The Church is One Generation from Being Out of Leaders.

I was selected (voted) to be on the Elder Selection Committee for the church I attend. So far it has been a very  powerful experience for me spiritually. I have been praying more, more deliberately studying leadership passages from the Bible. I’m thinking and seeing things on a different level from within the church.

As a committee we were voted on by the members of the congregation and we had our first formal meeting. Two of our existing elders joined us, giving us some much needed guidance, direction and prayer. After the elders left our meeting we discussed process over the next several months before the selection process would wrap up with our recommendations to the elders for their consideration.

Yet I was surprised at one major flaw in the process. There is a lack of a leadership development process of potential elders. There is no plan, no process, no mentoring, no equipping, no intentional leadership development of leaders who could be potential elders.

Now I’m a huge sports fan and there are many profesional leagues that have farm systems. Why doesn’t the church have a farm system of developing leaders for specific areas of ministry based on their spiritual gifts? Why?

So what does your church do or your youth ministry do to help develop people based on their identified spiritual gifts for the next generation to replace the current generation?

On Halloween morning 2003, thirteen year old Bethany Hamilton was attacked by a 14-foot tiger shark, which bit off her left arm and seemed to end her career as a rising surf star. After losing more than 60% of her blood and undergoing several surgeries, Bethany began her recovery.

At a recent screening of Soul Surfer, the insiring true story Bethany Hamilton, I was enveloped into the storyline as it placed me just days before the tragic shark attack. How could Bethany find reason behind this tragedy in the midst of fear and confusion as her life seemed to have spun comepletely out of control? Through her own

The book of Revelation contains seven letters addressed to 1st century congregations struggling to find their identity.  Nearly two thousand years later we are asking some of the world’s leading thinkers, people you've never heard of and, well...you: what is your message for the Church in North America?

You’ve got 15 minutes to communicate your most pressing message to the Church. What will you say?  We invite you to submit your own message to the Church in North America and we'll select the top submissions to also present their letter.  For more information about the submission process click here.

Join these folks who will be presenting their letter to the church...

Shane Claiborne, Andy Crouch, Len Sweet, Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, [You], Ron Sider, Wendy Gritter, Tim Challies, Sarah Lance, Makoto Fujimura, Jason Hildebrand

ht to our friends at eighthletter.com