John Maxwell has done quite a lot to develop coaching related to leadership. If you search for five levels of leadership, you will probably find several articles about it, moving from leadership based on someone’s position (they are the boss) to the pinnacle of leadership based on respect for someone as a person, their character and the results of their work.
However, as we think about leaders in making disciples and starting reproducing churches, we want to think about different types of leaders. These are the people that we want to connect with for the purpose of helping them continue to grow in their own development of character toward Christ-likeness as well as faithfulness to do what Jesus taught his disciples and others around him to do.
There are five different levels of leadership that we have been learning about from the NoPlaceLeft team. Here are those levels:
Level 1 – Gospel Seed Sower: This is someone who has shown a willingness to share their testimony or share the Gospel message of God’s grace and forgiveness through the sacrifice of Jesus with a non-believer.
Level 2 – Church Planter: Someone who is willing to gather a group of believers to start a church. They will teach others the basics of living in Christian community and moving forward together as a group in that single church.
Level 3 – Church Multiplier: This person is willing to teach people within their church to plant other churches. They will teach Jesus’s commands to share their faith, make disciples, and show them how to gather people to create churches, teaching those people that they are teaching to go on and do the same with others.
Level 4 – Church Network Catalyst: A Catalyst takes the next step yet by going into new locations and start a process to train others to start networks of churches. They will then continue to follow up and coach others and teach them to teach others to start networks.
Level 5 – Strategy Coordinator for an Area: This person will work with others at the various levels of leadership to help coordinate the strategies of the work in the area. They may help train or they may teach others to train, but their most important function is to help others strategically plan to go to new places or strengthen current locations based on their understanding of what God is doing among people across an entire area.
Our goal is to find people who either are already on this scale of leadership, or to help them get started onto this scale. From there, our hope is to continue to coach and grow them as they see their network of disciples and churches grow so that they will be able to continue to lead an ever-growing network of new believers and disciples. All of this for God’s glory in Jesus’s name.
