I specifically thank God for the privilege of leading his people and for the privilege of furthering my education at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. No one has modeled and stretched me more in the art of leadership than Ben Pilgreen of San Francisco, California. Without the investment of these men, I would not be half the leader I am today, and this project would not have happened.
I also have to give special thanks to my father, Tom Milner, who gave me my first leadership book, John Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, when I was fifteen years old. Thank you to my mother, Pam Hill, who took on one of the most difficult leadership tasks I have personally witnessed as a publicly elected school board member. My greatest desire is that the Lord will use this project for His glory in the lives of the people of Essential Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
INTRODUCTION
Many church leaders are no longer in Essential Church within the first five years. Leadership. John Maxwell says, “The true measure of leadership is influence—nothing more and nothing less.”5 I agree that the measure of leadership is influence, but for the purposes of this project I have added an element of initiative. This, of course, will involve many aspects of discipleship, but we must not lose sight of the goal: to do the "work of ministry to build up the body of Christ."
If the lay leader is given six more opportunities to perform this task (whether large or small), the lay leader's total ministry has now "saved" the pastor time to do another ministry. The single greatest lever a pastor has in creating a healthy church is equipping the lay leaders of the church to do the ministry. The Hellenists, being universalist in outlook and liberal in temperament, came after a short time to understand—in a way that narrow-minded, conservative Jews could not—the full implications of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.30 Consider the depth of this matter.
Pilch points out: "The grievance was resolved by the Twelve, who served as supervisory managers of the Jerusalem Jesus group."31 The apostles had the authority to resolve this problem, and they did. Blaiklock says: “The leadership of the Twelve in a thoroughly democratic society (2, 3), and the recognition that a growing society requires organization. Packer writes, "The church grew rapidly and the inclusion of many of the priests was, of particular note, something of an achievement.
Carolyn Nilson explains, “The easiest way to reorient your thinking is to first think of the group, the team, as one. Recently, considerable attention has been paid to a previously neglected aspect of organizational behavior—the influence that organizational members exert on themselves.”25. Since a church is small, the pastor can be involved in most aspects of the church.
Once lay leaders are properly equipped to lead, the health of the church is greatly improved. The capacity to motivate, more than any other attribute, is at the heart of the popular notion of leadership—the ability to move people to action, to communicate persuasively, to strengthen faith.”36 The Pastor Who Carefully Prepares To move the church's mission forward, it selects the right lay leaders, equips them with formal and informal training, and sets challenging but realistic goals for them. Within Scripture, we see the need for human development (eg, discipleship) and organizational goals (eg, the Great Commission).
Why is leadership important at Essential Church?” The first video opens by considering Genesis 1:26 and asking, “Why was man created?” I made
Idealized Influence: Who do you consider to be a great leader?” 7 This video starts by asking participants to recall who they consider to be a
Inspirational Motivation: How do we inspire our teams?” The third video opens with the example of someone who was not excited about their
Intellectual Stimulation: How do we intellectually stimulate team members?” This video is a deep dive on a phrase we use often within Essential
The video closes by asking participants to choose one of these behaviors to immediately apply to their leadership. Then I ask the leaders to challenge their teams to see how we would do things differently if we served Jesus ourselves.15 For example, how would our caregivers serve differently if the resurrected Jesus entered the nursery. I close the video by encouraging team leaders to take one of several action steps to begin incorporating some of these TLT behaviors into their team.16.
Individual Consideration: How do we care for, develop, and encourage the people who are on a team?” The fifth video opens by asking if a
These materials included an opening letter with instructions, the pre-training survey, the five videos, and a closing letter thanking the participants.21 The final step in the process was to upload the post-training survey to Google Forms; this survey will be sent to participants at least thirty days after course completion. After the course was organized in Ministry Grid, the project moved to the implementation phase. The email addresses of each of the twenty-eight leaders identified to participate in the project were added to the course access list.
