Leadership and Communication

I heard John Maxwell once say that "everything rises and falls on leadership and leadership rises and falls on communication."

Communication with regards to church planting has many facets:

1) Leader to the Team - Leaders should be consistent, clear and courteous.

2) Team to the Leader - 2-way communication is a must. In the same way God has given you (the primary vision carrier) a calling to start the church.... your team also has a calling - to help the vision become a reality! Remember that you are not the only "anointed" one in the group.

3) Amongst Team Members - Team members should be able to communicate, encourage and help one another afterall this is a team. The one analogy I give when training up a team deals with a field.

Imagine 3 fields....actual fields or tracts of land. Field "A" belongs to you. You can do anything you want to do in this field. You can plant corn...build a house....ignore it....whatever you want! Field "B" is a field that you lease. A lease typically spells out the terms of the agreement. If you lease the field for the purpose of growing corn.....thats what you do. If you raise cattle in Field "B" or build a house on it, you are breaking the terms of the lease and will probably be asked to leave. Field "C" is not yours....and you dont lease it for a specific purpose. If you are on this land...You are trespassing since you have no business on it.

You see, its ok to help and encourage but we need to be mindful that we dont trespass into anothers "field". The team will function properly when we stay on mission : )

4) Team to the Public - I recommend we use every bit of technology that is at our disposal. Again - consistency, clarity and courtesy is a must!

In the weeks to come, we will go into more detail in these 4 areas, giving church planters some practical ideas in which they can implement right away.