(A friend) shepherded his seven children by taking one morning a week to meet individually with each of his children.  Seven days in a week–each of the seven children got one morning each week with their dad.  They prayed, read scripture, talked, and read a book of that child’s choosing.  Inspired by his amazing example, I came home and established a similar model in our home that I remain faithful to this day.  Here is what I do to individually shepherd my four children regularly in addition to our regular time of family worship, as well as implications attached to it:

1)  Monday through Thursday each child gets a day and on his or her appointed day stays up 30 – 45 minutes later than their siblings to meet with me before bedtime.  I thought they would be excited about it for a few times, but then grow bored with it.  Not so.  Years later, they look forward to that time more than anything, which provides a natural accountability when you are tired from the day and are tempted to skip for that evening.

2)  We read the passage I am preaching for that week, discuss it a bit, then we read a chapter from a book they have chosen to read.  At the end, I take time to ask them how they are doing and how I can pray for them.  This is a great way to see how they are really doing and teach them what are good things to be praying for others.  Then, I pray for them and take them to bed.

3)  One of the greatest joys to my wife is her watching my effort with our children and lead our family in this way.  The last thing she feels is left out (just in case you were thinking that).  Our wives’ desire for us to make regular, deliberate, spiritually meaningful efforts to care for our children will mean more to her than I think we realize or understand.  I find this especially true for our wives who are stay at home moms who labor hard in this task of shepherding their little hearts all day with little break.

4)  My efforts with my children have put me in a position to challenge other men in my church to do something similar.  It has been amazing the way our fathers in our church have embraced this and the way it has empowered many of them to see they can spiritually lead their families with deliberate efforts.  Fellow pastors, the obvious needs to be acknowledged that you cannot challenge the men in your church to do anything you are not making a faithful effort at.  Regularly and individually shepherding your children’s hearts is certainly one of those efforts that we must model for the men in our local church.  Their failure to do it could be a reflection of your failure to model it.

What I see from Jesus

• is that leadership is not about getting more followers. The essence of discipleship is to produce more leaders.
• Jesus has a vision for what someone can become when they know him and discipleship is his leadership development tool.

Who did Jesus disciple?

• People who needed to know the one and true God.
• those who need an up close look at the ministry of Jesus because they are the future leaders of the church

Leadership development at the Journey

The process of growing your character, knowledge, and skills in the fruit of the Spirit for the purpose of leading the church.

What your best leadership development tool?

It’s you

• With God’s word in your heart and mind
• Doing the work of a missional church through discipling others.

Developing a leadership development play with:

• a name written down of someone who you can see God using for his glory and his mission.
• identify areas they can grow in their character,
• identify things they need to know to grow into maturity as a man and a Christian,
• identify ideas for how you can share the work of ministry with them to grow their leadership skills. 

Remember how Jesus thinks about leadership:

• It’s not about gaining followers, it’s about discipling more leaders.
• It’s dreaming of what people can become when they know him.
• It’s being kingdom minded…on a mission.  “Go.”
• It’s sharing the hard work of ministry.
• Helping others grow in your knowledge and heart as they work under the control of the Holy Spirit.

• The Unchanging character of God
• The hope of the gospel – “Don’t preach the deceased into heaven, don’t preach them into hell, just preach the gospel for the people who are there.”
• A call to respond to the gospel
• Instruct those present how to grieve

1. Gospel dis-inculturation (the gospel confronts the attitudes and beliefs inherited from culture)
2. Biblical and theological depth
3. Rich community
4. Joyful, reverent worship
5. Missional flow

• Grab them with passion
• Win them with love
• Hold them with holiness
• Challenge them with truth
• Amaze them with God

This is a challenge to us at Grace as we look towards a new chapter at our church with the recent hire of Tyson Lemke. We need to understand that while a Senior Pastor will lead us, he cannot do the work of ministry for us. We individually need to be committed to making and sending disciples and planting churches. This is the model of engagement and connection that the Bible teaches and one that we ignore to our peril and sin.

