Building Leadership Team FOR Personal-Based Ministry in ICF

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INTRODUCTION

Leadership is one of the most important factors in the success or failure of a ministry. This factor becomes more crucial as we adopt personal-based ministry as our ICF ministry philosophy. We believe that the leadership model that is best suit to the personal-based ministry philosophy is leadership that is run by teams of leaders, instead of single leaders for at least three reasons: the biblical reason, the practical reason and the ICF vision. 

From the Bible, especially in the New Testament, Paul teaches that we are Christ’s Body, each one with unique gifts, calling for ministry, and roles to build up the Body for partaking in God’s plan for this earth (1 Cor. 12:4-27; Rom. 12:4-8). This means that each one of us has significant role and function in our fellowship and can participate in ministry in our fellowship as early as possible. We have a calling to lead (at least exercise our role and function) and responsibility in our ministry sphere, whether it is reaching out to new students, following up them, discipleship-ping younger believers, or preparing next-generation leaders and workers.

In the same passage in 1 Cor. 12:4-27, Paul teaches that we cannot separate ourselves from our fellowship, thinking arrogantly that we are better than others (“I don’t need you” attitude). On the other hand, we also cannot leave the fellowship thinking less of ourselves on what God has entrusted us to do in our fellowship (“I am not a hand” attitude).

In Jesus’ ministry, we also learn that he developed his twelve disciples in team and as a team of future leaders for God’s ministry, except Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. When he sent out the disciples for ministry, he arranged them in teams of two (Mark 6:7). Therefore, we learn that ‘team’ is the model that Jesus himself used in his ministry.

From the practical reason, more leaders are more preferable in student movement than fewer. More leaders will help the growth of our ICF because we will have enough workforces for ministry. In many occasions, our growth is limited to the availability and bandwidth of our workers (including the leaders). In fact, we will always have fewer worker as Jesus himself urges us to pray for more workers because the harvest (which can be new students, new believers, younger believers) is plentiful (Matt. 9:37-38).

With more leaders in our ICF, we definitely have many advantages. We will have more ministry feasibility, opportunities and spheres of influence – we simply can do more. We will have more people contributing resources, ideas and energy. More leaders will help maximizing each leader’s potential and minimizing his/her weaknesses which are offset by other leaders’ strengths. This will also help creating multiple perspectives on a topic/issue, multiple alternatives to a solution, and sharpening idea/thought. Lastly, with more leaders, it will help keeping leaders accountable to each other for goals.

In fact, development of Christian leaders is in line of the general ICF vision, which is to equip and prepare students to become Christian leaders to make impact for Christ in their communities. To achieve the vision, we need to provide more opportunities for our people to learn how to lead and to be responsibility. By involving our promising and growing people as early as possible in one of the ICF functions: outreach, follow up, discipleship, leadership (regeneration), we help to expedite the process of leader development because they have more opportunities and time to learn by doing what they learn, to trust God on their ministry, to learn from their successes and failures, and to build their Christian characters. This process is very important because it will prepare our people better as they begin to develop their long-life vocation in their latest stage of growth in ICF.

However, all the benefits of more leaders in ICF will be evaporated if the leaders are not working in unity as a team. Without unity among the leaders and without the leaders working together as a team to achieve the shared goals, we will end up having each leader doing his/her own ministry disconnected from other leaders and possibly in conflict with other leaders. If this happens, the result is usually personal conflicts and eventually will lead to division in our fellowship.

Therefore, we will need to work hard to build a team of leadership in our fellowship with all leaders bound together under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Each leader is to have a clear understanding of the dynamic nature of student movement, conviction of ICF vision, and commitment to achieve ICF shared goals together. We will need all our leaders to exercise their leadership function and responsibility in their ministry spheres, and at the same, they are to stay in unity and aligned with the ICF shared goals and vision; instead of this burden is put on the shoulders of one to three leaders.

As team leadership has a number of advantages, it also can cause problems, such as:

  1. Maintaining the unity of the leaders. Disunity in leadership usually incapacitates the key function of the leaders, which is to lead the group.
  2. Maintaining the relationships among the leaders. The strength of relationships among leaders directly affects the quality of the team and its work result.
  3. Solving conflicts among the leaders in maturity and in a quick manner. Delaying conflict resolution may cost the unity of the leadership team.

PRACTICAL GUIDE

When working with other fellow leaders, the following tips are helpful to build your leadership team as suggested by Dennis McCallum [1]:

1.     Encouraging your fellow leaders

  1. Can you name personal characteristics that you admire in each of your fellow leaders? If not, you need to spend time with God, and pray for a more realistic and fair assessment of your colleagues.
  2. Can you name accomplishments that you appreciate for each fellow leader? If not, pray to God for opened eyes and for the humility to admit others’ values to your ICF ministry.
  3. Have you articulated any of these points in a) and b) to your fellow leaders in person during the past month or two? If not, you are seriously lacking in your encouraging role as a leader. They will find criticisms and advice hard to accept from you if you are weak in this encouragement area.
  4. Pray for vision for each of your fellow leaders. Ask God to show you why their unique role and contribution is important. Look for an opportunity to express your vision to each in a non-showy and realistic fashion.
  5. Pray together for each other. Make your prayer times opportunities to review what God has bestowed on your ICF through each of your leaders, not just a time for problem solving or leadership function.

