Change is inevitable which means that both how you lead and what you lead will look different in the future. Leaders grow and adapt to environments to maintain influence and maximum efficiency. For church leadership, it is important to change without compromising truth and integrity of God’s Word but remains relevant in both methods and the message. Being uncompromising and remaining relevant is difficult in a culture dedicated to keeping truth relevant; not absolute.
Church’s are institutions within society that should have a voice that resonates and shapes the world around it. It takes both leadership and revelation in the Word of God to be that voice of change, comfort, hope, truth, and love.
Here are ten characteristics of future leadership and building great churches that remain culturally relevant and a voice both to the future and in the future.
1/ Future leaders will be vision leaders with the capacity to see the future and face the future without fear.
2/Future leaders will be global minded. They will be global in the scope of vision and understanding of culture and diversity.
3/ Future leaders will understand how to manage and multiply resources in a new economic environment with faith and knowledge.
4/ Future leaders will build with character. Character always trumps skills. Tomorrow’s followers demand integrity, trust, honesty, self-confidence, and loyalty to principles. They will hold tomorrow’s leaders accountable to these values.
5/ Future leaders will understand how to master technology. Technology is interwoven and inseparable from society and culture. Mastering technology will bring new opportunities to the church through communications, networking, and innovations.
6/ Future leaders will develop resiliency as they build tomorrow’s church. Leaders will know how to recover from setbacks, take risks, be willing to fail, and how to admit their mistakes, learn and move on.
7/ Future leaders will not build alone. They will be champions of the team. They will share their leadership and build diverse teams and be willing to give power away.
8/ Future leaders will know how to partner, collaborate, cross-pollinate, and build coalitions, putting self-interest aside for good for the cause. They will master the art of listening, have empathy, and the ability to come up with win-win solutions.
9/ Future leaders will keep the church on mission, a clear call to expand the kingdom, to see lives transformed, and people realigned to God.
10/ Future leaders will create freeway from the church services to the streets of the community, a gospel-taking people to serve and transform the people in their community.
