Turning Leaders into Leaders

Jesus said, "the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few". When Jesus made this statement he was surrounded my thousands and pursued by a number that would have been considered as leaders. Yet to Jesus, the laborers were few. Still today, the greatest need in the church is leadership. Oh, there are many who want to preach or who want "their ministries" to be embraced by the church or who want the church to promote them. However, to find a true gifted leader who wants to be prepared and used for the Kingdom of God without a thought of self promotion is a rare find.
In my early days of ministry I had this idea that if you could find a leader, you could just plug them into the work and see their leadership gift work for good. You see, I truly believe that there is a gift of leadership as the Scripture says. What I learned was that discovering a gift of leadership in the heart of a man our woman of God was little different than finding a gifted athlete in elementary school. Their gift was of little use unless it was cultivated, tried, proven, tested and released slowly. As a matter of fact, there are many who are gifted leaders who faltered by putting them under the strain of leading depending only on a gift. Just because someone has an obvious gift of leadership only means we see where we must disciple them. Being faithful stewards over the flock of God is learning to take inventory of the flock, finding the undeveloped gifts of leadership and taking them through a process of maturing that gift so that it becomes fit for service to Jesus. An undeveloped leadership gift or one that has never been discipled under the oversight and discipline of a loving spiritual father is a dangerous and often destructive thing. Look at Jesus and how he dealt with Peter, the one upon whom would fall the greatest responsibility after the ascension. His dealings with him often seemed almost cruel or harsh. Yet, he was in preparation. He always had the leadership gift but it was only vanity until Jesus and the Holy Spirit gained access to it through the Lordship of Jesus.
It is time that we in the church start taking responsibility for the young eaglets in our congregations and make it our goal to see them fly!