HIM PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE - PASTOR SIMON ENG

Hi to every one of you in HIM family. Let me share with you again about another core value of what we are building in HIM family. We are talking about leadership development. This is another essential core value that every one of us, especially right throughout our congregation. It is essential for us to capture this core value because our vision is to go around the world and build biblical community.

Leadership Development

Our vision is to establish Christ-centred disciples and Christ-centred churches because our vision is to plant churches around the world. It is essential that we raise and develop leaders. This is the key core value that must exist in every one of our churches. Whether we have ten people or whether we have 10 000, leadership development is an ongoing must in our churches because we are going to need leaders. Let me just share with you a few things as well.

Leadership Preparation

It takes time and effort for us to able to prepare our leaders. We must continue to have a process of preparation because leadership preparation takes time, it takes effort.

We got to ground them in the Word of God. We got to build a spiritual life into them of dependency and faith to continually walk with God. It takes a lot of years to be able to get them able to be ready and to function. Finally, they need to grow to hold something that is going to be a great weight. It takes years for them to get ready to be able to take some responsibility in the church and it takes years for us to prepare them eventually to be a church planter as well as to be a key leader in the church, to hold ministries in the church, so preparation is a very essential area in developing leaders.

I want to encourage our churches to really look at developing leaders. If you are the only one that has been doing church planting; if you have been running the church three years, five years, you must start looking in developing leaders, because you need people to help you, you need people to be around you, who capture your spirit, your vision, who help you, support you so you are not functioning alone. Therefore, through a process of time, they understand how you function, they understand your heart and your spirit, and they will continue to multiply the work of God in the local church and beyond that as well.

I encourage us all really seriously, look at preparation. Then through the process of time, as they prepare, we sow the call of God, we pray with them, the call of God comes upon them.

They appreciate the vision; they appreciate the mission of what we are doing in being able to fulfil the Great Commission. Finally, God prepares them, God equips them, and they go through also the second area: they go through an area of testing.

Leadership testing

We want to test their heart, to see if they are really serving God with the right motives and the right heart quality. We want to test how they work together in a team, whether they are able to work with other people, and not just themselves. They may have the best skills, they may be the most talented, but if they cannot work with other people, they will be working alone. Also, other people are going to find it difficult to support this entire work together. We also want to test their skills, whether they have been equipped sufficiently to reach a ministry or a group of people, the Lord will put them through tests. Every leader will be tested progressively. When they are young, when they grow and every level that they reach to, before they are put into the function into the success of the ministry, God’s going to test them.

We can see throughout the Bible, every leader in the Bible was tested, and tested over many, many different areas.

Leadership Commissioning

The third area that I would like to speak to every one of you is about the aspect of God commissioning of every leader. You know with each of us, there is a race set up before us. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, “you know that I have finished the race, I run in order to win the prize”, and in Timothy, he says that I finished the race, the course and there is a reward waiting for him. God’s commissioning us as he commissioned his disciples to fulfil the work of God. God wants to send us forth in the national area; God wants to send us forth into the international area.

He commissions us to fulfil his task, to finish the work of the Great Commission, of the vision of God for his work around the world.

So I want to encourage us in this essential core value of developing our leaders and having a process of leadership development where our people will grow and mature and they will find their call and they will find their ministry. They will eventually find their commissioning, whereby they know what they have been created to do for the Kingdom of God. So I want to encourage every one of us to remember this core value, this core area of our churches that we must raise leaders. I would like to see that every three years; you bring in new leadership at every level at every ministry.

Progressively, we can identify new leaders that are being trained, that are being equipped and that are being commissioned.

A passion to growth & expand

I would like to remind and conclude my sharing with a challenge for all of us. We need leaders throughout our churches and our movement. You know when you are in your local church; I will encourage you, if you have never been a shepherd, start desiring to be a shepherd of God’s people. If you are not in leadership yet, I encourage you, volunteer yourself, avail yourself; join the leadership training classes. Tell your leaders; tell your pastors “I would like to be trained”. Do not stand on the sidelines; do not watch other people do the work. We need you; we need you to come on board, to be leaders. If you are not in the homogenous leadership, perhaps you can consider being in the departmental roles. We have many, many other ministries. You can see the ushering ministry as you come into the church, you see the communion ministry, you see the worship ministry and you see that you can join into leadership development etc or many other different ministries as well.

We want to grow the ministries, expand the ministries. You can be part and parcel of this entire leadership development.

We want to encourage you to really avail yourself. Be available if you have a talent, if you have a gifting or if you have observed certain things; whether outside of the church that you like to bring. You know, media is a ministry, drama is a ministry. The world is advancing with so many of their skills. I am sure some of you in our churches are able to do some of these ministries. So I leave you with this challenge: join us, come on board in our leadership team, in our development team. You can be involved in almost anything that can help advance the church and advance the work of God in your local church. If you have grown beyond that, maybe regionally, you can help us to do something more for our churches.

God bless us all, God bless you all til we meet each other again, talk to each other again, amen.

Pastor Simon Eng
President of HIM
www.byhim.org