Developing Servant Leaders Right from the Start of Your Small Group (Part 3)

This is Part 3. Click here to read Part 2.

Just to review, remember the best way to develop servant leaders right from the very start of your small group is to SPOT potential servant leaders early on. You do this by 1) Seeing each person as a potential servant leader, 2) Praying for God to send workers into His harvest field, 3) Observing if any of your members are ready for leadership development, and 4) Talking to those who are ready for training.

Once you start doing these initial steps, you will see some people rise up (sometimes all of them). Some (or all) of your small group members will start to get involved in some form of outreach and evangelism. In our church, we call our program for outreach and evangelism Mission Possible 4 or MP4. Those who do so are prime candidates for more intentional leadership training. Here are the five steps to develop servant leaders intentionally, right from the start of your small group, or as soon as some of your members start getting involved in outreach and evangelism. Simply remember the acrostic TRAIN.

1. Teach them how to be missional in their lifestyle.
2. Rely on God’s processing methods.
3. Assign them to leadership roles in your small group.
4. Increase their responsibilities over time based on faithfulness.
5. Nurture their faith, hope and love through personal mentoring.

We will discuss steps 2 to 5 of TRAIN later. But to begin this process, you must teach them how to be missional in their lifestyle (just click each link below to know more about how to become missional follower of Christ). This involves teaching them how to…

1. Generate New Contacts
2. Offer God’s love in tangible ways
3. Begin spiritual conversations with seekers
4. Reveal their personal testimony
5. Invite seekers to study the word of God with them
6. Narrate the good news about Jesus Christ
7. Guide seekers toward genuine conversion
8. Judge if new converts or old believers need help with their conversion
9. Orient new converts or old believers about the church and the Christian life
10. Involve new converts or old believers in the community of faith
11. Nudge new converts or old believers to grow in their faith
12. Care for new converts or old believers inside the community
13. Obtain information about their past
14. Uncover their emotional freeze points
15. Neutralize their emotional freeze points
16. Speak the truth in love with them
17. Encourage personal responsibility and humility
18. Let go and let God take care of the rest
19. Begin mentoring relationships with healthy believers
20. Understand healthy believers’ learning needs and style
21. Instruct healthy believers according to available resources or opportunities
22. Love healthy believers unconditionally but firmly
23. Develop healthy believers toward spiritual maturity

Once you complete this process (all 23 steps will take some time), teach them how to TRAIN others, just like what you did for them (2 Timothy 2:1-2). Remember to do this (leadership development) by faith, trusting in the Holy Spirit all throughout the process. He will use you, others, circumstances, and the word of God to develop these servant leaders.

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Here is a diagram that can help you picture these steps.