Aaron Proffitt

Leadership is such a tricky issue within church planting. For many, the tendency is to grab up any warm body who shows any bit of interest and throw them into a leading position. That my friends, is what would be called the epitome of a “bad idea.” On the other hand, trying to lead a church plant as a solo artist is nearly impossible. And we know that Scripture is dead set on the team concept in relation to church planting.

So how can we as church planters find a balance? How can we avoid falling into the trap of grabbing up any warm body who will eventually create problems for us? And how can we avoid having to lead our churches alone?

Good quality Biblical leadership is at a premium. Part of the reason for this is because many of our churches neglected the Ephesians 4:12 thing: “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry…” Instead of really making disciples, equipping people, and mobilizing people, churches for the most part focused on getting as many bodies in the church as they could. As a result, we have a dumbed-down generation of weak sister Christian males. These guys are timid, flaky, inauthentic, selfish, and they could care less for the most part about the world around them.

If we desire to really see a strong movement of God, it has to begin with strong male leadership. (Sadly, I don’t need to include women within this post because they are for the most part doing a phenomenal job fulfilling their Biblical role within the church across the nation and the world.) We as Christian leaders must see the need to reproduce and multiply ourselves in the young men of our churches. Training these young men to become solid Biblical Leaders must be at the forefront of our priority list. These young men are the future. They are the ones who can come along side us to serve and help shepherd the flock. They can help carry the load, bear the burdens, and handle the conflicts. They can share the same passion for doing evangelism, teaching the Word, and providing for the orphan and widow.

We need to invest in our young men…Otherwise, we will either be leading with a bunch of incompetent selfish co-leaders who are not qualified nor fit to lead or we will be leading our church alone, without any help. Then we will get burned out, and even worse, without accountability, we will stumble and fall hard.