Learning to not only delegate work but influence is one of the most inspiring tasks of a church planter and good leader.
Far too many leaders limit themselves in keeping tasks and responsibilities to themselves. Click To TweetAfter having poured my life into two couples and a fairly young man who is the worship leader, I realized in one of our leaders meetings that the group has grown to its own strength and leadership. Since my wife Georgia and I understand our calling is to find, equip, train, and release leaders, we immediately made the decision to hand the leadership of that now-established church of about 80 people over to these fine leaders. Of course, they don’t have our capacity, nor our experience and spirituality and anointing, but they are moving towards it.
How I noticed their maturity to lead:
In case you are wondering how I noticed their maturity to lead – I saw the following things happening in the group:
- They started to take equal responsibility toward people in the church.
- They developed equal conviction in our meetings and therefore saw eye-to-eye on important issues.
- They desired to take the leadership into their own hands.
- They were ready to lay down their lives for each other.
- They had received all we had to give of the vision and the understanding of how I would love to see the church progress.
In one of the following meetings, Georgia and I shared with them that it was now time for us to move on to plant more churches in Berlin and that we were turning over the leadership of the church to them. After a bit of surprise and working through some insecurities, they have now taken the reins and are leading in a fine way.
Open for God to lead us on a new adventure.
Georgia and I are dreaming of planting the next two Vineyards in Berlin: one on a university campus and one for English-speaking people. We are so excited to find a new team to equip, train and release again!
Editor’s Note: This article is from a few years ago but was republished due to its current relevance.
