En Route to Timothy: Raising Up New Leaders (Post Featured on the Cripplegate)
From time to time, pastor Eric has the privilege of contributing Biblically grounded articles to the growing theological collection on The Cripplegate. This article addresses from the Scriptures both the urgency, as well as the need to cautiously and carefully raise up qualified leaders within the local church. In doing so, it lays out 6 principles from the Bible for selecting qualified leadership.
You may be a ways out from ordaining elders, but your ministry still needs some sort of grid to recognize and launch godly leaders along the way, whether they pursue eldership or not. The local church needs budding Nehemiah’s and Timothy’s as its backbone and strength. I think one of the major reasons for church-plant failures and unhealthy local churches is due to a failure to intentionally raise up and launch men at various points in their spiritual growth specifically for leadership, and not exclusively for eldership.