
To learn more about these opportunities, keep reading or for a more in-depth review of each church leadership workshop, check out the post: 3 Church Leadership Workshops For Transformation & Growth.
Lead A Better Team With Carey Nieuwhof
Lead A Better Team will help you think through and apply three necessary strategies for leading your team. The course dives deep into critical mindsets, tactics, and principles essential to church leadership development. To learn more, click HERE.
Transformational Leadership with Ford Taylor
Learn together as a team to identify barriers to growth both personally and within the organization. Develop skills for improving communication, conflict resolution, and social anxiety. Identify and enhance your unique leadership style to transform your relationships, self, and church. To learn more, click HERE.
The Trust Table Workshop with Evan Doyle
I created the Trust Table Workshop because I believe working on something so important with people you care about should not be so difficult. As a team, learn how to increase trust and decrease stress. Discover what to do when trust is broken and how to build a framework for effective teamwork and communication. To learn more, click HERE.
Church Leadership Development Blogs
While some people prefer listening or watching media to learn, reading can help further increase comprehension and internalization of fundamental leadership principles.
Reading is one of the most efficient ways to acquire information, and leaders need a lot of general information to keep perspective and seize opportunities. But reading does more than give us a toolbox of ideas. It actually upgrades our analytical tools, especially our judgment and problem-solving abilities. – michaelhyatt.com
Blogs are typically quick reads that are easily scannable and shareable. This aspect makes it an ideal resource for facilitating church leadership development.
Sharing and discussing ideas gathered from helpful blogs about church leadership is a fun, engaging, and easy way to spur conversation among your pool of potential leaders.
To discover helpful blogs written by pastors and ministry leaders that provide keen insight into church leadership development, check out the post: 7 Blogs for Pastors To Gain New Insight & Strategy This Year.
Leadership Development Assessments For Church Leaders
The Enneagram
One great way to start the leadership development process is to help your team learn about themselves; if we aren’t aware of our healthy and unhealthy habits, we can’t lead others to discover those things either.
The enneagram test is a powerful personality assessment tool that can help individuals understand their healthy and unhealthy motivations, thoughts, and behaviors. Discovering these qualities about others allows us a great insight into how we can grow as leaders, connect with others, and strengthen self-awareness.
A test I am highly familiar with, have used, and recommend is the Truity Enneagram Test. To Take a test or purchase tests for your entire team, click HERE.
Discussing your results as a group can provide valuable insight to help your team overcome limiting behaviors and identify areas of competency.
The 6 Types Of Working Genius with Pat Lencioni
The Working Genius is an innovative assessment that helps teams identify individual members’ unique giftings, specifically about their work. Understanding your team members working competencies and areas of frustration can significantly strengthen your church leadership development efforts.
To take an assessment or send it to your entire team, click HERE.
Why Is Church Leadership Development So Important?
Without a leadership pipeline in your church, you lack the structure to create a place where people explore their giftings and callings. A healthy church can facilitate opportunities for others to help lead the day-to-day operations, ministries, staff, and volunteer teams to help people experience life with God.
Leading a growing and dynamic church takes the efforts of several teams, roles, and responsibilities. Without good leaders you trust to help guide and execute the vision, your impact will break down and be less than what it could be.
Sharing leadership responsibilities is a process of trust, delegation, and feedback. Without a church leadership development plan, you lack an avenue for training and releasing high-potential people to assist you in carrying out the mission.
If those with leadership potential do not believe there is room to develop, they will find a place where they can.
Providing your team with the tools they need to lead and teach others effectively is empowering and displays your belief in their potential to be leaders.
Your church has a role in your community and a place in this world to share the gospel. Developing church leaders to work and walk alongside you can be a challenging yet rewarding effort. If you are unsure where to begin, pick any of the resources above to help you get started.
Creating a leadership pipeline with accountability and support is an incredible way to foster those in your church through the ups and downs of ministry. While there will be challenges, it is necessary, and your church will be better because of them.
Church Leadership Development Summary
Church leadership development doesn’t happen without intentionality, time, effort, and investment. Undoubtedly, there are at least a few people around that you can begin developing as leaders.
To be a good leader, you do not have to be good at everything; you must be brave and secure enough to train and equip others. With prayer and observing those in your church, you can identify people God may want you to be a part of developing as leaders.
You do not have to lead alone; God can use you to encourage the potential in others with your time and effort. Not to mention, there are valuable resources to help you develop a leadership culture.
Utilizing the wisdom, insight, and experience of others to support your church leadership development pipeline can strengthen your work tremendously.
