In 2002, the Board of Directors of our newest ministry in Romania began the prayerful search for the first and founding Director.
It was a nationwide effort that generated numerous candidates. The search committee of the Board prayerfully reviewed the resumes of the applicants and interviewed several highly gifted leaders.
After praying, they finally narrowed the calling process to 3-4 great Romanian Christian leaders. They conducted final interviews and then dedicated themselves to prayer before gathering to make a final calling decision.
The night before that meeting, a resume was e-mailed to the Chairman of the Board. After reading that resume and praying, the Chairman called other members and invited the candidate to a “spur of the moment” interview.
The next day, the Board called Daniel Bruda to serve as the founding Director of the ministry.
Daniel, the last-minute entry, led that ministry for several years. He created a nationwide development training program working with thousands of children’s workers.
He developed a team that wrote and published Romanian Bible teaching materials for Sunday Schools, VBS and summer camps. He innovated and created the first digital distribution of those same materials.
He was used by God to create Romanian funding sources, and today the ministry is completely funded by the Romanian Christian community.
Several years ago, a young leader he had developed took over the leadership role, and Daniel is now serving as the Director of EGM’s work across Europe.
The leaders on the Board and Daniel understood that effective leaders identify and develop emerging leaders.
How Jesus Identified and Developed Emerging Leaders
The example that led the Board in Romania and Daniel was that of Jesus and the Twelve.
One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16)
Jesus’ calling of the Twelve in this passage is instructive in several ways. Luke notes that the calling was preceded by prayer.
This was not just a quick “jet prayer” for discernment, but rather a night of prayer. The implication is that Jesus thought that guidance in this matter was crucial.
He was looking to the Father to give insight into whom he should call.
Again, we are not trying to press into the details of how the incarnation works, but rather on the spiritual nature of the decision. This would appear to be Luke’s intention in crafting this calling narrative in such a fashion.
The calling of the Twelve was momentous and merited dedication to a spiritually discerning decision.
We can also observe that Jesus chose the Twelve from a larger pool of disciples. It is reasonable to assert that Jesus saw something in the Twelve he chose that set them apart from the others.
We cannot be certain about what Jesus saw in terms of capacity, character, or otherwise, but it was a spiritually informed decision. Effective leaders understand the importance of prayerfully identifying emerging leaders.
During the service, the pastor made known the church’s need for Sunday school teachers.
Encouraged by his mother, a young man filled out the paperwork, and the next day he received a call from Wanda Parker, the Children’s Director.
He went in to meet her, and during that interview, she quickly realized that this young man was not a believer. Undeterred, Wanda assigned him to the two-year-olds team as a helper.
Unbeknownst to the young man, Wanda instructed the leaders to let him help but not teach. She thought it would be good for him to hear the Bible basics that the two-year-olds were taught.
That young man eventually gave his life to Christ and continued teaching the two-year-olds. In the Spring of that year, Wanda called and invited the young man to enter an internship program for children’s workers.
It was fifty hours a week over the summer with a meager monthly stipend. He declined having a great gardening job, making much more.
Summer came, and the gardening job dwindled as did the stipend. Wanda called in July asking him to consider a school-year internship. She was relentless in her pursuit. He finally gave in to God’s calling and began serving in August of 1981.
He went on to become the children’s pastor in that church and has served in children’s ministry leadership since. I am familiar with that story because I was that young man.
Wanda discerned something in me and believed that I was an emerging leader. She not only identified that, she also became my mentor and developed much of the ministry approach I advocate today.
The Four Ways Jesus Developed Leaders
Effective leaders identify emerging leaders. The next step is to develop those leaders, where again Jesus excelled.
Leadership development with Jesus had four characteristics. We can illustrate them with a railroad track.
The four elements illustrated above are as follows:
1. Ministry Instruction
This element of the process can be represented by one of the two rails of the track.
It is the formal teaching aspect of the process where Jesus focuses on the acquisition of knowledge, doctrine, values, and specific ministry skills. Emphasis is placed on new ideas, concepts, values, and skills.
2. Ministry Experience
Actual ministry activities are deliberately designed by Jesus for His disciples to put into practice what they have learned.
Represented by the second rail, the element of practices was designed for the application of the teaching, noted above, in actual ministry situations.
3. Evaluation
Just as the railroad ties bind the individual rails together, the element of evaluation binds together the elements of ministry instruction and ministry experience, keeping them running parallel and in the desired direction.
Just as the ties proceed along the length of the rails, the process of evaluation is an ongoing process, continually allowing the participant to connect the Teaching to their Practice.
4. Spiritual Formation
The tracks and ties of a railroad would be quite useless without a solid bed or foundation beneath them as a means of support.
Character formation is such a foundation for the participants in the process. They are encouraged to continually experience more of God, to reflect on His truth and to grow in personal godliness.
This aspect of the overall learning process seeks to provide participants with a solid spiritual foundation from which to minister.
Next week, we will see how these four elements (instruction, experience, evaluation and spiritual formation) were present in Jesus’ leadership development with the twelve disciples.
My blog will be posted the same time every week and I hope you can join us next week. The podcast version is available here!
Join EGM-US!
If you're serving in a church in the United States, you can be part of the exciting new launch of EGM-US by hosting a vision meeting in your area, attending a training, or just contacting us for more information about how this could benefit your next generation ministries by contacting us contacting our team at (951)587-3825 or USA@egmworld.org.