Inter-Varsity Press

CONTENTS

Section 1: I will build my church

1. God loves your church

2. What is spiritual leadership?

Section 2: How to grow vibrant leaders in your church

3. Clear, dig and nurture

4. Developing yourself as a spiritual leader

5. Leaders who love the Holy Spirit and the Bible

6. Caring for yourself as a leader

7. You could be a leader-maker

Section 3: How to look after your leaders

8. Look out – There’s a cliff!

9. How to love and encourage spiritual leaders

10. Let your leaders lead

Conclusion: Spiritual leadership to the glory of God

Afterword: A vision for lifelong learning

Extract from Chapter 1

1. GOD LOVES YOUR CHURCH

Main principle: God wants to build up your local church, and he provides gifts of spiritual leadership to help the flock grow

Communities of Christians come in many shapes, sizes and flavours. God is using large and small churches, multicultural and mono-cultural churches, churches with lively worship styles that appeal to the young, and churches that prefer solid older hymns, to witness to neighbourhoods and to the world. Bible-believing churches may exhibit many surface differences, but one thing is true of them all: God loves local churches. He wants to see them built up and flourishing.

Local churches are God’s idea, not human institutions. The Bible describes them as the household of God. It says that God lives in the middle of these communities of disciples, through the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 2:22). Jesus revealed just how important churches are to God. He promised God’s spiritual provision and protection as we participate in God’s plans and purposes when he said, ‘I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it’ (Matthew 16:18).

Jesus is committed to building his church around the world. And in case you are still in any doubt about how valuable churches are to God, he says in Ephesians 1 that he has made Jesus head over everything in the whole universe for the church. Just imagine that – Jesus is exerting his ruling power in heaven for the good of your church here on earth. Maybe you are part of a church where this reality feels a long way from your current experience, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. God wants your church to thrive. That might not mean spectacular growth in numbers, but it will mean all the believers knowing and enjoying God and falling deeper and deeper in love with Jesus Christ.

God wants to use your church

Your church is a team invited by God to work with him to fulfil his great purposes in the world. If you had to sum up God’s purposes in a single sentence, what would you say? I believe the Bible’s answer would go something like: God’s purpose is that the whole world will see his greatness and glory. He wants the good news of his grace to be received and rejoiced in by all people, everywhere.

The apostle Paul says three times in Ephesians 1 that the whole purpose of our lives, and the reason God calls people to belong to him, is ‘for the praise of his glory’, or ‘to the praise of his glorious grace’. Did you realize that is what your life is for? Or that it is what your church is for? Sadly, churches sometimes forget who they are and swap a passion for this great purpose of God for some other vision or favourite activity. But the apostle is clear that God’s vision for the church is that ‘the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose’ (Ephesians 3:10–11). If you have got into the habit of thinking that church is dull, then God is telling you through Ephesians that it is time to wake up to the true identity of the church and get involved in his earth-shattering plans! As it says in 1 Peter 2: ‘But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises [i.e. to the world, not just singing praise in church] of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light’ (1 Peter 2:9).

What is a local church?

The best short statement about what churches are for is the Great Commission. Here Jesus told his disciples to ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you’ (Matthew 28:19–20). In his version, Luke adds a couple of details about what is involved in making disciples: preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations (Luke 24:47).

Local churches are communities for making mature disciples, people who follow Jesus more and more closely and participate actively in the Matthew 28 purpose of the church. Disciples seek God for his grace each day of their lives, experiencing his love, loving his Word and enjoying being his worshipping people. They tell everyone else how amazing he is. This should be the focus of all church activities. …