Sunday, November 11, 2007

Give Us Trainers With Credibilty


The following is a quote from Bill Hybels book 'Courageous Leadership' page 132. It captures what we desire to see in trainers for the Leadership Matters Course.

"I usually hesitate when people ask me to participate in leadership development programs. 'How is it going to work? ' I ask. If they respond in the typical fashion: 'We are going to get Jo Shmo (with a Ph.D. in this or that) to teach on leadership' I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else. 'Most good leaders are not going to want to participate in that program because Jo Shmo is not a leader. He's a classroom teacher. He might even be a great teacher, but he never really led anything. True leaders want more than theory from teacher types. They want to be around other leaders who have actually been in the game, leaders with a few bloodstains on their uniforms. "

This powerfully illustrates the point of why we are intentional in recruiting key trainers for the Leadership Matters Course. We are looking for individuals who have a lot of experience. For each LMC, a team of three experienced leaders, who are good trainers, should be able to lead a successful course. They work together with others on their team who have a little less experience.

That's why we desperately need people with ample life and ministry experience to be the key trainers in each LMC. Our focus is to train leaders in pastoral and mission work. We need people who are leaders in their ministries; who have field experience. They have "a few bloodstains on their uniforms". We have often recognized this. In fact this has been an issue where some have disagreed with us. They say: 'Anyone can teach LMC, because it's about principles and the philosophy of training'. But we said 'No' to this, for the very reason that Bill Hybels so clearly points out to us.

The tendency may be to become somewhat lenient on this point, due to the pressure of our great need for trainers. At the moment, this is not so much an issue, since we have many who want to help out. A few years ago, we recognized that if experienced leaders, with this stature of giftedness and experience, have the desire to do training, they will prove to be the ones that can successfully carry several courses in a given year. We knew that if we worked almost entirely with people with less leadership experience, we would soon find out that the reputation and effectiveness of the LMC would suffer and eventually die a quiet death.

The ongoing involvement of David Cummings for example has been an enormous significance and has been widely appreciated.

In this sense we can't over estimate the value of people like David in the process of making the course as successful and popular as it is right now. We need people with much respect, a clear maturity, obvious skill, and with plenty of ministry background. We want to grow; we want to keep a good reputation and we want to gain admittance into more organizations.

As you read this you can pray that God will give us more of these experienced trainers. We also need them in the French and Spanish language world, as we are purposefully trying to get the course going in those languages. Depending on the level of an individual’s giftedness we can train people in the skills of being a good trainer. We can't train people, however, to have the credibility that comes from a rich life and ministry experience. Only God can bring about that growth. He also needs to call them to be involved in training other leaders. They need to see that with all their experience, the best investment they can make with their life and ministry is to pass on some of the lessons they have learned to others. That is investing in the future!

In Bill Hybel's words: The 'Jo Shmo's’ won't do it because leaders want to learn from leaders!' That is for the 'pillars' in the team.

by Joop Strietman

1 comment:

Loca Luna said...

Great insight and point that both Bill Hybels and Joop Strietman make here. Like Joop, I truly believe this is key to the success and usefulness of LMC in the lives of busy leaders. From my perspective, servant leaders with "bloodstains on their uniforms" may not always be well known leaders. They may be well known in the Evangelical community, or they may be servant leaders who have been faithful in their ministries without being in the spotlight whatsoever. If I could take Bill Hybel's a step further, I'd add that leaders want to be around other leaders who have actually been in the game (speaks of experience in terms of years of faithful service), but also leaders who are still in the game (or who are presently dealing with the ever-changing realities of ministry in the world today).

Jeff Turnbough
Spain