Several years ago I was asked by a dear friend who was then an Elder in his local church to give some advice on looking for a new Pastor. I had a delightful meal with him and his wife and asked him what sort of man they were looking for. This church was – and is – a faithful gospel focussed, Bible teaching fellowship and the answers he gave were exactly the ones I would have expected. But as he spoke I realised there was one glaring exception from the list of qualities and characteristics they were looking for – leadership.
Over the years, I have become more and more convinced that, from a human perspective at least, the most important factor in determining the growth and fruitfulness of the local church is leadership.
I have studied and analysed a large number of churches that have split or closed or gone into maintenance mode, and almost without exception, in every case, the problem can be traced back to a leadership issue – either a lack of leadership, the wrong people in leadership, the wrong exercising of leadership or the wrong attitude towards leaders on the part of the congregation as a whole.
Too many churches have managers as Pastors but too few have godly, visionary, strategic thinking servant leaders.
Watch out for posts about this subject, relevant books I would commend and links to articles that you will find helpful.