Letter to The Elders

Christ, after giving the crowds as much as they were able to receive, turned from them and deposited His wisdom, truth, and knowledge into the hearts of His chosen 12. How did Jesus change the world? He did it with a handful of men. A small group of devoted individuals that he poured His life into for a few years. They ate together, spent many nights in conversation with each other, prayed together, lived together, were of one mind and purpose. They experienced true spiritual unity and deep community with each other.

The deacons, and people in positions of influence at every church, need to be in intentional relationships with the elders. If the deacons could start just a few steps ahead of where the elders started -- just imagine where the church would be in 1 or 2 generations. If however, the wisdom, knowledge, faith, experience......that has been gained by the eldership over years of service and leadership is not handed down, then those who will be in leadership positions in the future are going to be constantly "reinventing the wheel".

It stands to reason that 7 men cannot strongly influence an entire crowd of 800-1,000 people. All of us have relatively small groups of people that we influence. Even the most influential people strongly influence only a small number of people.
In general the number is somewhere around 5 or 6 that constitute most people's "circle of influence".

There are 7 elders at my church and currently about 55 deacons. What I propose is that each elder begin to shepherd, lead, teach, mentor and have relationship with, his own small group of deacons. If 50% of the deacons were interested in participating in these life changing relationships, it would mean that each elder would have about 4 men that he would be responsible for.

If these life on life relationships were to begin at the eldership level it would mean that the circle of influence and leadership potential of each elder would be increased multiplicatively -- the 4 deacons under each elder already have their own small circle of influence - as do each of the the 4 or 5 people within that circle...... The wisdom, knowledge, experience and love will begin to fill and overflow into each of the small groups from the top down.

It's the model left to us in scripture. Christ Himself, God in the flesh, took a small group of men and poured His life into them. Even within His small group of twelve He narrowed His focus even further.

Leaders shepherding small groups of potential leaders, teachers, and influencers. True shepherding --life on life -- life changing -- intentional -- mentoring -- relationships.