Making Disciples, Making Leaders: A Manual for Developing Church Officers

By Steven P. Eason

This book offers a model for selecting and training church officers that is grounded in spiritual discernment and development. The book begins with a biblical understanding of leadership, moves into consideration for how to train a Nominating Committee to select leaders according to the biblical vision, and then offers a step-by-step plan for a training event with three components. The training plan is designed to build up the church leaders spiritually and to set their work in the context of discipleship, as well as to teach them some of the fundamentals of the rules of governance of their denomination. The book concludes with concrete suggestions for how future work of the church board can be structured to reflect the emphasis highlighted in the training session.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geneva Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2004
• ISBN: 9781611644395

Steven P. Eason

Steven P. Eason is the Director of Consulting Services at Macedonian Ministry. He previously served thirteen years as the Senior Pastor of Myers Park Presbyterian Church, the fourth largest church in the PC(USA), in Charlotte, North Carolina. His other writings appear in the Feasting on the Word series, Upper Room Books, Alert, and Presbyterian Outlook.

Book preview

Making Disciples,

Making Leaders

Making Disciples,

Making Leaders

A Manual for Developing Church Officers

Steven P. Eason

Foreword by William H. Willimon

Lesson Plans by E. Von Clemans

Foreword © 2004 Geneva Press

© 2004 Steven P. Eason

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as noted below, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Geneva Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396.

Lesson plans, worksheets, handouts, worship services, and material from the appendixes may be used, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced without special permission for educational purposes in your church provided that no parts of such reproductions are sold.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission.

Book design by Teri Vinson

Cover design by Lisa Buckley

First edition

Published by Geneva Press

Louisville, Kentucky

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39.48 standard.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Eason, Steven P.

Making disciples, making leaders : a manual for developing church officers / Steven P. Eason ; foreword by William H. Willimon ; lesson plans by E. Von Clemans.—1st ed.

     p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

1. Church officers—Training of. 2. Christian leadership—Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—Study and teaching. I. Title.

BX8969.6.E27 2004

253'.088'285137—dc22                                               2004041158

ISBN-13: 978-0-664-50263-8 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-664-50263-6 (alk. paper)

In memory of my father,

The Reverend William Everette Eason, Sr.

Contents

Foreword by William H. Willimon

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: A Biblical Model for Team Leadership

Chapter 2: Choosing the Team: Nominations

Chapter 3: An Overview of the Training Course

Chapter 4: Begin with Worship

Chapter 5: Teaching Tips

Chapter 6: Lesson Plans for Four Sessions on Theology and Polity

Chapter 7: Sharing Personal Faith in Small Groups

Chapter 8: Officer Examination

Chapter 9: Moving Away from Bored Meetings

Chapter 10: Other Team-Building Opportunities

Conclusion

Appendix A: Study Guide for New Elders and Deacons

Appendix B: Book of Confessions Presentation Outline

Appendix C: Worship Services for the Four Training Sessions

Appendix D: Theology and Polity Worksheets and Handouts

Appendix E: Small-Group Worksheets

Appendix F: Miscellaneous Correspondence and Forms

Appendix G: Resources for Church Officer Development

Biblical References

Notes

Books to Aid in Church Officer Development

Foreword

Leadership is all the rage on college campuses these days. We now have courses in leadership, leadership institutes, professors of leadership studies, and all the rest. I confess that I am a bit suspicious of this new leadership craze on campus. Sometimes I wonder if these leadership courses and leadership professors are not simply there to flatter the self-image of our students. Every student who comes to our university thinks of himself or herself as a leader. They are all preparing themselves for positions of leadership, never for positions of subordination. Garry Wills, in his good book on the great leaders of history, Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders, says that good leaders are mainly a matter of people who have willing and able followers. Around here, however, if I were to teach a course in How to Spend a Lifetime as a Really Good Follower, registration would be low.

Perhaps this new interest in leadership is a result of the widespread awareness that we really do have a problem with leadership in our society at present. With malfeasance among business leaders, incompetence and prevarication among some of our government leaders, to say nothing about the leadership scandals in the church, it is probably high time to turn our attention toward those who lead us.

I recently surveyed members of my denomination, asking them what qualities they looked for in a bishop for the United Methodist Church. (Presbyterians do not believe in bishops, but I have actually seen them.) I was impressed that the number-one quality that people seem to see in a bishop is an ability to lead. It does not seem to me too radical an idea that a leader ought to be able to lead, but perhaps the current state of leadership has made that important to emphasize. You have a society full of managers rather than leaders, directors of the status quo, oilers of organizational machinery, those who see leadership as that which commands rather than serves—well, no wonder we turn our attention to leadership. Where does leadership come from, how is it characterized, what qualities make for a good leader, and how do you do it?

Steve Eason has written a wonderful book on leadership in the church. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Steve’s book is that this book is clearly, unashamedly, pointedly about leadership in the church. He begins, not with a treatise on organization, or even by focusing upon the characteristics of leaders, but rather in worship. The church is a creation not of our savvy organizational ability, but of God. Good leadership in the church, Steve implies, is a gracious, creative act of God.

