In John 5:19, Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”
Organic apprenticeship is the best way to raise leaders in your church. You don’t need heavy training or extensive leadership-development programs. You can raise leaders by looking for the people who have been in your system and are familiar with it–those who are watching what you do and are eager to repeat it.
I call this type of leadership development organic apprenticeship because when it’s done correctly, it’s a very natural process. It’s the way Jeuss trained his disciples and the way Paul trained his new church leaders. In John 13:15, Jesus said, “I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.” In 1 Corinthians 4:16, Paul echoes Jesus’ training philosophy: “I urge you to imitate me.”
So what does that look like for your small groups?
Each of your groups should have a group coordinator. This person assists the group leader during the semester in order to prepare for leading a group in the future. A coordinator helps the leader by emailing the group before each week’s meeting, setting up a snack schedule, and leading one or two group discussions during the semester.
As a coordinator becomes immersed in the life of a group, learning from and helping a current leader, they are getting the training needed to lead a group the next semester. A coordinator learns by watching and by doing, not by sitting through hours of training or seminars.
[bctt tweet=”Organic apprenticeship is the best way to raise leaders in your church.” username=”nelsonsearcy”]As such, you should continually remind your small group leaders to be on the lookout for potential leaders within their group. These potential leaders can become coordinators for the current group or for their group the next semester, and then they will be prepared to step up as group leaders after that. In essence, you are teaching your current leaders to grow new leaders through this four-step process:
- I do and you watch.
- I do and you help.
- You do and I help.
- You do and I applaud.
You will pour into an initial set of leaders, who will pour into other leaders, who will in turn pour into other leaders after that, and on and on. Eventually, you will not even know all of the leaders in your church, but each one will have been raised through this organic process and have knowledge that is traceable to those first leaders you invested in and trusted as you learned to let go of the need to control.
– Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas, with Jennifer Dykes Henson
The above excerpt is from pgs. 99-100 of Activate: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups.
Drawing from the startling success of small groups at The Journey Church, Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas debunk the myths, set the record straight, and show how church leaders can implement a healthy small group ministry that gets the maximum number of people involved and solves many of the important problems facing churches of all sizes. These practical strategies will produce life-changing results.
P.S. – Click here to grab your copy from Amazon today!
Your partner in ministry,
Nelson
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