Training leaders not building a clone army

Training is brilliant, it is something we need to make the most of for ourselves and invest time in others in doing.  Given the impending shortage of pastors and church leaders training is absolutely vital for the church in the UK.  For some people training others comes naturally, for others we have to plan it in advance and think it through very carefully.  But there are a number of real dangers in training others, but I want to just focus on one.

Have you ever found yourself saying well "...if it was me I would have phrased it like this..." or "...that's OK but I would do..."  As we train people it is important to remember that we are training people not birthing a clone, now it is inevitable that those we train pick up elements or some of the habits of the people who train them, that is just natural.  But actually the job of training is to enable and facilitate someone becoming a leader, preacher or teacher themselves, not to remake them into a clone of ourselves.

I don't think most of us do this intentionally but I think we drift into it.  So how do we avoid it?  It helps to ask open questions - how else might you have phrased that?  what were you aiming at with that question and did it achieve that aim?  Rather than I would have done it like...  We also need to teach people the mechanics and techniques of preparation and preaching and teaching the bible but not so rigidly that there is no room for them to work out their own way of doing things using those helpful building blocks.

Encouraging people to try new things, to try things their own way is also important, as is giving people the licence to fail - not in a then you can pick up the pieces but we will work through it - and to try new things and succeed.  We also need to give people responsibility, an area of ministry with which they are comfortable but also one in which they are not.