Leadership worthy of the name “Christian” is based on the principles of right doctrine (orthodoxy), right affection (orthopathy) and right practice or behavior (orthopraxy). No matter how large the church or how well funded its ministry, if its leadership has departed from these three “orthos,” it is not effective. After all, a central goal of Christian leadership is to produce followers of Jesus Christ whose heads, hearts and hands think, beat and move in sync with His. If a ministry is not doing that, it is not doing what Christ called it into being to do. That is the very definition of ineffectiveness.

By the same token, however, the three “orthos” by themselves do not guarantee that the leadership of the local church or ministry will be effective. It is quite possible for Christian leaders to be right about doctrine, affection and practice and still be incompetent when it comes to performing ministry tasks such as evangelism, discipleship, church planting, church revitalization and the like.

Based on 25 years of ministry in the Assemblies of God in different kinds of churches (e.g., church plant, established church, megachurch, turnaround church), I believe that my fellow ministers agree on the importance of principled leadership. The sharpest (and occasionally most acrimonious) debates among ministers I have witnessed personally centered on questions of pragmatism — of what works best.

Successful church plants have a missional orientation to those who have not yet heard or responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ed Stetzer, Micah Fries and Daniel Im recently published “The State of Church Planting in the U.S.” They surveyed 1,200 church planters from 17 evangelical denominations to determine “the current state of church planting” in the United States. (Canadian and Australian reports are forthcoming.) They grouped their findings around five topics: attendance, discipleship, evangelism, financial self-sufficiency and multiplication, which refers to church plants themselves planting churches. As I read the report, I saw five themes appearing again and again.

First, external focus: Successful church plants — whether defined in terms of attendance, discipleship, evangelism, finances or multiplication — have a missional orientation to those who have not yet heard or responded to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Emil Brunner once wrote, “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire exists by burning.” And yet, we all know of completely “ortho” churches that are internally focused. Effective Christian leadership keeps the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20) at the forefront of the local church’s attention.

Second, public presence: The Lord once said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). His words assume that His followers are visible in the public square … that they can be seen. Too often, however, churches are invisible to their communities. Successful church plants tend to maintain a public presence by means of their physical location, publicity and digital presence (website, social media, podcast, etc.).

Third, intentional strategies: Successful church plants tend to have defined processes for evangelism, discipleship and church membership. In other words, when an attender asks them, “What’s the next step I should take spiritually?” they tend to have a well-defined, easily articulated answer. We see an example of an intentional strategy in Scripture itself. If unbelievers came to faith through the ministry of the Jerusalem Church, they would have known exactly what was expected of them: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).

Fourth, leadership development: One of the intentional strategies successful church plants tend to have is a commitment to leadership development, both for pastors and lay leaders. Every Christian is a spiritually gifted person, of course (1 Corinthians 12:7–11). Christian leaders have the more specific task of equipping “[Christ’s] people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (Ephesians 4:12). To do this well, however, Christian leaders — whether pastoral or lay — themselves need to be adequately resourced and trained. Successful church plants tend to do just that.

Fifth, multiplication mentality: As already noted, successful church plants have an external focus on converting unbelievers. It turns out that they also have an external focus for planting other churches. Successful church plants tend to plant churches, in other words. They are characterized by what I call the “flow-through mentality”: What blessings they have received flow through them to others. They are generous in seeding money, people and personnel to new church plants, mindful of what Jesus said: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)

Though these five themes characterize the principled pragmatism of successful church plants, I cannot help but think that they are relevant for church revitalizations too. Effective Christian leaders — whether planters or revitalizers — will build their ministries on the foundations of orthodoxy, orthopathy and orthopraxy … but they will also be characterized by external focus, public presence, intentional strategies, leadership development and a multiplication mentality. 

This article first appeared in the April-May issue of Influence magazine.