CHAPTER ONE

                                    INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Effective Church Leadership begins with knowing what to do in God’s sanctuary and doing same without being told. Ideally, church leaders are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for the church as seen in (Ephesians 2: 10). Today’s church leadership has failed to keep pace with the social revolution taking place around us. The church today is filled with over functioning church leaders who try to do everything and decide everything is frustrating the church in some areas. There is a clear indication that over trained church leaders are discouraged and discouraging as well as frustrated and frustrating to the churches. The love of many church leaders have waxed cold and consumed by the love of church treasury and income. Could this be the sign of end time?

Trained and experience church leaders tends to push the blame on untrained leaders forgetting that, God can use people with or without the natural ability and proper background. Yes! God can, and often chooses to, work with raw material. God prepares and empowers those He chooses to do His work so He does not need to call people into leadership who have the natural drive, training, or good models of leadership in their background. He does not need to use people who took the part or who are already popular. Quoting (1 Corinthians 1: 26 – 27), “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” The above scripture shows that God uses mean things to do great wonders in the world from time past. The disciples, who went on to be founding leaders of the church, were fishermen and tax-collectors by trade. They were not highly educated or from influential families. Some had strong, driven personalities but others did not.

God takes time to prepare and equips those He calls. The disciples spent three years with Jesus to prepare them to be the early leaders of the church but even still, before they were to go out on their own, they had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them in power. God uses life experiences to mold and shape leaders. God uses life experiences to develop perspectives and passions essential to the capacity of leadership to which He calls. But most of the church leaders today have because of impatience short-circuited this preparation time. Therefore, move around in the flesh destroying the doctrine and laid now ordinances in many denominations.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Previous research has mainly focused on church growth in relation to leadership styles (Suh, 1996; Kim, 1998; Christopher, 2001). Most of the research on this topic has studied the leadership styles of senior pastors, and revealed the relationship between its styles and church growth in relation to the number of people who attend Sunday worship services. But the real situation of the current church and its leadership differs; it is an undoubted fact that the church has not had appropriate leadership both for the church itself and the world that the church relates to. The primary reason for these challenges is the lack of appropriate leadership that fits into the church and the world. Therefore, leadership and its practices are key issues in church growth and impact on the world. This study looks into the situation with bad leadership in church with a view to proffer possible solutions.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main objective for this study is to examine the role of church leaders in church growth and its survival. The specific objectives are:

1. To investigate the role church leaders’ plays in the growth and survival of the church.
2. To examine the contributions of church leaders to the growth and development of the church.

• To look into the problems eroding between church leaders and church minister in most denominations.

1. To identify the characteristic and duties of a trained church leader in the 21st century church.
2. To proffer possible solutions to the challenges facing church leaders, pastors and church growth in River State.

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