FROM THE President, David Coffey
LEADERSHIP LEGACY

It is one of the irrefutable laws of leadership that a leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.
Leadership succession is a key responsibility of Christian ministry and our lasting bequest should be a
generation of gifted people.
The training of the twelve disciples was the priority of Jesus which is sufficient motivation for us to adopt
this law of legacy in our own mission strategies. There are sparkling examples in all parts of the Baptist world
where older leaders have recognized their responsibility to plan for a succession of gifted leaders. But often
the reality at grassroots tells a different story. When I meet emerging leaders and they share their vision for
leadership development, their top seven complaints read something like this:
1.“I am approaching my 40’s but feel I am treated like an inexperienced teenager – especially by church
leaders who have known me since childhood.”
2. “I am told there is not enough snow on the mountain, as they point to my inexperienced head with no
gray hairs!”
3. “Because I have spent a number of years in theological education, I am seen as a threat to older
leaders who did not have the opportunities of further education.”
4. “I am a pioneer by nature and by gifting and any visionary ideas I put forward are either squashed
immediately, or they are initially welcomed and then get lost in the system and I never hear of them again.”
5. “I have never met my senior leader in a social context. I have never been invited to his or her home. He
or she has never taken me out for a meal. All our meetings are in an office setting with my senior leader sitting
behind a desk.”
6. “I would love to be trusted by older leaders with something significant in ministry. I would want to
be supported in the project they are delegating and have the opportunity for some honest feedback and
evaluation, but I long to be set free and not always feel another hand hovering over the tiller of the boat.”
7. “I long for someone to mentor and befriend me. Someone who will stretch me to stir up the gifts within
me and provoke me to take risks with the opportunities of mission ministry. Someone who will encourage me
to be prayerful and reflective. Someone to whom I can be accountable. Someone who will ask me where I
am in my walk with Jesus, how my relationships are going and how I am spending my money. Someone I can
admire for their character, wisdom, knowledge and experience. Someone who will remind me that God loves
me as a person before he loves me as a leader.”
If our response to reading this list of complaints is, “I don’t have the time to work with an apprentice, my
own ministry is so demanding,” then we may have forgotten that God gifts leaders to produce more leaders
intentionally, and this will involve time consuming discipleship formation.
William Abraham says the ministry of making disciples is not just a moral imperative, it’s a missionary
imperative. Hosts of people struggle with the life of discipleship because of the incompetence of the church in
the art of making disciples. He talks about the intrinsic grammar of initiation and suggests if we focus merely
on the ABC of the gospel at the expense of the rest, we will have a generation of believers who never get
beyond the first steps of Christian existence.
Those who choose to invest in discipleship formation and leadership development discover an immense
fruitfulness of their leadership. Investing in people enhances their gifting; it improves the quality of their own
leadership; it ensures the continuation of their own ministry.
Whenever I attend a thanksgiving service for an older leader, I am impressed by the testimony of those
who have been discipled and developed under their leadership. The litany of appreciation always includes the
following tributes:
“They trusted me with leadership responsibilities.”
“They took risks with my ministry.”
“They were never threatened by my gifts.”
“They were an inspiring coach and expected me to exceed them in leadership excellence.”
“Above everything my mentor was a friend and a fellow-disciple of Jesus Christ.”
Growing leaders has been likened to the development of a fruitful tree. The growth of healthy leaders is
enhanced when they are carefully cultivated, strategically located and lovingly tended.
Wherever we serve, we should be concerned about succession.
It is called leadership legacy.

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