First, my church strives after the glory of God in all things with a strong emphasis on the Scriptures and Gospel-Centrality.

This works itself out in a commitment to expository preaching

In addition, this has led us to a focus on discipleship

First, there is a membership process; this comes directly out of our belief in the Baptist distinctive of “Regenerate Church Membership.”

Next, members are integrated into a small group, which is the primary means of discipleship and community in our church.

Finally, in the context of Gospel-Centrality, there is a focus on being as diverse as the community around us.

Second, our church is adamant about the primacy of the local church

Shepherd’s Training

The elders invite these men that they have identified into the 2-year program; it is not open to everyone. He is then paired with an Elder or leader in the church, along with one other trainee. This leader focuses on personal development and maturity with him. In addition, there is a focus on accountability and the character necessary for an elder. He meets with this Elder/leader every other week to go through these things and to work through memorizing the Pastoral Epistles. In addition, he also meets every other week with all those in the program and all the trainers. Each “semester” during the 2-year cycle focuses on a different aspect of pastoral ministry and leadership. The every other week meeting focuses on the portion of the Pastoral Epistles that was to be memorized that week. One of the Elders then leads through an exposition of that passage and the other elders add thoughts on the passage as well. Next, all the trainees are required to read a book for the week, examples of books read are Baxter’s “The Reformed Pastor,” Dever’s “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church,” Spurgeon’s “Lectures to My Students,” and Bonheoffer’s “Life Together.” Each week, two of the trainees deliver an oral book review of the book for that week and then ask questions of the book that the elders answer and discuss. Finally, the night ends with one of the elders lecturing on an area of pastoral ministry and then discussion of that topic among the elders and trainees. The topics range from “why we employ small groups” to “regenerate church membership.” In addition, during the semester the trainees write two position papers on topics of interest in pastoral ministries. The topics of these papers are things like, view of spiritual gifts in ministry, use of alcohol in ministry, view of divorce and remarriage, and view of church government. Finally, each trainee is to work on a ministry project in some area of church life.  The goal is to lead to the training of future elders and church planters through life on life training. This is the best way to evaluate whether a man possess the qualifications of an Elder and if they are ready to take on a role such as that.

Finally, in the focus of church primacy, my home church does church planting and missions “in house.”

This focus on the primacy of the local church does not mean that my church does not seek to be aided by the convention structures, but it means that they do not farm out missions’ work or church planting to an outside organization.

Finally, how does my church focus on missional living?

First, there is a focus on the small groups being missional. They are all to carry out community projects in our “We Love North Raleigh” campaign

Second, as has been mentioned, we focus on missional living through church planting

In addition, the church has worked hard at overseas and cross-cultural missions

1. 30-40+ committed adults.
   1. Signed a launch team covenant.
   2. Demonstrating commitment.
2. Evidence of intentional engagement with non-Christians.
3. Everyone on the launch team is in a Gospel Community.
4. Gospel Communities are meeting and healthy with a growing sense of unity and clarity around the mission.
5. Sunday gatherings are smooth: worship, kids, facilities, etc.

First, I prepare for visitation with prayer. I take a few minutes or so to pray for the family I am about to visit. During that time I make sure I know the names of both the adults and the children, I remind myself of what each is doing in their lives, and I make a mental note of any special needs or concerns that we had previously talked about.

