Leadership lifts people. Leadership lifts people from the life they have to the life they could have. I have long believed this even as a young boy growing up watching my dad be a leader in our home, as well as be a pastor and a college president.
My greatest joy comes from training others in leadership. And that’s why I want to make this leadership training material available to not only leaders internationally, but in the United States and Canada as well.
Until now, this leadership training material has only been available in 110 nations. In 1996, I partnered with a group of trusted friends to launch this non-profit ministry, EQUIP was to be dedicated to equipping Christians worldwide with the leadership skills needed for advancing the Great Commission in their communities, workplaces, and churches. Under the leadership of current President/ CEO John Hull, our leadership training has been translated into over 40 languages and has been taught in over 100 countries around the world. By March 1, 2006, EQUIP realized a personal dream of mine by involving ONE MILLION international leaders in training! And the ministry continues to grow, with a goal to train and equip an additional 5 million leaders on 5 continents over the next 5 years.
The purpose of the Great Commission is to reach people who are far from God and to raise them up to be fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. But honestly, this goal is not possible without God-anointed spiritual leadership. Thousands of pastors love God, pray faithfully, work hard, and possess deep love and compassion for people—but their churches experience little or no growth. They need training and inspiration to get the mission accomplished.
It is our heart’s desire that you and your church succeed in your passion to reach people for Christ, and I want to help you do this by teaching you how to train leaders in your church. The Contagious Leadership Kit is designed to help you do that.
In fact, this material is perfect for you if . . .
• You want to develop your people by investing in them personally.
• You want to grow your church.
• You are busy and have little time to write your own leadership training curriculum.
• You want high-quality, proven, field-tested material developed by veteran leaders.
• You want to equip your leaders to excel in their ministries.
Keep in mind that leadership is best learned in a leadership culture. That means that you yourself must also keep growing as a leader, casting vision for the value of leadership and providing on-going training.
Remember, hundreds of thousands of people have used this material around the world. It has worked for them—it can work for you!
John C. Maxwell
Founder of EQUIP
How to use this material
Where to use The Contagious Leadership Kit
Study at your own pace
Three Keys to using The Contagious Leadership Kit
Getting Started
How to use this material
This leadership kit, Contagious Leadership, features two separate tracks of study:
1. The first track is for the Pastor, Facilitator, or anyone else who will be teaching this material . In this track of study, you should work through Contagious Leadership Workbook in its entirety. The comprehensive material in this workbook corresponds directly with the Contagious Leadership Audio CD found in this kit. Before teaching the workbook lesson to others, listen to each audio lesson on CD. Each of the twelve lessons addresses Christian leadership in one of the three major facets of leadership development – spiritual formation, skill formation, and strategic formation.
2. This kit also includes a complete line of study crafted specifically for small group use. The Contagious Leadership Small Group Study Lessons can be found on the DVD, which corresponds directly with the Small Group Study Guide found on the CD-ROM. Each of the twelve DVD lessons is about twenty minutes long. As you lead your small group, watch the DVD lesson first as a group, and then go through the Small Group Study questions together for discussion, assessment, and application. The Small Group Study Guide is downloadable and reproducible for your convenience.
Where to use The Contagious Leadership Kit
• Key leader groups
Key leader groups refer to groups such as the church staff, the local church board, Sunday School teachers, or any other groups essential to your ministry.
Teaching venues
A teaching venue refers to any number of possible classroom environments. From Sunday and Wednesday night classes to a special seminar on a weekend to a standard Sunday School class, you could offer this material as an elective course to a broad number of people.
Outreach opportunities
This opportunity is exciting. You could literally open up this leadership training opportunity to business people in your community. Encourage the business leaders in your church to invite their colleagues to attend, and adapt to make a percentage of your illustrations about the home and marketplace, rather than about church situations only.
Small groups
Small group leaders are always looking for quality material to share in their groups. What better way to lift people up than to teach them about leadership? The twelve week study is perfect for this format.
Christian schools
There is growing enthusiasm to get leadership training to young Christians. We are seeing that high schools are interested in leadership being taught to their students.
The above applications can be used in a number of ways or processes and be very effective. Remember, do what works best for your group. I recommend that if you have not done much leadership training in the past, or have not been consistent, that you start small and slow and build the process over the course of time. Don’t get too hung up in the details of training people in a certain way, as there is no “one way.” Put your energy and effort in to fully engaging your heart and delivering a world class experience for those going through the material.
Study at your own pace
Use the material in a weekly session for twelve weeks.
This is the most obvious, but not the only method. Simply select twelve weeks that work best for you, usually in the Spring or Fall.
Use the material once a month for one year or twice a month for six months.
This is a slow pace, but the advantage is that you can gain great depth and follow-up on many of the concepts explored by going slowly through the material. This method is good for implementing what you learn through practice and application.
Use the material for a Saturday seminar.
By teaching six lessons at a time, you can, in two Saturday sessions, train your leaders in this more intensive “fast track” system.
Use the material in a weekend retreat setting.
Similar to the Saturday Seminar, you can take a weekend away and press through the material in a variety of small group and teaching applications.
Use the material in a special Summer course.
Why should summer be a “down time”? Why not offer an impacting course over four Wednesday nights, covering three lessons a night? Your group could meet in someone’s home and gather over a potluck dinner.
Again, there are so many possibilities for applying this material to your needs. The sky is the limit!
Three Keys to using The Contagious Leadership Kit
As you are working through this material in preparation to teach others, remember to:
1. Keep it simple.
Often, there is a tendency to overcomplicate leadership training. Keep it simple. The only wrong way to do it is not to do it at all. In this leadership training, simply listen to the lesson, learn and practice yourself, and teach it to your leaders and aspiring leaders.
2. Stay consistent.
Over-complication leads to breakdown in consistency. If you make it too difficult or cumbersome, you will get frustrated and want to quit. Stay in the game. Think long term. You are working to develop a life practice, not a just a program.
3. Expect results.
This is a key point. Know why you are developing leaders, what they should “look like” (skills, abilities, qualities, and characteristics), and turn them loose—not into busy work, but into Kingdom efforts that will make a difference. Expect much and you will receive much.
Getting Started
• Know why you want to develop leaders in your church or organization.
• Pray for God’s favor throughout the process.
• Get buy-in from the top 5% of your leaders.
• Decide which method you’d like to use for studying the material.
• Organize your dates, times, and places.
• Review and become very familiar with the material.
• Give the leaders / teachers who will do the training adequate time to prepare.
• Cast vision for the process and recruit people you want to participate.
• Get started!
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