I think one of the biggest traits of a leader is to be able to inspire people to move to the next level. Without that your organization will not grow. A leader does the greatest inspiring when he or she is truly inspired themselves. You can’t give what you don’t have. Have you ever seen someone preach and you just knew their heart wasn’t in that sermon? Yes we all have and that doesn’t inspire.
But when you are fully inspired yourself then you are contagious and that breeds miracles as you have a fully inspired organization going the same way then look out.
Sometimes the next level is the person going out on their own. That is a great thing, don’t think God wants you to keep everyone under your roof. That is holding them back. He says go make disciples of others. When the next level is leaving on their own, embrace that because as a leader you just witnessed true leadership and that is to raise other leaders not followers.
I have seen churches who are so scared of losing people that they do everything in their power to not raise leaders. If we are going to be true to God, we have to allow the leaders we raise to be who God called them to be.I would not want to know that I helped hold someone back from their calling because I was scared of losing them.
Losing leaders is a fact of life for churches and that is why you should always be raising new leaders at all times. Now I am not saying that someone should just jump from one church to another. I am far from saying that.
What I am saying here is that God puts people in places to help them be who God called them to be. Once God knows they are ready, he may call them to some type of missionary or to preach or whatever but it may not be under the banner of your church.
We just need to be thankful that God allowed them to cross our paths and that God trusted us to pour into their mind and spirit. That is how we all should look at it when God calls leaders out on their own.
So instead of allowing your fear of losing people to control the situation, its time to inspire others to move to the next level. When done right you will have an organization who if on the same page can’t be stopped and God wouldn’t want to. Now lets go to the world and inspire others together!
Be Inspired or Be Left Behind!
Chris Benton