Tag Archive - Brian McCollister

How to Raise up Better Leaders than Came Before

January 23, 2011 in Leadership, Ministry, Movement Building with 5 Comments


A while back I wrote a post We need better Leaders than came before that raised a lot of questions but didn’t resolve anything.

It’s something we’ve been wrestling with as a team and, I think, an important issue to think through as your movement grows.

So let’s jump back into it over the next couple of days.

Here’s the (abbreviated) problem stated in 2 contradicting statements:

  1. “In building a movement, the students currently involved have to be better leaders than the previous generation because the movement is larger and more complex”
  2. John Maxwell’s Law of the Lid says good leaders (10’s) won’t follow lesser leaders (5’s)

If these two statements are true (and in my experience they almost always are) how is it possible for students to raise up better leaders than themselves?



On the original post Andrew had some great comments (his full comments are worth the read). Springboarding off of his comments (noted in quotations below),

Here are some thoughts on how students can raise up better leaders than themselves:


Cast vision

“When students are talking to better leaders, focus on vision casting. If you are able to paint a compelling picture of the cause, then you may be able to attract higher leadership levels because they are compelled by the cause. In other words, make it about more than just following you.
”

To quote Russ Martin: “leaders are big picture people, use big pictures!”


Focus on student ownership

“When students are given opportunities to lead/manage, they are able to use those opportunities for leadership growth.”

Students can grow rapidly in leadership when given lots of leadership experience right from the beginning of their involvement with us. I think we ask too little from freshmen.


Age Disparity

For the most part, students enter college as kids and graduate as adults. What does that have to do with raising up better leaders than came before? Age disparity enables a Senior who is a 5 to raise up freshman (who looks up to him as a wise sage) who will be a 10.


Godly Passion Trumps Everything

A few years ago we had a student (John) involved in our ministry who’s was a 5 at most (to put it in cold, John Maxwell terms). He wouldn’t look you in the eye when you talked to him. He was difficult to have a conversation with. But John led a Bible study full of phenomenal leaders- a couple guys in his study were Fraternity pledge class presidents and every single one was a better leader than John.

What drew them to John?

John came to Christ in college and never got over the gospel. It gripped him and he couldn’t help but passionately pursue everyone around him and invite them to experience Jesus.

As Andrew commented, “Give me a 5 who prays and lives out what he preaches over a 10 who can get the most people to the Cru meeting any day.”


Tomorrow – we’ll look at barriers to raising up better leaders than came before (besides the Law of the Lid).


What else would you add? How can we better foster a movement where students are raising up better leaders than came before?



photo courtesy of wildphotons

We need better leaders than came before

November 10, 2010 in Leadership, Movement Building with 9 Comments

“In building a movement, the students currently involved have to be better leaders than the previous generation because the movement is larger and more complex”

Brian McCollister (Campus Crusade director at Ohio)


I had never thought about it in these terms but it makes sense- If your movement of college students is growing in size and scope year after year, your students need to be raising up better leaders than they are.

But you’re probably familiar with John Maxwell’s Law of the Lid that essentially says this:

“If on a scale of 1 to 10 your leadership ability is a 4, the best you will attract is 1, 2, and 3 leaders. You will never attract 7 and 8′s.

7′s and 8′s will only follow 9′s or 10′s.”

In general I agree with this Leadership Principle and it relates to my earlier post on “Followability“.  I’ve found this to especially be true for men’s ministry: guys tend to only follow other guys they look up to and respect. They will not follow lesser men.

So here’s the question I’ve been wrestling with:

  • Taking into account the Law of the Lid, how is it possible for students to raise up better leaders than themselves?


What has been your experience with this?  What are the necessary conditions for students to be able to raise up better leaders than themselves? How can staff help them do that?



photo courtesy of bingisser

Becoming an Antioch Movement

November 9, 2010 in Movement Building, Sharing with 1 Comment

“St. Peter’s Cave Church in Antakya – one of the oldest churches in Christianity.

Peter, Barnabus and Paul all worked with the Christian community in Antioch.”


The church in Antioch as described in the book of Acts is a fascinating case study on building a thriving gospel movement.

Just wanted to share a great resource I used in our staff meeting last week that our staff really enjoyed and were motivated by (it took about 45 minutes).

Here’s essentially what it is:

  • Looking at three passages in the book of Acts, what are the consistent themes and distinguishing marks of the church at Antioch?
  • What can we learn about building a movement where the gospel spreads rapidly
  • How can we be a sending movement like the church at Antioch - Are we a leadership/laborer-factory like the church at Antioch?

Here’s how to set it up (download the notes listed below so this will make more sense):

  • Read the first passage out loud
  • Ask- “What do you observe about the movement in Antioch in this passage?”
  • Repeat for all three passages
  • Ask- “What are the take-aways for our campus in building that type of movement that is modeled in Antioch?”
  • Share some summary thoughts from the 5 Movement Building Principles (that Ken Cochrum came up with)
  • End with some of the closing questions to further apply it to your movement (see notes below)

The notes and idea are from Brian McCollister (Cru Director at Ohio University) who did this exercise at our Regional Local Leaders conference last week.





Download (PDF, 78.08KB)



photo courtesy of tamra hays