Lead Strong

Young leaders today have tremendous potential to be the next generation of church leaders, but for many, biblical character development was not a foundational part of their formation process growing up. Young leaders often establish their leadership habits by imitating role models or implementing input from instructors and mentors, while remaining disconnected from the most well-established source of godly character—the Holy Spirit (John 15).
The majority of current ministers will retire within the next generation. They will be replaced by young men and women who have had little-to-no mentoring. It is crucial that these new leaders come to understand that godly character is the foundation of effective ministry leadership, and that they be taught how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to develop such character.
In my present position at a Christian university, I fill an unusual role where I spend half of my time with students and the other half with pastors. When I am with students, I hear powerful stories, both wonderfully encouraging and gut-wrenchingly difficult. These students have the best of intentions and are facing the future with great excitement, but many of them are new converts and/or did not grown up in dedicated Christian homes. Consequently, they have not yet laid the foundation for or acquired the skills to navigate the challenges of vocational ministry, nor are they connected to the collective wisdom of previous generations of tested and qualified ministry leaders.
A recent conversation with a student preparing for vocational pastoral ministry made this reality very apparent to me. This student grew up in one of the most dangerous, drug-infested, violent inner-city neighborhoods in Washington state. In his former lifestyle, he was involved in all these things – drugs, gangs, and criminal activity. Despite all these factors, God miraculously changed his life through the ministry of a family who took him into their home and mentored him. While God was certainly at work in his life, he still had a long way to go in developing godly character. In the midst of our conversation, he introduced me to his roommate. I later found out that she was also his girlfriend and that they were sharing a one-bedroom apartment together. Although they were excited about their future in ministry, these two new believers and hopeful leaders had not been taught that living together before coming to a Christian university to pursue a calling in ministry leadership is not an acceptable lifestyle choice. Hopeful ministry leaders need to develop a foundation of character in order to lead strong as they take the helm of the Church.
When I interact with pastors, our conversations frequently center around church leadership challenges and the difficulty of finding qualified ministerial replacements. As a large percentage of ministers approach retirement, they express grave concerns and challenges with finding qualified ministry leaders to whom they can eventually pass the baton. Though some schools still have a good track record producing well-prepared ministry leaders to place in churches, a shortage of qualified individuals looms on the horizon.