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Equipping and Developing, Part 1
By Dr. Dan Reiland
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In my travels to churches I continuously look for specific skills
in the leaders that have a direct impact on the church's strength
and health - resulting in stable growth. It's a great study, and
sometime I'll share with you the top things that I believe hinder
or even prevent churches from health and growth. But let's focus
on the positive this time!

The skills I look for are separate from personality and
leadership style. They are skills that any church leader must
master. In previous editions of "The Pastor's Coach" I wrote
about two such skills, using the topics of gathering and
recruiting.

If we were to draw an imaginary line in the sand that separates
churches with modest potential and churches with significant
potential (as subjective as that may sound), two leadership
skills jump to the top of the list - they are equipping and
developing people.

At first glance they may appear to be similar, but they aren't.
The two skills are related and can overlap, but they are not the
same. You may also be tempted to think that it's semantics...but
it's far more than mere word choice when it comes to measurable
outcomes. The two particular words I've chosen aren't as
important themselves as the difference between the two concepts.
After you're confident your staff and key leaders know the
difference, and practice both, then feel free to change the words
to anything you wish!

One more opening thought...equipping and developing often overlap
in practice, but it's wise to know the difference between the two
before you combine the efforts in order to ensure you accomplish
both.

These are the core differences between equipping and developing
within the context of the local church:

+ Equipping is preparing someone for a specific ministry task.
+ Developing is investing in someone for their personal growth.

+ Equipping is transactional - it's an exchange.
+ Developing is transformational - it's a gift.

+ Equipping is based largely on the church's agenda.
+ Developing is based largely on the person's agenda.

This edition will focus on equipping; the next edition of "The
Pastor's Coach" will cover developing.

Equipping is preparing someone for a specific ministry task. The
equipping skill is as clear-cut as preparing a Sunday School
teacher, for example, to leading a child to Christ, to training
the teacher to tell stories in a captivating way, to teaching how
to communicate love to each child. These equipping skills are
especially important when you have a room full of wide-eyed,
squirmy little kids with short attention spans!

Equipping is transactional - it's an exchange. When my kids go
to their favorite fast food restaurant, they give the cashier a
few dollars and in exchange they get chicken fingers (that
resemble and taste like particle board covered with fried brown
spackle), fries and a soft drink. It's an exchange. There is
nothing wrong with the exchange system; most of life is based
upon it. In the next edition of "The Pastor's Coach" we'll see
that though transaction is good, development is still needed and
is extremely important. For now, we'll focus on the value of
exchange. It looks like this. I'll train you to be a great
Sunday School teacher, if you'll teach Sunday School. It's a
productive win-win.

Equipping is based largely on the church's agenda. That's Ok!
If it's a Great Commission Church - it's God's agenda too! But
we must be careful not to allow equipping to become so inward
focused that the church becomes institutionalized and
concentrates on protecting its turf, rather than taking new
territory for Christ.

Equipping is non-negotiable for any church to be healthy,
biblical, and realize solid growth. Ephesians 4:11-12 is clear.
God never intended the pastor(s) and a few key leaders to do all
the work. The following guidelines will assist you in becoming
better at equipping your people. They are written with the
assumption that you understand the important pre-requisite of
getting the right people in the right ministries, according to
their gifts and passions.

Before we go through the guidelines, I want to acknowledge that
the well known Ephesians 4:11-16 passage communicates a larger
idea than merely training for ministry. I believe that it deals
with the wholeness of the person, their maturity as a believer,
and how they connect within a unified body of Christ. This
deeper level is part of the developing process. But for the sake
of practicality, and to avoid writing an online book, let's just
hit the practical aspects.

Determine the specific ministry objectives for each ministry.

Effective equipping begins by having the end results in mind.
Let's continue to use our illustration of the Sunday School
teacher. It's important to know what values you want the
children to embrace in order to properly equip the teacher. If
you just want the kids to behave, to not destroy the room or
wound each other until church is over, that would shape the
training one way. But if you want the kids to embrace specific
biblical principles that result in life change, that would head
the equipping process in a completely different direction. Every
ministry works the same way. Let's look at one more - small
group leaders, for example. If you want them to host a light
Bible study with the emphasis on a "cozy community," that process
would look very different from equipping that is designed for a
small group to reach their community, develop an apprentice, and
multiply in 18 months. Far too many churches use generic
equipping processes. Generic equipping is better than no
equipping, but beginning with the end in mind is light years
ahead of the generic approach.

