The fifth law of sevens, “the law of seven weeks to assimilate leaders,” is the law that mandates the propagation of leaders to grow today’s church. We must remember Jesus spent most of His time developing His disciples to be leaders of His church. It is fascinating that hundreds of people gathered around Jesus in Luke 12:1, but He “turned and taught His disciples.” This priority by Jesus, lo-cated in Mark 9:30-31, and Mark and Luke 10:23, and Luke 9:43 makes it clear that hundreds around the “Teacher” did not change His emphasis to train leaders. Too many of today’s pastors, when surrounded by the crowds, forget to disciple their leaders. They feel that they can develop leaders by simply preaching to the crowds. Even Jesus had to take special time to develop His disciples. Too much emphasis on the crowds and the worship service and too little time for discipling for leadership, Sunday School, and Bible study drives your potential leadership away.

The adage, “Your church will grow no greater than its leaders,” give two sugges-tions. They are: if your church plans to grow, it must continue to develop new leaders and it needs to mature the leaders it already has. The church is at its weakest in the training of leaders. The one thing Jesus spent so much time doing, today’s church cannot find time to do. The churches that want to grow must have some means of ongoing leadership training.

This law, “the law of seven weeks to assimilate leaders,” emphasizes the need to involve potential leaders within seven weeks after they visit the church for the first time. Again there are two reasons for this. First, this establishes the pattern or habit that a person will participate in the church from the beginning. We want newcomers to the church to understand that we expect members to work. Lead-ers want to be used. The sooner they see their gifts put into practice, the more likely they are to stay involved. Some pastors feel they cannot place every person into a position when they walk in the doors! But, it would be better to err by in-volving too many people rather than in losing key leaders. One of the ways Jesus reached Peter was to involve him by having him keep the boat Jesus borrowed from the shore so Jesus could speak to the crowds (Luke 5).

We do, however, have to keep in mind Paul’s charge of not laying hands on any-one quickly. The best method to resolve this problem is to discover visitors’ gifts within the first two weeks of their attendance, then place them in training for a position in the area of their gifting. To offer visitors positions in the church at the onset of their visits might be overwhelming. But, encouraging them to find out about the gifts God has given them and placing them into training for the purpose of using those gifts will be accepted more easily. This will also keep visitors involved. You will learn more about discovering spiritual gifts by study-ing my book, Spiritual Gifts, Your Job Description from God, which is now in use around the world. Remember that although visitors have not attained a lead-ership position, the mere fact that they are being trained and considered for lead-ership roles will tend to keep them tied to the church.

Teaching a pastor’s class is one of the best methods of involving newcomers.
This should be a 10-13 week class for newcomers to acquaint them with the church’s vision and introduce them to spiritual gifts. The best time to offer this class is during the Sunday School hour. Studies show that the average committed Christian will only come to two services a week. A careful analysis of this dis-covery indicates that they will only leave their homes and “bundle up” their chil-dren on two church occasions in a week. This does not necessarily limit them to two single services.

Churches that understand this “two occasion” rule try to make sure that they of-fer as much as a family can handle during those two times. One such occasion could include both Sunday School and morning worship on a Sunday morning. The next occasion could be a mid-week service that includes a family meal and discipleship training, followed by the normal mid-week service. Anyone can see that these two occasions involve far more than a normal single worship service. They include multi-activities on each occasion, and by so doing the two occasion ruel is not violated. Note, however, that people will only come to these occasions if they are well organized and adequate child care is provided. The quality of these programs which would be acceptable by committed Christians is dependent upon the size of the church and the target audience reached by that church, but we will not deal with this now.

Dr. Winn Arn has stated that a growing church needs to have 60% of the congre-gation involved in doing some worthwhile task, something that the individual feels satisfied in doing because it lines up with his or her giftings. It should be a task that fulfills that person’s desire to be needed and to be of service to God and His Kingdom. Such a task must have a job description showing who is the im-mediate supervisor of the volunteer and what the expectations of that person are. Finally this job description must have an end date, showing when the volunteer has completed his commitment to this position.

Many pastors find themselves begging for more workers. In fact one of the most frequently asked questions is, “How can a church find more volunteers?" One of the surest methods of never running out of volunteers is the “four-four-four,” rule. The pastor asks a worker to volunteer for four months. No one likes to vol-unteer for a task if they feel that such would be a life sentence, especially for a task like supervising the nursery. People are far more likely to volunteer if it is only for four months. The end date on their job description should reflect that the job is only for four months. The job description should also state that the volunteer is responsible for coming to his immediate supervisor and informing him or her when the four months are up.

When someone volunteers to work for four months, he should be trained. Do this by placing him with someone who is currently doing the job so that he can re-ceive four months training or with someone who is willing to train this volunteer for the next four months. No person should receive a task without first being trained. If we quickly catch someone coming down the hall and ask them to fill a position, he will just as quickly quit, i.e. he figures if you quickly got him, you can just as quickly get someone else. Persons who have been trained and have received a job description with a four month end date are very unlikely to termi-nate in four months. This should be their choice, and they should be able to quit without being made to feel guilty.

At the conclusion of the four months training, the person then receives their po-sition. When the four months of fulfilling the position ends, ask that person if he would agree to train someone else in that position over the next four months. Usually he will. If he says he has fulfilled his contract and does not plan to train anyone, then the church must honor this. However, most will agree to train some else. What is more likely to happen is the person will be reluctant to train, not because he wants to quit but because he does not want to lose his position. The pastor must reassure the person that such is not the case as new positions need to be filled and stand-by workers are needed for each position. The “four-four-four” method is very effective at building extra teachers, deacons, and any other posi-tion needed in today’s church. The secret is to ask for a four-month commitment; the rest is automatic, if done correctly.

The fifth law of sevens, “the law of seven weeks to assimilate leaders,” makes it very clear that time must be given to training disciples or leaders in today’s church. Also the involvement of a visitor at the beginning of his attendance at the church is essential to keeping that visitor tied into the church. Finally, the positions must be made based on the giftings of the volunteer, and a clear job description must be developed which includes a four-month ending date. These simple steps should ensure a church growing and having the needed leadership available for such growth.

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