If you’ve been reading the blog posts this week you know that I’m sharing five leadership principles that I learned from Bob Russell, long time pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, a church that grew from 120 to over 18,000 under his leadership.
I want to finish this series of blog posts with a principle that I believe is vital if you lead a church staff team, a ministry team, a committee, or a small group. The principle… Everyone adds something to the conversation. As I mentioned earlier this week, “If you’ve read Bob’s book, When God Builds A Church, you’ve read about his pastor study group, a group of his closest pastor friends that met weekly. They were all doing the same sermon series so they got together on a weekly basis to share illustrations, discuss difficult doctrinal concepts, and sometimes discuss tough church situations. Because I served as the Associate Teaching Pastor for Brad Johnson, one of the pastors in Bob’s inner circle, when I was preaching I was invited to join Bob’s study group.”
Here’s how this get together worked. Bob came with a document that, in the times I was in attendance, was never less than ten pages. In fact, any pastor could have taken what Bob gave us and done a stellar sermon for their congregation. Each of us was to come with our own documents in hand. We were to share the illustrations we had found, quotes that would be effective, etc… As I mentioned earlier this week, “I was the unknown entity, the second stringer amongst a room full of home run hitters.” Yet, almost every time I was with the group, and much to my astonishment (I knew I was in much taller grass than myself and that was extremely intimidating.) Bob asked me to share what I brought to the party. On occasion, Bob spoke a word of affirmation concerning some illustration or quote I voiced. I don’t think he’ll ever know just how much it meant to my growth as a preacher and communicator for him to expect that everyone, even the guy who only gets in the game when the first stringer is unavailable, adds something substantial to the conversation.
As I wrap up this series of blog posts I want to make sure you don’t think I’ve spent the week name-dropping. Bob Russell and I don’t know each other, really. I probably attended the study group less than ten times. Maybe that’s what marks Bob Russell a great leader. While we never spent significant time together he impacted my heart and my ministry greatly. I’m sure thousands of people who came to Christ or learned how to follow Christ while attending Southeast Christian Church would echo that statement.
From all of us… Thanks, Bob.
