A great excerpt from The Vine Project:
In our conversations with pastors over the past six years, we have found — almost universally — a quite remarkable lack of equipping, training and mentoring at level 3 [specialised training]. This is especially the case with small group leadership. Very few pastors are satisfied with the nature and quality of the equipping that they provie for their small group leaders (whether in initial training or ongoing support). This seems to us to be (in most cases) a strategic mistake in the allocation of time and resources. Small groups have enormous potential to move people to the right — but their frequent failure to do so is in very large measure due to poor quality leadership. Whatever energy or resources we put into receruiting and equiping small group leaders will pay enormous dividends over time.
Overall, our observation is that most churches don't understand the improtance of level 1 equipping [grasping the vision to serve], and so rarely plan for it. This means that when they do try occasionally to do some level 2 equipping [basic skills] they are frequently disappointed at the response or level of take-up — because there is not the heart or motivation to be involved. This in turn leads to a dearth of candidates for level 3 training [specialised ministry training]. (page 277)
via Blog - Christian Reflections http://ift.tt/2kASQS7 (NB: to comment go to http://ift.tt/1FyvdLS)
