The Skills of Effective Ministry Leaders
Daniel 1:17 As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.”
III. The Leadership Code” – “Rules” Every Leader Should Follow
management team’s) flawed approach presented them with a misplaced collective view of a perfectly functioning communication system…The group’s eventual decision was to suppress the report and take no further action on its contents.”46
- Rule #5: “invest in yourself” (or “personal proficiency”) = being and becoming a person of character
Note: The most important “rule” is the fifth: “Personal proficiency is the ultimate rule of leadership…If you are not grounded through your values and beliefs, credible through your judgment, emotionally mature through your ability to analyze yourself and connect with others, and willing to learn and grow as a leader, you will not be prepared to be a strategist, executor, talent manager, or human capital developer.”48
The authors argue that these “rules” or competencies are up to 70% of what is required to succeed as a leader in any setting.49 These are skills that one has, needs to acquire, or ought to develop.50
How Has God Gifted You? God-Given Capabilities vs. God-Directed Capabilities51 Every person is a unique individual (Psalm 139:13-16). God has never made any two people identical to one another. We may have similarities – physically, emotionally, intellectually, ability – but no two people are exactly the same. God has made you to be you and nobody else! The key is for us to recognize how God has made us, what He’s given us, and to take full advantage of the opportunities we have to develop and grow to be all God calls us to be.
Aubrey Malphurs has a helpful way of thinking about our make-up. He suggests that everybody has two kinds of capabilities: those that are God-given, and God-directed.52 God-Given Capabilities = what God gives you at birth or at your new birth. These include…
• Natural Talents – for example, some are naturally artistic, creative, communicative, etc.
48 Ulrich, Smallwood, and Sweetman, The Leadership Code, 129.
49 Ulrich, Smallwood, and Sweetman, The Leadership Code, 11. The methodology employed was a combination of interviews with experts, extensive reading of leadership literature in search of an identifiable “code.” In the end they discovered a pattern in the data and organized their findings into this set of five “rules.”
50 Ulrich, Smallwood, and Sweetman, The Leadership Code, 22.
51 Aubrey Malphurs, Being Leaders: The Nature of Authentic Christian Leadership (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 73-89.
Reflect and Discuss…
In which of these areas are you strongest? Which of these do you think you need to grow in most?
In general, what are some ways that we can acquire / develop leadership skills?
How do you handle it when you begin to feel overwhelmed or inadequate – like you don’t have what it takes?
• Spiritual Gifts – special kinds of enablement given to believers (1 Cor 12;
Romans 12). Together with natural talents, these gifts will be key to your ministry leadership.
• Passion – something that motivates you to take action and to keep at something because the results matter to you. It’s the “capacity to commit oneself fervently over an extended period of time to meeting an objective.”53 This is all about what drives you, it’s your “why?”
• Temperament – your unique inborn (God-given) behavioral style – i.e. how you’re “wired.” To understand a person’s temperament, many organizations and churches use personality profiles such as DISC, or Myers-Briggs.54 When you do one of these “tests” it’s not a matter of “pass” or “fail,” but gaining some insight into your personality.
What are your God-given capabilities? If you don’t know, how can you discover them?
Knowing our God-given capabilities is a huge advantage:
• It helps us see how best we fit in ministry
• It enables us to be more at peace with who we are and how God has shaped us
• It reveals to us what we need to develop
• It helps us see who we need to add to the team to complement us (for example:
you may realize that your ministry would be greatly assisted by someone with a gift of administration, or who is a teacher, encourager, exhorter, etc.)
How Do We Discover our God-Given Capabilities? (Adapted from William J. McRae,
“The Discovery of Your Gift”)55
• Prayer – ask the Lord to show you how He has gifted you and to help you to be faithful in being a good steward of His grace (Philippians 4:6-7)
• Study – study the Scriptures and the lives of the saints around you: we learn about God’s gifts to us first in the Bible (some key passages: Romans 12:3-8; 1
Corinthians 12-14; Ephesians 4:7-16; 1 Peter 4); we also learn about God-given capabilities by watching the lives of those around us in the church – what are their gifts? What capacities do we see in them? How are they applied?
• Desire – what we want to do, enjoy doing, find ourselves gravitating toward is often an indicator of how God has gifted us (c.f. Psalm 37:4)
• Ability – that God has given us capabilities in a certain area is confirmed over time by our ability to do it. Ultimately, if you really want to know how God has gifted you, the best way to discover it is by doing. Thomas Schreiner says, “We
53 Malphurs, Being Leaders, 78.
54 Malphurs, Being Leaders, 82.
55 William J. McRae, Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts: How to Discover, Develop, and Exercise Spiritual Gifts in the Body of Christ, The Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 103-19.
will discover our gift(s) when we pour ourselves into the lives of other believers, when we get involved in the life of the body.”56 (1 Peter 4:10-11)
• Blessing – Look for fruit in what you do and seek the confirmation of other believers. “If a spiritual gift is exercised in the energy of the Spirit of God, blessing will accompany it. It may simply be the joy of our overflowing hearts. It may be the salvation of souls, the edification of believers, the encouragement of a broken heart, the recovery of a backslider or the successful completion of a project. God’s blessing will accompany it.” (William J. McRae).57 (1 Corinthians 12:7)
God-Directed Capabilities = abilities that are acquired and developed over time58
• Character = we looked at this extensively last time; this is an area that good leaders will commit to developing, growing in holiness and Christlike living.
• Knowledge = you can learn things you need to know, acquire skills and develop competencies to help you be a better leader (or whatever else it is you learn)
• Skills = there are relational skills that have to do with our ability to relate to people, and task skills that have to do with getting the job done (i.e. preaching, teaching, lesson planning, organizing, strategizing, communicating, etc.)
• Emotions = your moods, how you feel and how you deal with how you feel. It also has to do with your ability to recognize the emotions of others (i.e. empathy) Doris Kearns Goodwin on Abraham Lincoln: “Lincoln
possessed an uncanny understanding of his shifting moods, a profound self-awareness that enabled him to find
constructive ways to alleviate sadness and stress. Indeed, when he is compared with his colleagues, it is clear that he possessed the most even-tempered disposition of them all.
Time and again, he was the one who dispelled his
colleagues’ anxiety and sustained their spirits with his gift for storytelling and his life-affirming sense of humor. When resentment and contention threatened to destroy his
administration, he refused to be provoked by petty
grievances, to submit to jealousy, or to brood over perceived slights.” (Doris Kearns Goodwin)59
The combination of these God-given and directed capabilities goes together to make up who/what you are
today as a leader. Having any good combination of these attributes does not guarantee
56 Thomas Schreiner, Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter (Nashville: B & H, 2018), 83.
57 McRae, Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts, 118.
58 Malphurs, Being Leaders, 80-86.
success – remember, God is the decisive factor! But we can develop what we have and do our best to gain what we need to take the next step to serve the Lord with excellence.60