Lessons in Church Leadership: Point People to God

There are certain traditions that I’ve experienced that really hinder people from having an encounter with God. People might have an encounter with you based upon your tradition, but they’re not having an encounter with God. As Christians, we need to lead people into an encounter with God. That’s especially important for pastors, who are called to shepherd God’s people. Here are some other valuable lessons for pastors and other church leaders to be humble and healthy, and so that we may all help point people to God and make disciples.

This material was originally recorded as part of the Renovations Project. It has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Honor people, but revere God

Most of us definitely want to honor and have reverence for the people who are leading us. However, there’s a thin line there about idolatry, making sure that you don’t revere that person more than you revere God. We have to be very careful because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. If you talk about the name of your church more than you talk about Jesus, something’s wrong there.

If your pastor’s name is highlighted, and you’re saying, “My pastor said… this or that,” and it never comes out of your mouth, “The Word of God says,” or “the Spirit of the Lord showed me,” we might want to check ourselves in that area. I think that we’ve put the name of our churches and the name of our pastors above the Word of God and above what God is saying. It bothers me when individuals say, “Pastor James said this or that.” But what did the Holy Spirit say to you?

I’m not saying don’t honor your pastor. I’m not saying don’t honor the church that you go to. But that reverence piece, we need to reevaluate it. Who are we giving reverence to? Is our reverence towards an individual or a church or a building, or is it to the Lord? 

We are not created to handle the glory of God

I heard a pastor say that we’re not created to handle the glory of God.

We fail when individuals glorify us before they glorify God. That’s how we get into trouble; when people start saying, “Pastor, that was a great message.” Soon it’s “Pastor, pastor, pastor…” We’re not capable of handling that, and our heads start getting a little big. I would say that when individuals are honoring you and speaking well of you, make sure that you direct that honor and that glory back to the Lord. It’s like what Paul said, “By the grace of God, I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10). That was a humbling phrase that he said. I always tell people that I know that I’m a miracle. I know that it’s by grace that I am who I am. It’s nothing that James Harris has done. It’s been by the Spirit of the Lord, even doing this, what we’re doing today is by the grace of God. It wasn’t necessarily my intellect; it’s all by grace.

Related: When preachers talk, it’s God who speaks

As a leader, make sure that glory is directed back to God, and then continue to honor your local assembly, the body of Christ, because that’s a beautiful thing. Keep that balance: love God, love people. That’s what Jesus told us to do. He said, “Love the Father with everything that you have, and love people.” I don’t think it was the other way around: love people, then love God; it’s love God, then love the people. If we practice that, our allegiance to the Father first, then we won’t fall into highlighting people or the ministry more than we do the Father.

See with God’s eyes the potential in young leaders

My role is to multiply and develop young leaders. Young leaders will listen to you; older leaders might not listen to you because they think they already know it all. It’s hard to pour into older leaders, because they come into the ministry like they got it all figured out. But young people want to learn.

The way that I multiply young leaders is I live by the principle of how King David was selected. God sent Samuel to David’s father’s house, and Samuel assumed that the older, bigger, more attractive sons were the ones that God was going to anoint. When he came to the end of the line of Jesse’s sons, he asked if there were any more. Jesse said that there was one feeding the sheep. God told Samuel that that one, David, was the one after his own heart. We are often blinded by who is a potential leader because we’re looking at the outward instead of inward. So the way that I practice raising up leaders, is that I try to hear the voice of God concerning the potential that’s in an individual.

At our church, we continue to develop teachers within our church and give them opportunities to teach. For example, we have a young woman who is a college student. She taught and did amazing; she got more likes and views on Facebook than I did. She has a teaching anointment, and I don’t think she knows it. I recently asked her to teach again. She let me know that she was struggling with what to say. I told her that I believed God would equip her and prepare her to teach when she was scheduled to teach. I encouraged her in that. After we had that conversation, I got in contact with her the following week, and she said, “God is giving me all sorts of stuff with this message.” Fast forward. She taught at Trenches this next Sunday and rocked it. There were people online saying they needed that message, that message was beautiful, and God used her. 

Related: How mentoring and leadership development build God’s church

Be with the next generation of leaders in their highs and lows

Raising up this next generation of leaders, we have to be cautious about cookie cutting people and taking that chance of really allowing people to be who they are and to do what God has assigned them to do, and being able to lean in with them when they fail. This is what I love about Jesus. Peter had these very high moments, and then Peter had these very low moments, and Jesus allowed him to have those very high moments and Jesus was also right there with Peter in those very low moments. 

As we raise up this next generation, we have to believe in them, let them have their highs, and let them have their lows; we need to lean into and celebrate their highs and train them in their lows. And then, we let them go, just release them. I learned this from my pastor. He said, “James, anytime someone comes to your church, and they partner or join or become a member of your church, God is calling your church to change. That individual is bringing something to the table that you didn’t have before.” As leaders, we have to be willing to continue to change, and not just continue to do the things that we normally do.

Related: Change is vital in the church

So the leaders that God has blessed me with, they have what I call on-the-job training. The training is not always in a classroom, but their training is them actually being put in a position to do what they have been called to do. In the midst of that, that’s how I orchestrate, train, challenge, celebrate, and so forth. 

I’m wired a certain way, and that’s the way that I’m going to minister and that’s the way that I’m going to share, but other individuals are wired differently. I do a disservice to our congregation when I don’t allow people to hear the gospel in a different way than I deliver it. It’s a beautiful thing for someone to get up and see something a little different than how I see it, because in the audience, you have different learning styles.

We can all make disciples

Individuals who are called to preach, make sure you don’t limit God to the pulpit. There’s a whole lot of people who will never, ever walk through the doors of your building. You might work at a Fortune 500 company, and there’s a lot of people there who need to hear the gospel, who need to hear about Christ. Your company is your pulpit. Do ministry on the platform that God has given you every day. Because there’s so many people who need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the majority of the people who attend our buildings, they’re already saved. But there’s a lot of people at our jobs and within our communities who need to hear the gospel. The world is our pulpit.

Related: Ministering both on the job and from the pulpit

That’s the way I believe that God is leading me to train. People come and say, “I believe that God has called me to be a pastor.” I get that, but we don’t want to limit God’s calling to just pastoring at a local church. Pastor in your job. Pastor in your community. Develop disciples in your community. Wouldn’t that just be beautiful? Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we can just make some changes? The mindset now is: I’m going to bring somebody to church, my pastor is going to preach some powerful word, that individual is going to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, my pastor is going to baptize them, and then my pastor is going to make disciples. 

How about instead, we look at it this way? I’m in my neighborhood, I’m going to preach the gospel, and the individual is going to know Jesus. I got a pool in my neighborhood or my backyard. I’m going to baptize them, because Jesus told the disciples to go and baptize. Then I will develop them and disciple them. And then wherever God has planted them, I am going to lead them to that church, and if it’s my church, I am going to walk through the door with a disciple already.

We put a lot of pressure on the pastor or the leader, where both parties are responsible for making disciples, baptizing people, laying hands on the sick, because that’s the Great Commission. But I don’t think that God has given that sole responsibility to the pastor. I think we’ve done our congregations a disservice in developing that type of mindset, because now when we tell people to go, they don’t know what to do because they’re so used to leadership at the church doing it all. And I think God is really trying to change that and get us back into the goal: as you do life, make disciples.