3 Pillars of Building an Equipping Church

As we reflect theologically—as we tell our stories together and rehearse the “God-story,” as we communicate our vision as Equipping Leaders we must be fully conscious of laying a foundation for The Equipping Church in our contexts. As we look at a fully realized Ephesians 4 church, there are three critical pillars that support this “building,” or “structure.” As these pillars are built, the entire framework that is in place to support an equipping culture will be effectively created. Without one of these three critical pillars, the entire system becomes destabilized, and the culture cannot be fully established.

The first critical pillar is what we call Culture. For a church organism to embrace the biblical model of Ephesians 4 ministry, effectively returning to how this organism was created in the first place, then there must be some environmental and cultural changes that affect the whole organism.

The second critical pillar is what we call Systems. Therefore, the Equipping Leader must be a “systems creator.”

So very few people in our churches are focused on developing the invisible systems needed to support the infrastructure within our rapidly growing congregations. Many people, however, are consistently coming up with new and exciting ideas, with the desire to implement them “yesterday.” This is a wonderful challenge to have, and an equally incredible opportunity for us to step up and provide equipping leadership in these instances.

We must be the individuals, whether we are systems minded or not, calling others to think through the systems necessary to support all that we do in serving people. We must consistently “push the envelope” by asking the tough system questions:

- What is the system we need in place to support this new endeavor? What about the ministries we already offer, do they have support systems?
- What opportunities need to be slowed down, put on hold, or stopped altogether, in an effort to create the needed systems?
- How are we going to gather information?
- In what ways will we store and use the information gathered?
- What is the communication plan before, during and after the “event”?
- How and who does follow-up?
- What is the next step we want to take after the “event”, to support people?

As equipping leaders, when we are keenly focused on asking these hard questions – issues that most leaders will tend to overlook – we are assisting in creating the infrastructure necessary to support people. In doing so, we are helping to create a more effectively functioning and fully realized equipping church.

The final pillar that is needed to effective support an Ephesians 4 church is Team. The Equipping Leader must be a Team Builder. A key attribute that distinguishes equipping leaders from ALL other leaders is our ability to build people and focus on the development of effective teams. These teams work together to accomplish the vision of Ephesians 4. We must model for our colleagues, direct reports and supervisors what working through people really looks like, by showing the practical implications of teamwork.

For this to occur, we must first and foremost make a personal, conscious choice in our leadership paradigm to focus on developing people, pouring ourselves into them, allowing them to fulfill their calling and giftedness and working with them to accomplish great things for God. If this does not start with us, then it will never work its way down through our churches, transforming the very way we choose to “do” ministry.

Our transition also requires a “who-first” rather than a “what-first” focus. We lead against the “current” when our first priority is the care and development of people, regardless of what they can do or accomplish. Serving together ONLY comes after we are growing in deep and caring relationships. In the last 5 years that I have been working together with my team, we have truly accomplished some staggering things, but our accomplishments cannot compare to the sense that we are all connected, and beyond what we do, we are family.

We must be clear, as well, that the purpose of team-based ministry is NOT to make church governance and processes run more smoothly and efficiently—although productivity and efficiency will be by-products of team ministry. Moving toward forming teams is not done for the purpose of easing the workload on the pastor or unencumbering a committee-heavy structure. Team-based ministry is not a means to grow the church, ease workload, or solve governance problems! Team-based ministry is a Biblical approach to equipping the saints for the work of the ministry and releasing the potential within the Body of Christ. Team-based ministry says to each and every person in the church: “You are a gifted child of God, and your contribution is needed and valued in this community.” Team-based ministry takes seriously the metaphor of the Body as the image of Christ’s Church—a living organism in which each member performs his or her God-designed function.

If you have been tempted to pass over this key equipping leader focus, then let me remind you that nothing is as important as caring for, developing, and seeing people released to fulfill their God-given destiny. When this is done, then we as equipping leaders truly become “team builders” and we assist in the creation of this culture within our churches.