02.18.10
The Summit, Steve Gladen and Recruiting Leaders
Ben Reed is a guest blogger here at the Lifeway Small Groups blog. He regularly blogs for Life and Theology. You can also find him on Twitter.
The Summit started out with a series of questions asked to each of the 9 guys who presented (10 experts were there, but Rick Howerton moderated).
Up next, Steve Gladen. Here's the question he had:
How has Saddleback recruited 3,500 small group leaders?
There are principles and there are methogologies.
Principles:
1. How do you define a leader?
- Jesus' requirement was "follow me."
- 3 years later, it was "die for me."
- The problem in churches is that we recruit people for "die for me" right off of the bat.
- We need to shift our paradigm for what it takes to be a leader.
2. What do you call your leaders?
- We call them "hosts."
- Throughout out connection and campaign strategies, we have made it a point to lower the bar on what it takes to lead a small group.
- We tend to have more people with the gift of hospitality than that have the gift of teaching/preaching.
Isn't it great that Jesus didn't go after the pretty, most biblically literate, best peopel, but went after the people who said, "Yes" to the question, "Follow me"?!?
How do you recruit leaders? Is lowering the bar a valid way to recruit leaders?
post a comment