Test whether you’re a church leader or an imitator …

Are you a competent church leader, or are you mimicking someone else’s competence?

On more than one occasion I’ve highlighted how many church leaders seem obsessed with the topic of leadership. Yet, much of what such leaders have to say about leadership comes from what they hear or read from a handful of “famous” leaders.

In fact, many of the sermon series preached from pulpits today are a regurgitation of some other leader’s popular book which he wrote from one of his original sermon series. In one church I visited, the pastor didn’t even attempt to develop his own sermon from a famous pastor’s book, he simply read from the book and added some comments!

A distinguishing factor between great leaders and the rest of the pack is that great leaders are originators, but what is important about that is this: great leaders have developed the skill, and have a commitment to, originate. They do all the hard work and study necessary to generate their own material.

So here’s a great way to test your leadership: If all you had was a Bible and one Bible study resource, could you use your study of the Word of God, along with prayer and guidance of the Holy Spirit, to generate the competent leadership your church or ministry needs to achieve what God wants you to accomplish?

If the answer is “no,” you need to develop as a leader until the answer becomes “yes.”

There’s nothing wrong with using other sources as part of your study. There’s nothing wrong with listening to or networking with other leaders. There’s nothing wrong with attending conferences. There’s nothing wrong with seeing what other leaders are doing and getting ideas from them. But the fact is, if you’re reliant on other leaders, you’re not leading, you’re following the leader of other leaders.

Leading your local church to accomplish the mission God has given His body has to first be about you being immersed in the Bible and prayer, and sensitively attuned to the Holy Spirit, so that you may lead the people you’re responsible for. To some degree, that will look different from every other local church body. So your capacity to bring about the best out of the local congregation you lead requires you to originate from the people and resources unique to the local body you serve.

You cannot lead a congregation to bring out their unique abilities if you’re consistently parroting what some other leader is doing to lead their local church body.

How can you become a more original leader? How can more of what you do come more directly from the time you spend in God’s Word, prayer, and leading of the Holy Spirit?

Scotty