Effective Leadership in the Church

A training tool to help congregations, pastors, and other church leaders effectively work together to accomplish God’s mission.

By Sustaining Pastoral Excellence in the Christian Reformed Church of North America

Source:  www.crcna.org/pastoralexcellence

 

Many congregations are flourishing. They are clear about the mission to which God has called them, and they love one another as they carry out that mission. But many other congregations face challenges in figuring out their direction and purpose. Some wish their congregation had a clearer sense of direction and purpose. Others are full of pain because they are sharply divided on the matter of their  church’s direction. In virtually every church, people give quite different answers to these basic questions:  Who is our church’s leader? Who should be? The pastor? The elders? What is leadership? And if that’s not confusing enough, in the past years, agencies and institutions of the church have not always agreed on answers to these questions.  For two years a Leadership Development Team, consisting of dedicated church leaders, who represent the full range of views on church leadership and work in various agencies of the Christian Reformed Church in North America has been working together to arrive at a common understanding of leadership in the church. This team produced a paper entitled “Leadership: A Working Definition” that was officially endorsed by CRC agencies. This training tool is an adaptation of that paper and is designed for congregational use.