Mission Groups Place New Emphasis on Leadership
Mission heads are shifting attention to leadership training as a new key component in their strategy to effectively reaching more people.
Recently a number of leaders from key mission groups have expressed their organization’s plans to shift focus to leadership training and development. Many of these groups have begun implementing leader development strategies while others are still in the planning stages.
HCJB World Radio, the world’s oldest international mission broadcasting agency, told The Christian Post in a recent interview that it plans to switch into an “enabling mode” more than a “doing mode.”
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“What I like to tell people when I’m asked where HCJB is going in the future is for 75 years we have been involved in doing ministry directly ourselves,” said Curt Cole, the vice president of international ministries HCJB on Oct. 13.
“But as we look to the future we really see that changing from a ‘doing’ mode to an ‘enabling’ mode – and that is a key future for us because we really believe that the enabling mode filters down to training and empowering local groups to do the ministry.”
Similarly, the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) believes in developing young local Christian leaders around the world. The organization held the Younger Leaders Gathering (YLG) last month in Malaysia which was attended by nearly 500 young leaders from 110 countries. Young adults from age 25-35 convened to learn new leadership skills, strengthen their spiritual life, and form networks with other young Christian leaders around the world.
The Rev. Steve Moore, who was one of the YLG workshop presenters and the founder of a leadership and coaching ministry, shared about the new focus of the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies (EFMA). Moore is the newly installed EFMA president who hopes to use his leadership and coaching skills to help mission groups “do what God has raise them up to do more effectively.”
“What we are recognizing now – and this is not unique to us – is in addition to a unifying and credentialing function, EFMA needs to add a developing function,” said Moore.
“Our refocus for EFMA has simply been to facilitate relational and developmental initiative that increases the effectiveness of mission organizations by adding value to their leaders and stimulating partnership in the mission community.”
Moore, who strongly believes in the need to “engage” the next generation of mission leaders, said he was “excited” by EFMA’s new focus on leadership development.