Identify the required skills and basic competencies.

Back to the Sunday School teacher. You've determined, for
example, that you want the kids to trust Jesus as their Savior.
The next question is: What skills and core competencies are
needed so a teacher can lead a child to Christ? Child evangelism
then becomes part of the training. Or, for example, you want the
kids to fall in love with the Word of God. Engaging and
captivating storytelling then becomes part of the equipping
process. In contrast, in the earlier example of keeping the kids
quiet until church is over, you would equip the teachers for
crowd control and guerilla warfare.

Recognize the cultural and philosophical biases.

Let's change the example from children's Sunday School to
evangelism. The cultural and philosophical biases of your
community or church make a significant difference in your
equipping approach. There are some churches and communities
where a more direct approach is positive, acceptable, and
productive - such as Evangelism Explosion (and new variations).
In other environments it would be a complete turn off to both the
church members and those you witness to. In contrast, the
softer, more indirect and relational approach of "Contagious
Christianity" would be powerful in some churches and too watered
down in others. Don't just jump on the newest training program
available. The differences between a Charismatic church in New
York and a Baptist church in Alabama are substantial. Know your
cultural and philosophical biases and design your training
accordingly.

Provide the appropriate training material.

The training material should be selected according to what we
have covered so far. Your end objectives, the skills and
competencies, and the cultural and philosophical biases will
determine your training material.

Let me be blunt and to the point here. Buy the best material
available - don't cheap out! Don't focus on saving money -
invest in world class training.

Use only the most qualified personnel to do the training.

In taking guitar lessons I've learned that there are gifted
musicians and gifted teachers, and rarely are they the same
person. The gifted musician loves to show you how good he is.
The gifted teacher loves to show you how good you are. Be
careful of this syndrome in the church.

We often "promote" our best children's teachers to be a
department leader. They were incredible teachers but terrible
directors. Let the teachers teach! We promote our best small
group leaders to be small group coaches and directors, and they
struggle and lose motivation. Let the small group leaders lead
small groups. We promote the best usher in the church (and I
mean can he/she ever ush!) to be the usher captain and they soon
burn out from the organizational responsibilities and quit. Let
'em ush!

There are people in your church who are gifted teachers and
trainers. Find them and let them do what God has designed them
to do! As long as they have a passion for that ministry - you're
good to go.

Include on the job training.

Classroom training is important and necessary, but insufficient
on its own. Be sure to include some "O.J.T." under the
mentorship of someone experienced and gifted in the ministry area
they are preparing for. A small group leader, for example, needs
to apprentice under a good small group leader and "practice"
leading the group while the mentor leader is present to guide and
coach.

Provide the necessary tools and resources for each person to
accomplish their particular ministry.

Some things are obvious and taken for granted, such as the
worship team needing microphones and sound equipment - stuff that
actually works and doesn't squeal and squawk with a sound that's
a cross between a wounded pig and an angry sea lion. But other
ministries are less obvious and suffer because of the lack of
needed tools, equipment, and resources. It's one thing to "make
due" in a pinch; we've all have to do that. It's quite another
to adopt substandard as a way of ministry. One church tried to
save money by reusing old crafts and sharing curriculum. Over
70% of the teachers quit every year! Some of your best
volunteers will quit too if you don't get them the stuff they
need.

Give generous amounts of communication, praise and
appreciation.

One pastor asked me what appreciation had to do with the
equipping process! Everything! From how long they'll stay in
that ministry (which affects the depth of your key leaders) to
morale and ultimate measurable outcomes. As I travel to churches
one of the common complaints I hear is one of lack of
communication. And church leader, you may feel like you
communicate 'til you're blue in the face, but if your team
perceives that you don't - you don't. If they feel out of the
loop, that is often translated as you don't really care about
them and you only care about getting "your" ministry done. This
is lethal and poisons the process. Make things such as
expectations, dates, new programs, changes, etc., simple and
clear. Let the people know how much you appreciate them. And
like our Moms taught us when we were about 3 years old...say
"thank you." Say it often and say it with an enthusiastic heart.