Gordon MacDonald was at our church this weekend and led us in a journey about the rapidly changing world in which we live.
Many of the things he said were truly profound. Each lecture session was followed with small group discussion time. There was a lot of healthy discussion among church members and overall I am encouraged by the weekend.
Our church has short tenure for its pastors. Dr. MacDonald says that a church will never really be able to grow with such short tenure (he says that you need at least five years). What he suggests instead is an intense discipleship model.
While he was pastor at Grace Chapel (the first time) he held a three hour meal and meeting at his house every Monday night with about 12-15 people. He made them commit to meeting together, no matter what, for about a year. At the end of the year that many leaders were trained to help grow the church and lead the church in spiritual vitality.
I listened to a leadership podcast recently where the pastor being interviewed said that he keeps a list on a 3x5 index card with the names of who he sees as future leaders. He then invests a majority of his time in them.
The concept is to invest in a small group of people and train them to lead the future of the church so that it can carry on without the pastor.
That's what Jesus did. It must be a good model.
