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I just wanted to ask you this morning
Why you're here?
you're here because
we consider you a leader one way or another in the life of our church
I just wanted to
start with what i think is a definition
of the sort of leaders
that I hope we've got here this morning
and that is
if you ask the question "what is a leader?"
I want to suggest that a leader is someone who actively
wants to see somebody else
grow as a follower of Jesus
someone who actively
wants to see somebody else grow as a follower of Jesus.
A couple of key terms in there the first one is ACTIVELY
it means you've actually got some skin in the game you're not just a spectator you're not just saying
Oh gee it'd be good if people grew as follows of Jesus
someone should do that - THEY should do that
you're actually at the point of saying
WE should do that
and you're in the game not just a spectator,
SOMEBODY ELSE
is the other key little phrase there
and i don't mind who that somebody else is
or how that works
or how your action helps
There are all sorts of ways that plays out
it my be just one other person
it may be just one really small group of children at kidzbiz and you were
doing what you were doing
because you want to see that little group of kids grow
as followers of Jesus
it may be through a group like Committee of Management
It's great we've got a bunch of COM people here this morning
have you thought this through ?
See you're putting in your time and energy
not just because you love meetings thought of course we do
but you're doing it because you want to see things actually develop
so other people
can grow as follows of Jesus that's the whole logic of it
if you're an Elder same thing if you're a growth group leader
I saw this
play out in an interesting way in my last church there was an elder there
His name was Adrian and still is
Adrian's a lovely guy he'd been
an elder for a lot of years and part of churches all over the place for a long
long time
but for him it had always been just about sitting in meetings
and talking about things
Until Adrian became the leader of a small growth group of retired men
and week by week
Adrian and his little group of guys
would be meeting on a wednesday afternoon
and eventually the guys he was meeting with started to get to understand the bible
a little bit better got to understand jesus a little bit better and their lives started to change
as they started to grow as followers of Jesus
and Adrian came to me
just fill of delight because suddenly he got it
that he was doing something
that was actively encouraging other people to grow as followers of Jesus
and it was like a light switch going on
His motives were totally different
he was in the game in a different way
Now, for whatever reason
you are here today because you are someone
who actively wants to see somebody else
grow as a follower of Jesus it's not just about you anymore
it's not just about what makes you comfortable
it's not just about what's easy for you
it's about what will help
someone else to grow as a follower of Jesus
that's exciting it's exciting when you look around and you see people from
so many different areas of our church life. Our different congregations
different ministry areas
all here for that reason
and one of the great side benefits of this morning
is you'll get to spend some time chatting and getting to know people you
may not already know
and maybe hear a little bit about the way
they are helping others grows as followers of Jesus
there's just one more thing to add
to that and it's already on the screen behind me
the question what's an MPC leader and there's just one little
clause added to that
that a leader in the life of MPC is someone who wants to do that
through the ministries of MPC
so there's a certain point have come to where you've said
yes
the activities of our church are a worthwhile way to see people growing as followers
of Jesus
and
there's a certain commitment there
to be working together as church family