Thanks for reading my blog and for your lessons learned. You have given me some new things to think about as well!

Nice post and useful graphics to illustrate the gap and the goal.

I’m an organisational consultant by profession as well as a worship leader and developer of church leaders. Our local church (in the U.S.) has grown from 25 to nearly 3000 worshippers over the past 25 years. Here’s what I think I’ve learned about the gap:

1. Churches are about relationships. The gaps begin to close when current leaders begin to disciple others one-on-one.
2. Those personal relationships build maturity and confidence that allow people to move into bigger roles–and help them want to move into them.
3. When we ask for volunteers, that’s what people think they are and behave accordingly. When we ask for leaders the same thing happens.
4. This is the tough one. In order to build lay leaders, the staff need to assume the role of spiritual mentors while the lay leaders actually lead the ministries.
5. It is time consuming at the outset. However, the multiplication process ultimately allows staff to focus on even bigger issues because they’ve built a foundation of mature leaders who then begin to build new ones.

Keep up the fine work!

Steve