I followed up with an additional email to each participant explaining the course and providing simple instructions. They were asked to complete the pre-training survey before starting the first video training. At least thirty days after a participant had completed the course, they received a request to complete the post-training survey.
The goal of this project was considered successful in achieving three different goals. The goal of this project was that the participants who completed this project would increase their leadership competencies (i.e., Transformation Leadership Theory behaviors). Behavioral change was measured by comparing self-reported pre-training and post-training survey results.
Results
TLT Behaviors In the pre-training survey, Essential Church leaders considered these to be their top three behaviors, providing valuable information for developing future training. On the basis of pre-training surveys and the collection of quantitative data, the first objective was successfully achieved.
Results
Results
The results of the t-test confirm a statistically significant improvement in the post-exercise survey results compared to the pre-exercise survey results. Based on the statistically significant improvement in post-training survey scores compared to pre-training survey scores, the third objective was met. After training, the same managers again evaluated their leadership behavior in a post-training survey.
The results confirmed a positive statistically significant difference, demonstrating that leaders who completed the curriculum of this project improved their transformational leadership behaviors. The purpose of this project was to equip church leaders at Essential Church, Huntsville, Alabama, with a theory of transformational leadership. This project has achieved its original purpose: to equip church leaders at Essential Church with essential leadership competencies.
The third objective was to reassess team leaders who completed the training in Transformational Leadership Theory. The third objective was to re-evaluate leaders who completed the training in Transformational Leadership Theory. These results showed that between the time they completed the pre- and post-training surveys (approximately one month).
The third strength of this project is how it provided leadership development training and resources for our team leaders. In the time between the pre- and post-training surveys (about one month), Essential Church experienced a crisis. Nevertheless, it was relevant to the project because many of those who took the training were and are learning about leadership from me—the one who is openly accused by some people of being a bad leader.
The second known weakness is that this project used self-report for pre- and post-training surveys.
Would Do Differently
TEST RESULTS: ALL QUESTIONS
Test: Paired Two Sample for Means on All Questions
TEST RESULTS: GTL QUESTIONS
Test: Paired Two Sample for Means on GTL Questions Only
If you are an experienced leader, I believe you will find this material thoughtful, practical, and challenging. If you are new to leadership, I think you will find this material mental (in a good way!) exciting as you learn to lead intentionally. You will be shocked at the difference it makes in your life and in your areas of ministry.
Keep these notes in a place where you can review them immediately before you serve the Essential each week. One month after you finish the videos, you will receive an email from me containing a post-test. I do this for several reasons: (1) I want to continue to improve this leadership material so that it is effective, and (2) I want to celebrate with you your growth.
I believe we're about to see a huge improvement in the ministry that we do at Essential. PS: Please take notes as you watch these videos and review your notes before serving on your next shift. Better yet, review your notes the first few times you serve after watching the videos.
CURRICULUM
Second, the people on your team, as Difference Makers, need to hear from you exactly what is expected of them. If it's been a while since you told your team what the expectations are, remind them the next time you see them. But if you connect the dots and show them why their job is so important, they'll get to the point where they can't wait to serve on your team.
Instead, ask your leader in the team, maybe it's a coach or an employee, and understand exactly what is expected of you and your team. You need to have in writing what each person on your team is expected to do. Vision for you and your team is like a leaky barrel; it must be constantly replenished.
But if you get your team together and say: "How can we make our ministry 1% better next week?". Remind yourself and every person on your team to see every person who comes through your ministry as Jesus. Collaborate as a team on how you will serve more people on your team.
Or maybe you'll agree that every week for the next six weeks people on your team will take turns walking around on Sunday mornings with a keyboard asking people if they're serving somewhere. In the same way that I have challenged you to this, I am asking you to challenge your team to the same. I absolutely want to see you helping each person on your team make their service better and better.
Create a reminder in your calendar to make individual contact with each person on your team.