Second, for the first 15 minutes or so of the visit, I try to chat to the family about what’s going on in their lives: how’s the job, the kids, school, etc. If there was some important local or national issue we might talk about that as well. Obviously, this sometimes stretches quite a bit beyond 15 minutes. And sometimes it is difficult to change the topic to something more “spiritual.” However, I like to “break the ice” in this way. I don’t think this is pragmatic or manipulative. As a pastor, I am interested in the spiritual welfare of my flock above everything else; but I am also interested in every area of their lives. I enjoy hearing about their vacations, their jobs, their schools, their friends, etc. I enjoy seeing and savoring the different personalities and characters. Often, issues arise in these conversations which we could never have predicted, taking us into the Scriptures in a very natural way (I’m always looking for opportunities to relate God’s Word to the person’s world). Usually it just helps everyone to relax a bit and makes it easier to move into more directly “spiritual” issues. I agree with the old saying, “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Sometimes I find it helpful to share a bit from my own life and family. I try to show that I have a normal family life with all its joys, worries, and sorrows. Obviously you have to be careful here. You don’t want to “let it all hang out,” and you don’t want to spend too much time talking about yourself. However, some people find it easier to open up if the pastor himself is prepared to do so.

Third, the main aim of a pastoral visit is to have a conversation about spiritual matters. Sometimes that’s very easy, as mature Christians especially will be used to pastoral visits and will probably have some spiritual questions to ask, or some spiritual topics they want to talk about. But, for the sake of this post, let’s assume that you are visiting people who are not used to spiritual conversation. How do you guide the conversation to produce a profitable discussion? Until now, I’ve never sat down and thought about what questions I ask people. But I’ve tried below to list some questions that have been helpful. It’s important to ask these questions in a friendly and natural way, rather than in an accusatory or “clipboard” way. Sometimes I find it easier to direct some of these questions to the children initially, as they often talk much more freely about spiritual matters.

• Is there anything you would like me to pray for?
• What have you been reading in your Bible? Anything that’s helped you or puzzled you?
• What do you find difficult about reading the Bible?
• What do you feel burdened about in prayer?
• Is there anything you would like to hear a sermon on? Any verses you would like explained?
• Are there any sermons that you’ve found helpful… confusing… challenging?
• What did you think about the sermon on…?
• Would you say you are going forward spiritually, or backwards?
• Are you reading any good Christian books? Is there anything you want to share from it?
• Have you found any verses that are helping you to live life and prepare for eternity?
• What gifts do you think the Lord has given you? Do you feel the church is making most use of your gifts?
• How would you describe yourself: Unsaved, saved and sure of it, or not sure?
• Do you think much about death and life after death? Do you feel prepared for that? How are you preparing?
• What is your hope of heaven? What reason will you give for being admitted there?
• What do you think of Jesus Christ?
• What would you most like to change in your life?
• What is your greatest fear?
• Are you facing any difficult challenges?
• Is there any one thing that stops you from following Christ?
• Children, what have you been learning in Sunday School?
• Do you have any questions for me?

Maybe only one question will be required to start a profitable conversation. The ultimate aim is to find out where people are spiritually, and how you can help them either to be saved, to be sanctified, or to be of more service to the church.

Fourth, finishing the visit can sometimes be difficult, especially with older and lonely people who have lots of time on their hands. You need to keep good track of the time (with unnoticed glances at a watch or clock), especially if you have another visit arranged. I usually let people know when I arrive that I have to be somewhere else at a certain time. That helps to focus the visit a bit, and also avoids people thinking you are bored with them, when you eventually have to draw the visit to a close. You can always arrange to return, if necessary.

And even if you don’t have anywhere else to go, don’t overstay your welcome. If you start to detect cues that it’s time for you to go (people obviously looking at watches, some members of the family disappearing, longer silences, etc), then go!

But not without prayer and reading of the Bible.

During the course of the conversation you should be making mental notes of matters for prayer. And in the concluding prayer, try to gather up these various pieces of information and pray about each of them – even trivial matters raised by young children. Also, try to pick a relevant chapter of Scripture to read, a chapter that speaks to their needs. Try to show how prayer and Bible reading should impact ordinary life. Maybe ask the children questions about the passage?

Fifth, pray about the visit in the car on the way home or when you get home. Maybe take notes about anything you should follow up on with a note in your diary to phone again in a few weeks. Also, maybe think about how a sermon might be able to help that family.