Francis Chan on Decentralized Leadership
May 24, 2010
We've been talking about an important part of leadership: delegation - delegating responsibility as well as authority to accomplish a task and decide how it is accomplished. Another step past delegation is discipleship. As Jesus reproduced himself by training the 12 disciples, so Paul trained Timothy and told him "And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." - 2 Tim 2:2
Discipleship goes beyond delegation--it creates another you, so you can get twice as much work done! This is how viruses grow, this is how epidemics start, this is how movements are birthed - multiplication, rather than addition.
One leader can only do so much.
This is what Francis Chan and Cornerstone Church have been experimenting with, new models that rely more on decentralized leadership. Here's an excerpt from a recent interview:
The leaders were looking at launching video venues or moving me back and forth between worship services when one of the elders said, "Francis, let's say you start another church and in 10 years we've got 10,000 people coming rather than 4,000—would you be happy?" I said no. "Don't you want to create a reproducible model? Isn't that what we see in Scripture and isn't that the only thing that would satisfy you—a movement that goes beyond the limitations of a wall?" He was absolutely right. And he said, "Doesn't it seem more biblical to entrust leadership to other shepherds rather than put everything on you?" That's how it all started. Praise God for the elder board and their understanding of Scripture.
Read the rest of the interview from Leadership Journal.
The Church is the perfect place for this mulitplicative, decentralization. While CEOs and business models may lose from giving up their power & money, the Church actually wins when we share everything: share responsibility, share authority, share teaching, empower believers to use their gifts, share resources, raise up and send out people rather than hoarding them. The more we invest in developing and sending-out leaders & disciples, the more the Kingdom grows.
How can the Church invest more in leadership development & sending people out?
