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An often under-appreciated component of our faith and the proper functioning of a church body is the raising up of new leaders. Leaders demonstrate a lot of their vision for the Church by how they work to raise up new leaders. A "God-sized vision" is bigger than any of us. No one person is the answer to what and where God is leading His people, globally and also locally.
A proper stewardship of God's call/gifting to leadership is illustrated by a person's ability to pass the baton and allow others to step in to be a part of God's process. Not only does this help guard us against the aptitude of power to corrupt, but it also prepares the community for when a specific leader leaves. All of us within the body of Christ are replaceable, and must be, because God's work of redemption on Earth is greater than any of us. Are our leaders, and we as leaders, working to prepare our replacements?
The book of Judges is a story of failed leadership. Over and over we see this cycle of failure and bondage which stems from the leaders' inability to raise up the next generation of leaders. Before Judges we see Moses lead God's people. Moses discipled Joshua, and when Moses dies Joshua is prepared to take over (Deuteronomy 34:9, Joshua 1:). We see is Judges 2:7 Joshua too raised up other leaders after himself. The breakdown in leadership, which sets the stage for the entire book of Judges, comes in Judges 2:10 "After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel".
If this is the problem, the answer, according to Paul and E. coli, is a multigenerational view of replication.
The whole life-cycle of an E. coli cell takes 60 minutes to complete, but under ideal circumstances E. coli cells are able to divide ever 20 minutes1. E. coli achieves this rate of replication by reinitiating DNA replication before the previous round of replication finishes. Within a given cell we see "mother" chromosome, "daughter" chromosome, as well as "granddaughter" chromosome2. For optimal growth E. coli has to think beyond the daughter generation and onto the granddaughter generation.
The Apostle Paul had the same idea. In his final letter to Timothy, his primary disciple, Paul writes in 2 Timothy2:2 "the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others." Within this one sentence we see Paul describe four generations of leaders; Paul, Timothy, reliable people, and others. Paul understood for the First Century Church to grow and persist it was crucial to have a multigenerational mindset. This remains true of the Church even today.
As Paul writes and E. coli shows, let us grasp and practice the work of multigenerational thinking. As my father-in-law and veteran church planting coach Kevin Sutter puts it, our goal should be to train up others and "work yourself out of a job."3
1. Ingraham, John L. et al. Microbe. ASM Press. 2006. p.172.
2. Crooke, E. et al. Organization of sister origins and replisomes during multifork DNA replication in Escherichia coli. PubMed. 2007.
3. Sutter,
Kevin. Keys to Church Planting
Movements. 2006. p. 63.
