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Plant, water, and reap a Biblical homily for Christian leadership.






Over the last few months my mind has not been on leadership it has been on writing a History of a small Pentecostal movement in Africa. I was thinking about the different leaders in this church their styles and personalities and how these men grew churches. So this got me thinking about the different types of leaders you get today in our churches.

Here is a short biblical homily on my thoughts on the subject:

1 Corinthians 3: 5-7


What after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants through whom you came to believe- as the Lord as assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters it is anything but only God who makes it grow.

For many years I ran a construction projects management business, I dealt with architects who envisioned and designed the buildings I built. I dealt with engineers who saw that the structure was sound and the foundations and framework were of the highest standard. And I saw the owners who made their new houses homes to live in and create memories in. I see pictured in the passage above a reflection of how leaders should build churches. A group working, each to serve the other who in turn serve God.

There is in my mind three types of leader in the church today, the Planter, the one who Waters and the Reaper.

The leadership Planter plants the church, they ensure the foundation is sound, they put in place structure and framework, next they begin to develop leadership and germinate growth.

The second leader you get is the one who Waters, this person takes the church to the next level begins the process of seeing that the seed is watered, fed and nourished. Leaders are trained to build and increase both personally and in their teams. The desire to propagate and bring increase is strong.

The last leader is the Reaper. This is the leader who sees the greatest increase, fruit and blessing in the church. They are perhaps the most charismatic of the three leaders. The one person that people are drawn too.

The church today needs all three kinds of leaders, operating in tandem not in isolation of each other. Three operating in a cyclical fashion all part of the wheel not separate from it. A perpetual motion constantly renewing, constantly moving, never ending a lemniscate if you will. I am not talking here about Ephesians 4 gifts, they are too specific. I am talking here about just plain old fashioned common sense. Maybe we have got the way we plant churches all wrong, maybe we need to get all three servants operating in this ever upwards circular effect. This way we will see less people fail and more leaders succeed. This way we will create a house that people can call a home.

Food for thought, I hope.

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