If you’ve read many of our keys to success in your church, you’ll often hear us say that “people will support what they help create” is one of our leadership essential. Developing a Core Leadership Team at your church is one of the most successful ways to allowing people to help you create everything your church does – with everyone’s support. Here’s how you do it…
What is the Leadership Core?
The Core is the group of movers and shakers in your church. It’s everyone who serves or you want to serve at some point. It’s the life blood of your church. It’s people in your congregation who are active members of your church, young and old and representing every sub-group of people. Your core can represent as much as 50% of your church but should be at least 25% of your church.
How do you identify and invite the Core?
Have everyone on your leadership team, staff and key volunteers make a list of everyone who should be invited to the core. Start with teens in your church and identify the stand outs. You want the teens who are well-liked, influencers, leaders and doing the best they can in their Christian walk. Next think about groups of people in your church by ministry and other categories. Have each ministry in your church identify people within their ministry that are influencers, leaders, good workers and doing the best they can in their Christian walk. Next think about other categories of people such as business leaders, millennials, retirees, singles (if you don’t have that ministry), newly marrieds, empty nesters, hobby groups (like sports groups, bakers, quilters, car club people, etc.). The point is, think about what kind of people, by category they might fit into, are coming to your church and have that category of people represented in your core. Once you identify the categories and people within the category, invite them to a “Core Meeting.” If they ask, “what’s a Core?” explain to them they were identified by someone as a leader in the church and someone people wanted to hear from and have weigh in on the future of the church. They will feel honored to be included.
More Inclusive is Better…
Your goal is to have more people in the room than less people. Here’s a key component: Announce on a Sunday morning that there will be a Core Leadership meeting on (say date and time) and announce that everyone who serves in the church in any capacity needs to be there. Explain you will be talking about the direction of the Church and what God is calling your church to accomplish. While making the announcement, be sure to say, “if you have ever led anything, served in any way or consider yourself a leader, please come!” You may think, “oh no, everyone will show up.” They won’t. And the more people you have that think they are leaders, the better. There’s one other very big benefit. You want this to feel inclusive. Even more important, at some point in the future someone will come up and ask why they weren’t invited or ask how people got invited. You can say you made an announcement on Sunday to everyone who considered themselves a leader in the church.
We recommend that you gather this “Core” at least 4 times a year. If you’ve attended one of our free Advanced Leadership collaboratives or read some of our other church leadership documents you’ll know how important the Core is to maintaining a healthy, growing and thriving church. If you’d like to attend one of our Advanced Leadership collaboratives, follow this link for more information: https://bit.ly/ChurchGoalsClass