I want to talk to you about the four altars of leadership. As we worked with over 2,800 church leaders to implement a leadership pipeline, we asked them about their challenges in leadership development. Then their teams gathered around and spent 30 minutes storming through all of the reasons why people aren’t getting developed in their church before identifying these top issues that need to be addressed.
While there are a variety of obstacles, the underlying question for leaders is, “Why aren’t you giving the ministry away?”
After seeing these lists, they sacrificed the development of people in their church on one of these four altars. I’ve seen thousands of lists at this point and I can tell you it boils down to one of these four things.
Fear. Fear says, “I am not sure what people will think. If I stop doing this and give my work to someone else, will I lose my job?”
Pride. Pride says, “I really enjoy this. I’m the best person at it, so I’m going to continue to do it and I’m going to put roadblocks in front of anyone else who tries to do it.”
Control. Control similarly says, “No one else can meet my expectations. I am the best at this. I want to be in charge of this. I want to make sure it’s done this specific way.”
Time. Time often says, “Sunday is coming. It’s easier for me to do myself. I don’t have time to train somebody else, so I am going to just keep doing it.”
We often overlook these four altars because we are striving for excellence in ministry. Excellence isn’t a bad thing, but each one of these things can be rooted in excellence.
When you think about these things I want you to understand that it is what is keeping you from giving your ministry away. Developing those under your leadership is your number one job. You’re minimizing your leadership influence when you don’t do that. Remember your legacy is not what you do, it is the people you develop.
Now that you know about the four altars of ministry, I want you to process which one of these you might be struggling with, and decide what you’re going to do about it.
