Encouragement for Small-Church Leaders

Some times leaders just need encouragement and that’s what this blog entry is all about. I just want to encourage you.

A blog

Let’s start off with one of the more encouraging blog entries that I have read lately. It is written by Karl Vaters. Here is the link to it. Take a few minutes to read it and I guarantee that it will brighten your day.

A quote

I have shared this quote before but it has been an encouragement to me many times over the years. Every once in a while when I become frustrated with the church, I reread it and remind myself that I am serving his church and that everything that Ray Stedman says is true.

“Nevertheless, despite its many weaknesses and its tragic sins the church has been, in every century since its inception, the most powerful force for good on the face of the earth. It has been light in the midst of a darkness so dense it could be felt. It has been salt in society, retarding the spread of moral corruption and adding zest and flavor to human life.”  Stedmean, Body Life, p. 2

That is something that it is worth being a part of!

A story

This past Sunday I spoke at a small church in Southern Ontario. I have spoken at this church each year for the past three years and have been blessed each time that I have visited.

This time I met a young woman who had been overseas on a mission trip the last time that I had visited. I had heard about her and all that she was doing but had not actually met her. So this year I was excited to talk with her.

Last year she was finishing a mission trip in which she had visited eleven different countries on three continents over the course of eleven months. We talked about the cultural adjustments that such a trip required and the flexibility required of the person making the trip. She came back from that trip just after I was there last year. This year she had just come back from a discipleship training program in Spain.

I don’t know what this young woman’s future will look like but I do know that she has the potential to be a leader that helps shape what the church in Canada will look like in the future. I also know that almost every small church has at least one young person like her in their midst. Finally I know that many current leaders came out of small churches just like yours.

I think that it is exciting to know that through developing those key leaders among your youth, you could be a part of shaping the church for tomorrow. You just need to identify those leaders and intentionally begin to mentor them for the future.

A personal word of encouragement

You are part of a worldwide movement of God that is the church of Jesus Christ. As Karl Vaters reminds us, small churches are at the very heart of that movement.

You are part of a movement that down through the centuries has been the most powerful force for good in this mixed up world of ours. Small churches have always been at the heart of that force for good.

You are part of a training program that is preparing young people to assume leadership in the church of the twenty-first century. Small churches send out a higher proportion of those leaders than their size would suggest.

If you are part of a small church, you are part of a movement that has been and continues to be used by God to extend his kingdom here on earth and much of what God is doing, he is doing through small churches.

I hope that you have found this blog entry encouraging. May God bless you as you serve in the place where God has placed you, among those people whom he has given to you, for the purpose of seeing them become men and women who will impact the world for Jesus Christ.