Over the past eight years, I have met virtually every pastor in CABA and listened closely to them. My heart often breaks as I hear pastors lament on the spiritual maturity of their people. They’re not ready! Let’s put a stake in the ground and celebrate pastors developing leaders. And many of these the Lord may call to become pastors, elders, and overseers.
At the 2024 Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis, Mac Lake made a presentation to the AMS’s. He moved the bar a bit higher for us. He said, “The biggest challenge in our churches today is leadership development.” Then he gave us four principles.
1. Think smaller, not bigger, slower not faster. The idea is quality over quantity. Remember, Jesus chose just twelve out of the throngs following Him.
2. Focus on transformation over information. Jesus’ parable of the 4 soils gave church leaders a diagnostic for leadership.
3. Take leaders to new levels by challenging them. Lead from a bold faith!
4. Cast vision and release. I would add that you must empower them to lead.
If you’ve noticed, CABA has stopped having Sunday School training events. A few teachers came, but only from one or two churches. Frankly, I see that as the pastor’s fault.
The Cincinnati Area is dying from lack of quality leaders. We have awesome pastors! But they are not replicating themselves in their church.
There are pockets of hope from which we can learn:
One pastor took a layman through teaching and accountability for two years.
One pastor regularly meets each month with five men who want to be pastors.
One pastor uses NAMB’s pipeline to train several church leaders to become church planters, but only one pastor.
Mac Lake finished his presentation to the AMS’s saying, “The local church should be raising up the best leaders in the nation!” Let’s get to it.
--Mark Snowden directs the Cincinnati Area Baptist Association
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