The One Who Leads

…aimed to minimise important areas of church slipping through the cracks!

10 key thoughts to shape your Christian leadership and ministry

Number 4: Lead the church in healthy growth through clear structure

Having spent many years leading and implementing the 5 M’s across a growing church I reckon it’s as good as any structure I’ve seen for bringing clarity to the local church. Here’s a few tips for thinking through a clear structure:

1. Start with a vision – a good church structure serves the gospel vision not the other way around
2. Pray for a clear structure – make sure God is in it, not just your cleverness
3. Chat it through with your leaders – they need to own the structure too
4. Communicate it again and again through many different modes (preach it, blog it, podcast it, workshop it in small groups, meet 121 about it, write a paper on it etc…)
5. Re-visit it regularly – a good structure will infiltrate every area of church life regularly
6. Be patient with people who don’t like it – some folk will not like your structure and that’s OK (try to graciously win them over to where the church is going)
7. Train new leaders in it – make sure all new leaders are fully on board

A good structure brings clarity for both the layers of leadership you’re overseeing and the wider church. One of the main strengths of the 5M’s (and any other clear church structure) is that it frees up leaders and pastors to concentrate on their gift areas and therefore maximise effectiveness. The flow on is that the gifted servants in your church are led with clarity and encouraged to serve in teams with other gifted servants. There’s much joy to be had as we serve together in clearly led teams. (and much healthy growth by God’s grace too!)

Here’s a brief summary of the 5M’s:

1. Magnification (Corporate worship gatherings) Centering gatherings on the preaching of the gospel and enabling God’s people to respond by gladly adoring Jesus Christ with authentic affections as they build each other up in contagious worship.
2. Membership – (From newcomer to committed member) Building a community where new people are connected to church, with a clear pathway allowing individuals to walk at their pace to committing as a member.
3. Maturity – (Christian discipleship) Discipling God’s people to grow in their faith, hope and love and make gospel driven decisions in all of their life – primarily through community small groups and 121 relationships, in the word, prayer and fellowship.
4. Ministry – (Serving Teams) Encouraging and equipping all of God’s people to find their place in God’s family as they actively participate in the mission and become disciple-makers through serving teams scattered across all aspects of church.
5. Mission – (Community outreach and evangelism) Actively looking for every opportunity to serve the local community and share the gospel with every person God allows contact with, and training and equipping Christians to engage the community for this purpose.

Christian leader, clear structures are your friend. Pray for them, think them through carefully, chat them out with your leaders and/or a trusted peer, write them down, communicate them and patiently lead them with grace and truth.