Catalyst Track: Habits of Healthy Spiritual Leaders // Day Four

This 4-day track comes from an article written for Catalyst by Matt Brown entitled, “8 Habits of Healthy Spiritual Leaders.”

 

God calls, prepares and empowers spiritual leaders to lead His Church. Spiritual leadership is not a job for everybody. While every Christian is called to follow Christ wholeheartedly, and make an impact on the world around them - some are called to equip the Body of Christ as spiritual leaders.

 

Spiritual leadership is vitally important. People rise and fall to the level of our leadership. People are drawn into the Kingdom and drawn into Christian service because of faithful, healthy spiritual leadership.

 

It is so important for those God calls to spiritual leadership to be eager to grow into everything God calls them to be. We are called by a great God – may never be stagnant or half-hearted in that calling!

 

Over the next couple of days, use Matt's 8 habits to honestly evaluate where you are it regarding your personal and leadership health.

 

In the midst of encouraging, equipping and challenging those you lead, sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the very practical, everyday opportunities to make sure YOU are equipped with what you need to keep living and leading well.

 

Complete the challenges at the end of each day to help keep your leadership habits on track. 

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DAY 4 – Embody & Empower

 

#7 Embody What You Want People to Do

Dave Ferguson recently stated in the 5 Leadership Questions podcast: "If everyone else lived the way I'm living, would we accomplish the mission?"

 

That questions burns. This means, stop just talking big, and start living big - living to the full obedience potential God has called you to as a spiritual leader. 

 

Don't just tell people to pray. You seek God with a new vigor. Don't just tell people to love their family. You grow in graciousness to yours. Don't just tell people to reach the world. You show hospitality to a neighbor and live out the gospel. Don't just tell people to give. You sacrifice something important to you, and help the poor.

 

Our effectiveness as spiritual leaders is intrinsically linked to embodying what we want our people to do, and then sharing our successes and failures with them. We go together or we go nowhere at all.

 

 

#8 Take People With You

It should go without saying, but if you are a spiritual leader, your number one priority is to take people with you, not go on a walk all by yourself. This means you need to always be meeting people where they are, and doing your best to communicate with clarity the next steps to take.

 

This also means people need to have buy-in. When they help write the script, they become part of the story.

 

Stop telling people to reach the whole world, and begin dreaming about how God could use each of you to reach one person with the gospel. Stop telling people to pray all day, and start casting the vision to dedicate time each week to personal prayer. (After all, prayer is addicting).

 

Big vision is fine, but small steps are needed. You can see your effectiveness as a spiritual leader by whether or not people are actually tracking with you.

 

CHALLENGE:

 

1.What action or habit can you accurately embody to those you lead this week?

2.Take a look at your team. Do their actions indicate they are tracking with you? What small steps can you take to help them take the next steps?