Raising Leaders Beyond Sundays
At New City Church, our mission is to help others live in light of the gospel. The gospel isn’t just this one and done thing and now just have more things to do. Rather, it’s life transforming. Everything about us is transformed right down to our identities. That means no part of our lives is untouched by the saving work of Jesus. Everything changes from how we view our work and workplace to how we interact with others at the park or at restaurants.
As a New City staff member one of our focuses is to raise leaders through our leadership pipeline. As the Worship Director I have the joy and privilege of raising others to lead through Sunday mornings, whether it’s writing liturgies and planning Sunday services or leading through band practice. With these tasks come a lot of learned leadership skills that can be transferred to other areas of life like at school, in a classroom, or at work. Our hope is that disciples would grow to lead like Jesus within the church and then lead with love, truth, and grace outside of the walls of the church building, intentionally creating opportunities to share the good news of Jesus with others.
In regards to music on Sunday mornings, there is a position of Music Director. This person leads the band through practice before services. This is definitely a learned skill that takes hard work and practice. It requires prepping for the songs before practice, making sure to analyze each song and what each instrument is doing and how to put it all together. It requires good communication skills to help lead and guide musicians to the right sound of the song. It requires listening during practice to notice any problems as well as how to fix them quickly. And of course it requires knowing how music works and chord structures, how they flow from one to the other. I want to give a HUGE shoutout to Caroline Jackson and Tripp Freeman who have lead and grown so much in this position!!! It’s been an absolute joy to see.
Let’s look again at the skills I mentioned:
- Understanding of music theory
- Hard work
- Communicating skills
- Listening to others
- Problem solving skills
Can’t you learn all of these things in other places? Sure you can. There are mountains of books written on each of these topics. Yet, the beauty of learning and growing in these skills within the church is that we look to Jesus as our example. Not only did He have the afore mentioned list of skills but He led with humility, truth, grace, love, self-sacrifice, joy, peace, patience, understanding, etc. Through His life, death, and resurrection we see the true definition of leadership. He humbly left His thrown to take on flesh and live among His creation. He served us ultimately by taking on the death and punishment we rightly deserved without complaint. He leads us now into new life in the Father, inviting us to repent and believe.
“And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great amount you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” ”
As we continue to grow and disciple other leaders, we want to be more like Jesus. As we learn and grow within the church, we then can lead others outside of the church and point them to Jesus. Our goal here is not to grow our resume or to get ahead. It’s not because leading is about us and it’s not just so we can have high quality church services. Both on Sunday mornings and through our regular rhythms of life, we have the privilege of sharing the good news and pointing others to Jesus in the ways that we lead and interact with others.
Click here to find out more about our leadership pipelines at New City!