Moving beyond being slot-filling leadersThe more we are following the leading of the Holy Spirit, the more we move out of the role of being a slot-filling leader. We move from thinking just organizationally to thinking more deeply in terms of people development.

From “What do we need to get done? Who can we get to do it?”to “How can this person grow? What might God be challenging them to do next?”

What’s needed for this type of leadership? Increased flexibility and openness to change. One reason this is challenging is that some pastors and leaders begin viewing certain people as indispensable in their current roles. That’s a dangerous practice that leads to us to pigeonholing people. We shouldn’t limit a person by locking them into their current role.

Rather, by giving people the opportunity to keep developing outside of their current roles, we empower them as well as strengthening the overall church. You never know what God may have in store.

And what about the worry that we won’t have enough people to fill our needed slots? If that happens, it tells us that we’re trying to do too much or that our leadership pool isn’t deep enough. We need to create ways to develop others through apprenticing. Build in ways in each ministry for current leaders to find and train people who would be capable of replacing them. None of us has any guarantee of tomorrow, and that includes all of the people who currently have roles in our church.