Day 30-Leadership Requests - Sunday School Revolutionary

In the book 3 Roles for Guiding Groups, David Francis shares that, when he served as a church education director, his greatest tool used in identifying potential leaders was PRAYER. He used to utilize a closet sized room on the third floor of his education building as a prayer/study room. Contained in that room was simply a desk, chair, church directory, printout of all members, and stacks of index cards with cut-up photos of church members from old directories, newsletters, and new member photo shots. These simple tools allowed David to take his leadership requests/needs to God and allow him to discern from these lists of names potential leaders whom God may be preparing, through his Holy Spirit, to be used in leadership.

Flash forward to 2014. This same tool is available to us as leaders. We serve the same God who still answers the prayers of leaders who seek His guidance in finding where He is working in the hearts and lives of your church members (and potential members). Our methods have changed with technology advances, but prayer still works. We may not have a stack of index cards with cutout photos, but we do have membership databases, Twitter™ streams, Facebook™ profiles, and “prayer rooms”. We have the ability to gain near instant access to libraries of data on the likes and dislikes of nearly everyone who attends our church. Without going as far as being cyber-stalkers, we can easily make a connection with members of our church and lift them up in prayer, allowing the Holy Spirit to work His way into the heart of these potential leaders.

David shared how, when he asked God to reveal leaders to him, He did! He ALWAYS did! Were people always obedient? Unfortunately no, and sometimes he didn’t discern His will perfectly, but the more time he spent praying, the better he got.

So if you are in a leadership vacuum needing more leaders, let the Holy Spirit know your need and allow Him to work in specific people whom you identify. Always be open to add names to your prayer list when God brings them to your mind and when you meet them face to face. God answers prayer, AND we need to be open to SEE those answers when they happen. We still need to do the work, but our most powerful tool is still PRAYER.

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