Servant Leadership and Ministry Teams
This two-day course helps leaders understand the role of Servant Leadership in transformation. The style of leadership Jesus modeled for us is as effective in secular organizations as in the church. Learn to incorporate servanthood into your leadership and grow your authority as an authentic leader. The second part of the course helps map the shift from standing committees to empowered ministry teams as the future organizing principle for building the Body of Christ.
We begin our study of Servant Leadership on Thursday evening with a look at the Biblical foundation for Servant Leadership. We draw on material from James Hunter’s The Servant, interlaced with a Biblical study of Peter’s life and transformation through the Gospels.
On Friday, we develop the theme of Servant Leadership as we draw on the work of Rev. Dr. Mike Foss, author of Power Surge, and The Servant’s Manual. We also include reflections on Servant Leadership from Ken Blanchard’s The Servant Leader. We expand on Blanchard’s model of Jesus as a Situational Leader to teach the basics of delegation and empowerment. Peter Senge and Steven Covey’s thoughts on Servant Leadership, as shared in Robert Greenleaf’s seminal text, Servant Leadership, also influence our dialog.
In the afternoon, we begin our focus on shifting from committees to ministry teams. We reflect on the Scriptural passages about the Body of Christ and see how they influenced the development of the first century church. We see how the current model of Church council and committees has lost its effectiveness, and how far it has strayed from the model developed in Acts. We then look at how churches are returning to this ancient model of church to effective reach to post-modern, pagan world we face today.
On Saturday, we take the participants through the mechanics of building effective ministry teams. We will do exercises that illustrate the point that where team building is concerned, the process is the product. The focus here is building strong group dynamics, balancing relationship with task, and how the Body of Christ is a great analogy to an effective ministry team. The event will end mid-afternoon Saturday, to allow travel time back to your home church.
This workshop is the second in our Leadership in the New Millennium series. We do not insist that participants attend our first session prior to coming, although it might be helpful. We will modify the time and format to offer this course to your church leadership or cluster.