There are times that outside hiring makes sense, but there are not enough ready-made leaders to hire everyone you need from the outside. And there are not enough ready-made leaders to plant all of the churches that we need to plant.
Justin Anderson recently spoke to several hundred, church leaders at the Lead the Church Conference on the topic of Leadership Development. In his talk, Justin unpacked 7 reasons to develop leaders (and hire from the inside.) Here they are:
Relocating ready-made leaders is expensive and risky. It might work, and it might not work. But it will be expensive no matter what. Inside leaders already live in your context and can be trained while they keep their existing jobs.
You don’t have to assimilate internal leaders from your culture into a new culture and hope that it works.
There are fewer surprises or disappointments when you have developed a person in community over time.
So they won’t come trying to change everything and likely won’t split the church.
No transition period in getting to know people, settling in, and learning culture.
By the time you’ve given them a title, they already have credibility. The best church leader is often the one who has already been leading and investing in people far before he/she is given a title or role.
Jesus spent most of his time training 12 men who would go on to write our New Testament and change the world. That’s a pretty good model to follow. in 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul says “What you have heard from me…entrust to faithful men.” In other words. Teach and raise up new leaders.
If you want a strong team around you, you are going to have to train those people. There is little that is a better use of your time.