Too much thinking about leadership in the church takes its cue from essentially secular models of leadership, letting business or politics set the tone, failing to appreciate the uniquely theological basis of the church. When we think about leadership in the church, we must do more than simply put a sort of Christian veneer over essentially godless concepts borrowed from business or wherever. We must begin by noting the particular vocation, formation, and expectation of the church, which Steve does beautifully.

Furthermore, Steve takes care to make this book particularly, peculiarly Reformed. From what I have seen, good leadership is never leadership in general—abstract principles that are universally applied despite the specific context. Steve writes a most Presbyterian book. (By the way, Steve began as a Methodist, but then he took my class at Duke Divinity School, and shortly thereafter became a Presbyterian! He was probably too creative and energetic for us anyway.) In this book, Steve, despite having been a Presbyterian pastor for more than twenty years, retains a new convert’s love of the Reformed faith. As one who was discovered by the Reformed tradition, rather than born into it, Steve has a unique and keen perspective of the virtues of that faith.

The Reformed tradition was, in part, a creative rediscovery of peculiarly biblically based, theologically formed leadership. While the church is of God—a gift in each generation from a God who does not leave us to our own devices—the church is also the people of God. This peculiar people rely upon more than hierarchy and tradition for their formation. The Reformed faith envisions the church as a congregation that depends upon the Holy Spirit raising up those, in every generation, who are called to leadership of the church. Steve’s book embodies that Reformed vision beautifully.

Yet, Steve not only gives us a perspective—a theologically based vision of leadership—but also a very practical, pragmatic guide for energizing a church in mission and ministry. In other words, the real beauty of this book is that Steve not only tells us where to go, but also how to get there. In his fine book on leadership, Leadership without Easy Answers, Ronald Heifetz of Harvard stresses that leaders are always teachers. Leaders have the responsibility to keep feeding information into an organization, to keep training members of the organization to perform their legitimate leadership functions, and to keep refurbishing and refueling the organization’s vision for itself. In this book Steve keeps calling modern Presbyterians to, in effect, recover their birthright of informed, intellectually formed spirituality. He also models this through a sort of recovery of the office of the teaching elder.

Used by individual pastors or elders, or studied in the session, this book offers an entire program of renewal that is theologically based and realistically workable. Many a congregation will find itself renewed through Steve’s good guidance. Many a pastor will gain the skills that are needed to lead in a way that is faithful to the Reformed tradition and up to the challenge of the present age.

I may not be the greatest theological professor in the world, but I certainly did a good work when I got Steve to leave my church for leadership among the Presbyterians!

William H. Willimon

Dean of the Chapel and Professor

of Christian Ministry

Duke University

Durham, North Carolina

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Joe Donahoe who served as pastor of the Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, for encouraging me to spend a lot of my time developing leadership.

The congregations of First Presbyterian Church, Morganton, North Carolina, Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and Myers Park Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, have all contributed to this work. Without them there would be no book.

Von Clemans’s role as educator strengthened the lesson plans, teaching resources, and exam. It’s just more fun to work on a team.

Thanks to Lynn Turnage for suggesting my work to Geneva Press. Thank God for Suzanne Barber, my administrative assistant, who knows how to spell and type. I am grateful to Will Willimon, who inspired me to design the worship component of this leadership development model.

Many thanks for my wife, Catherine, who has been an encourager, listener, coach, and friend in ministry since the summer of 1976.

This has been a team effort. Thanks be to God.

Some pages in this book, specifically lesson plans, worksheets, handbouts, worship services, and material in the appendixes, are intended to be reproduced for use in the classroom. For ease of use, you may enlarge these pages as desired to fit letter-size paper.

Introduction

There’s an old saying: If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got! Sometimes, though, we seem to change what we’re doing without being clear about our target. We just know that what we’re doing isn’t working, so we change it. What is it that we really want to accomplish?

The second of Stephen Covey’s habits of highly effective people is Begin with the End in Mind. He writes, It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.¹ What is the end that we, as the church, have in mind? Have we been leaning against the wrong wall?

A hardware store is clear about its business. You don’t go in there for a gourmet meal. I am clear about what I am doing at the dry cleaners or the gas station. The hospital, the bank, the grocery store, and the doctor’s office are all very clear about their business. Why do we seem to be less clear about the business of the church? Are we to gather more members, more money, more staff, and more programs? Are we there to comfort people, to provide hope and care? Are we there only to provide certain rites of passage, such as baptism, weddings, and funerals? Are we there for social change? What is the end we have in mind?

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a trend of losing members. So, is one end to increase membership? A common question pastors hear is, How big is your church? I have started answering, In what regard? Do you mean membership? We are thirty-eight hundred members. Do you mean attendance? We are averaging twelve hundred. Do you mean budget? We are just over 4 million. Facilities? 139,000 square feet. Do you mean in terms of discipleship? I am not quite sure how to measure that. Certainly discipleship was the end that Jesus had in mind.

The bigger questions that reflect the concern with discipleship are leadership questions:

• How big are we with regard to our faithfulness to Christ?

• How large is our church in terms of its love for God and neighbor?

• How big is our heart?

• How committed are we to the lordship of Christ, to equipping the saints for the work of ministry?

What questions are your leaders asking? What end