10 Commandments of Ministry Leadership

Top 10 Leadership Commandments – Journey Church

1.     Your number one responsibility is to grow in your relationship with God daily.  Church leaders have fallen for a number of reasons but the common systemic issue in each case is a failing walk with God. A myriad of problems may be avoided when team members are walking closely with Jesus.

2.     Don’t be late, be early.  When your are late to a meeting it tells the person you are meeting with, they are not as important as whatever you were doing before.

3.     Don’t use email, text messaging, or voicemail to deliver sensitive information.  What you intend to say will likely be misconstrued because the receiver cannot read your tone, inflection, and body language.  Meet face-to-face or by phone when delivering sensitive information. 

4.     Return all communication sent to you in 24 hours.  You assign value to others when you respond to them in a timely manner. To ensure that our team works properly, we must understand that we can easily be the holdup of our teammates progress when we don’t promptly respond to them. 

5.     There is no excuse for being unorganized.  Part of being a high capacity leader requires each of us to balance a weighty schedule. You will not succeed if you are not organized.

6.     You represent more than yourself in every public arena, including your online profile.  Understand that everything you put out publically is a reflection of Christ and a reflection of our church.  Don’t complain, gossip, vent, or trash others on your online forums. Be above reproach in everything you communicate publically. You represent much more than just YOU.

7.     You build trust when you make good on your commitments, you lose trust when you don’t.  When you communicate to someone that you will be somewhere, assist with something, or accomplish some task – make good on your commitment.  If you find you cannot fulfill an obligation, don’t just not show up—communicate early and apologize to the person whom you are breaking a commitment to.

8.     Public loyalty results in private leverage.  It is important that we function as a unit and our church body has confidence in our unity.  Being publically loyal to the team allows for you to have the credibility to challenge any team objective privately.

9.     Make other people’s passions better.  You work on a team with shared goals.  Ask the question, “How can I help my teammates be successful?”

10. It takes a village to raise ministry kids.  Our kids are under a great deal more stress than other children.  Make it your responsibility to encourage, cherish, and champion other staff members’ children.  We want them to love the church when they leave our homes.

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