2.     Resolving Personal Conflicts

  1. Take time to understand the real issue of the conflicts and resolve them as they arise. Learn to see if a conflict is due to a serious principle issue or a personal issue. Help each other to resolve personal problems.
  2. Encourage each other sincerely whenever possible in an appropriate way. Controversy and criticisms need to be balanced with encouragement, kindness, and approval.
  3. Make time to have a positive social relating with other leaders. Spending time with your fellow leaders should be a priority.
  4. Leaders should agree on a realistic, biblical hardworking standard. Leaders who are not living by such a standard should be criticized to their face, rather than behind their back, and should be challenged to step up.
  5. If you must offer criticism to your fellow leader, your perception of any shortcomings on the part of other leaders should be objective and fair. Avoid picking unimportant issues at each other, which usually leads to unconstructive atmosphere.
  6. Observing the principle of the “man on the spot”.

1)   You should exercise extreme caution when you encounter negative thoughts regarding another leader’s ministry work, especially if that work is carried on outside of your own sphere. This is because the man (or woman) on the spot is the one who is usually best able to judge what is happening.

The value of other leaders in this situation is mainly that of questioning the situation, rather than defining it or making a judgment call. In other words, by the process of questioning, the other leaders are allowed to bring out any doubts that they have about the ministry of the ““one on the spot””. However, if the answers given are sensible and correspond with objective fact, the “one on the spot” should be believed. Also, if a leader contradicts an account given by a member (non-leader), we should be disposed to believe the leader over the member, according to 1 Timothy 5:19. However, the passage is actually about elders, and besides, other evidence may cause us to believe the member over the leader. We should certainly report any suspicious incident to our leadership team.

It will often be necessary to re-asses your impression after talking to the “one on the spot”. If doubt lingers, you should usually keep it to yourself until the situation is completely clarified.

Leaders should be very wary of tendencies found in most people to second guess other workers, and to feel that “I know best.” We should be very reluctant to meddle in the decision making process of the leadership of other fellow leaders and questioning those leaders.

2)     All leaders should however, submit to questioning of their ministry by other leaders– even questioning of a close nature. It is by being questioned that we reexamine our own position, and thus benefit from other leaders.

A leader who refuses to be questioned, or who takes offense at being questioned is displaying an immature attitude that contradicts team leadership. Such refusal becomes an issue in itself, and must be resolved before a reasonable level of cooperation can be expected. While any leader may react defensively at first, we have no excuse for continuing in such a posture. Ultimately, refusal to be questioned by fellow leaders is grounds for dismissal from leadership.

Don’t withdraw from a leader who flares up when questioned. This problem won’t go away, and must be resolved at any cost. Get help from the office if needed.

  1. Commitment to success. Each leader should commit him/herself to the goal of seeing the other leaders successful in their works. Unless we can honestly affirm that this is our goal, nothing we say is reliable.
  2. Communicating respect. Other leaders should be viewed as colleagues, be given the assumption of basic competence, and be treated with all due respect.

 3.    Manners in Leaders’ Meetings

It is usually a good idea to have a leader’s meeting chaired by one of the older leaders. Chairing a meeting does not suggest any superiority of position; it is only for the sake of order and direction in the meeting.

  1. Focusing on the ministry. Unless all the leaders are focusing on the majority of their attention and efforts on work that is needed and effective, frustration and negativity will inevitably arise. Determine whether the leaders and workers spend and focus their time and efforts more on problems, or on positive and strategically sound ministry by using the Clinton or Lawrence’s quadrants:
1. Urgent and Important 2. Important but not urgent
3. Urgent but not Important 4. Neither urgent nor important

In ineffective meetings, the leaders have tendency to focus on Quadrants 1 and 3. Leaders sometimes waste their time dwelling on Quadrant 4. The quadrant that should be prioritized is Quadrant #2. We can accomplish this by following the principle of focusing on the responsive field.

Within each ministry sphere, identify the most promising and responsive people at this particular time. Avoid the three most common errors in this area:

  1. Trying to force feed a believer (or non-Christian) who doesn’t want it.
  2. Ignoring good growing Christians, because they are doing all right.
  3. Greasing the squeaky wheel – expending all of the work of the fellowship (and all of the discussion time in leaders’ meeting) on people who demand and complain the loudest, without considering others who may demand less, but who are more promising.

4.     Dealing with Negativity

Every leadership team and every leader have to deal with negativity and defeatism from time to time. These attitudes are damaging in the extreme to the morale of the fellowship and its workers. When dealing with negativity, remember the following.

  1. Distinguish between negativity and realism. The admission of authentic problems is essential before they can be resolved. However, every problem area should be appraised without exaggeration, and the power of God to work through the situation should be expressly admitted. Considering the power of almighty God, if our admitted problems are leaving us depressed and defeated, have we realistically assessed the situation?
  2. Leaders need to remind each other that Christian work, like all war, is full of reversals and unexpected misfortune. Yet there are unexpected victories as well! The setbacks we see today should be seen in the light of the overall history of God’s working with fellowship. It is usually easy to see that there have been periodic reversals, but overall progress.
  3. Negativity regarding other leaders’ ministries is particularly suspicious (refer to the man on the spot).
  4. Try to verbally balance negative facts with positive ones in the leader’s meeting. It is common to have most of the people in our fellowship earnestly seeking growth, but to focus on the few who are uninterested, or in defeat.
  5. A leader who is projecting negativity and defeatism in the leaders meeting should be reminded to express faith in God.
  6. When real problems arise, are the leaders only bemoaning the situation, or are they also creating steps to correct the situation? If no steps are possible, why spend much time discussing that particular situation? While we may need to morn together at times, we also need to move on to the positive agenda of the church.

When your leadership team is unified and focused on needed ministry, accountable to each other, well-motivated, and trusting God to act, you can expect good things to happen. If any of these things are missing, on the other hand, you need look no further when wondering what’s wrong with your fellowship.

SOURCE

[1]        McCallum, Dennis. LeadershipTeamBuilding.

http://www.xenos.org/classes/leadership/ldrteambuilding.html