In this conversation, Daniel Im looks at what it takes to create systems that fuel a leadership movement, including the mindset and tools required to develop volunteers into future leaders.
As director of church multiplication for New Churches and LifeWay Christian Resources, as well as a pastor who has served in church plants and multisite churches, Daniel focuses his attention on creating alignment and momentum within churches to move them toward multiplication. In the podcast excerpt below, he shares what he believes is the key to breaking the 125 attendance barrier and creating a leadership movement in your church.
“Oftentimes, we as leaders are taught to do the work of ministry. But the command for us is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. I get that it feels good to lead, to preach, and to be the guy in charge. I don’t know any leader who doesn’t like that. The reason why so many pastors have trouble transitioning to equipping is because they’re not in the center anymore. They know that when they let their youth pastor preach, not many people are going to come, or the youth pastor ‘won’t do as good a job as me.’ That’s the tension. Equipping needs to start somewhere. We have to get to the point of knowing that if this youth pastor can ‘do it 60 percent as well as me, they will one day get to the place where they can do it better than me.’
“If you can find and equip faithful volunteers who have discovered Christ and are available and teachable, get them to begin leading. Begin equipping and releasing ministry to them so that they’re the ones leading small groups. To create a leadership movement in your church, you need to get to the place where you are an equipper rather than a doer. If you are not an equipper who is raising up other equippers, you will never be able to 1) break the 125 attendance barrier; and 2) create a movement of leadership.”
Daniel Sangi Im is the director of church multiplication for New Churches and LifeWay Christian Resources. He also serves as a teaching pastor at The Fellowship, a multisite church in Nashville, Tennessee, and is the co-author of Planting Missional Churches (second edition). Internationally, Daniel served and pastored in church plants and multisite churches of 100 to 50,000 people in Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton and Korea. He and his wife, Christina, have been married since 2006 and have three children.
