Our Approach to Leadership Development
The Challenge
Raising faithful leaders at every level is one of the greatest challenges facing local churches in the RMD and the EFCA as a whole. Churches must differentiate spiritual leadership from worldly leadership. Spiritual leaders flow from a gospel-centric disciplemaking culture. The first hurdle churches face is to pursue strong, biblically grounded elder teams because they are essential for church unity and mission. Yet many churches are unclear how to cultivate such spiritual leadership. At the same time, traditional pathways are struggling to develop future pastors and planters to serve in new and existing congregations. The RMD desires to face this challenge by coming alongside churches to discover and develop biblically faithful pathways that equip and establish both elders and the next generation of spiritual leaders.
Convictions
Our convictions are biblically based beliefs that shape our leadership development efforts in the RMD.
- 1. We believe the Bible is the foundational tool the Spirit uses for developing and discerning the character, qualities, various roles, and call of spiritual leadership within a local church body.
- 2. We believe Jesus is the ultimate standard of leadership; therefore, healthy leaders follow Jesus’ example of life patterns, wisdom, and love.
- 3. We believe that not all believers are called to be leaders, but all leaders are called to equip believers, allowing ministry to multiply so that more people can know Jesus and grow as believers.
- 4. We believe that effective leadership development is both organic and organized.
- 5. We believe effective leadership development impacts the heart, informs the head, and integrates experiences.
- 6. We believe that the next generation of leaders will come from within the local churches of the RMD.
- 7. We believe that faithfulness is success, and the Spirit brings fruitfulness.
Commitments
Our commitments express the values by which we approach all leadership development opportunities within the RMD.- 1. Hope-filled Passion: We love the Bride of Christ; therefore, we approach this challenge with a hopeful expectancy and positive perspective toward the call to lead.
- 2. Real → Grace & Truth: We are authentic—boldly calling out what is true and calling up what is possible—while leading with patience and gentleness, building up others constructively in grace and truth.
- 3. Faithful and Teachable: We are continual learners characterized by flexibility and adaptability while remaining Biblically focused and faithful in all our efforts.
- 4. Spirit Responsive and Reliant: We desire to pray boldly, submitting ourselves to discerning the Spirit’s work of affirming leaders and producing fruit within local bodies of believers.
- 5. Relationally Wise: We will approach this process respectfully and humbly, honoring the autonomy and integrity of local churches. We value iterative learning fueled by feedback from leaders and churches as we seek to serve. We desire to be leaders who demonstrate respectful emotional maturity we see demonstrated and described throughout scripture.
