Good Leaders Develop a Culture of Release

In Acts 6 the Apostles had to focus on what they were called to do and call others to do what needed to be done.

There was literally a bottleneck of leadership happening. The church was growing explosively. Everyone was complaining. It wasn’t good.

So they had the congregation chose some people to serve, to organize, to manage, to care.

And the church grew even quicker. And everyone was happy

It could have stopped there. Often leaders perceive we are doing our job well when we assign people to tasks that fit them. Moreover, when we see fruit from those decisions, we can feel satisfied that our leadership is really working.

But it didn’t stop there for them, and it can’t for us, either. Stephen might have been called out to “wait on tables”, but he was quickly doing signs and wonders, and preaching by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He was out changing the world.

And nowhere does the Bible indicate that the Apostles were put off by this. After Stephen was martyred, we don’t find Peter and John saying “if Stephen would have just kept his mouth shut and stuck to waiting tables, this persecution wouldn’t have broken out”.

We have to develop a culture of release. There must be an ethos of trust provided to people in the church. Just because someone’s job-title says “nursery worker”, “barista”, “parking lot attendant”, or “administrative pastor”, doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit doesn’t want to move through them in powerful ways.

Because as believers we all do jobs as we serve one another, but we also worship a God who wants to work through us in amazing, world-changing ways.

Are we doing everything we can to release people to God’s design for them?