The Next Leader

Stephen Owens

• Publisher: Alpha Lending & Investments, LLC
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780982462201
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Have you ever wondered how the first century church developed its leaders?

In The Next Leader, Stephen D. Owens helps church leaders look at leadership development by taking a trip back in history to examine the life of John Mark and the path God used to develop him into an amazing leader. While many Christians will attest to John Mark being the writer of the Gospel of Mark, many do not realize the process God used to prepare him for such an awesome responsibility. Not only was John Mark a gospel writer he was also a very capable leader within the early church who developed other leaders. Discover how God developed him and how God can use you and your church to develop leaders as well.

Chapter 1: Who’s Next?

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

John Maxwell 1

In the first century, close to the mid AD ’40s, the church of Jesus Christ is crossing ethnic and city boundaries within the Roman Empire. Jews and Gentiles are hearing the Gospel of Jesus and many of them are believing the message and making Jesus their Lord. Because of this growth, the church has to raise up leaders from within the church to help new believers grow in their faith.

One church in particular where this is occurring is in the church in Antioch. Jews and Gentiles are worshiping together within this local church and they are seeking to live in unity in the midst of their diversity. When the church in Jerusalem hears about this church, they send one of their leaders, Barnabas, to see how things are going. When Barnabas arrives, he is overjoyed by what he is seeing God do; so he begins to teach about the importance of clinging to Christ together as a local fellowship of believers.

Not only does Barnabas stay in Antioch for a while teaching and encouraging the church, but he also finds a young man named Saul and brings him there to become a leader within this church. Barnabas does not stop with Saul. A few years later, while Barnabas and Saul are in Jerusalem dropping off an offering to the church from the Gentiles’ churches across the Roman Empire, they pick up Barnabas’s relative and bring him to Antioch with them. His name is John Mark.

John Mark is a young man who is open to adventure. He is willing to go to new places, learn new things, and willing to serve. Yet, at the same time, he has a lot of maturing to do when it comes to responsibility and commitment. At least that is how some folks view him. In particular, Saul could have viewed him that way because early on in their time of working together, John Mark left Barnabas and Saul while on a missionary journey. Saul had such a tainted view of John Mark’s work ethic that he refused to do traveling missionary ministry with him anymore. This refusal by Saul brought Barnabas and Saul’s ministry team to an end. It is Barnabas’s choice to bring John Mark with him as he goes to check on churches.

Around AD 49, Barnabas and John Mark board a ship headed toward Cyprus to check on churches and do ministry among them. While they are on that ship, I can only imagine the thoughts going through John Mark’s mind—such as: How Barnabas and Saul’s ministry team broke up over him potentially coming with them; how adamant Saul was about not working with him; and what does it say about him, his reputation, and his future ministry if someone so important in the church saw him as not being fit for traveling ministry? Yet, John Mark is feeling some sense of optimism and hope because Barnabas stood up for him and chose to bring him along to do ministry.

What no one could have ever predicted, decades later, is that this young man would be a major catalyst within the church of Jesus Christ; that church history will tell us, “Apart from Thomas, Mark is likely the most widely traveled of all the apostles.”2 As well as, “The ancient tradition called Mark the universal apostle because he appears in all three known continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. . . . Mark preached the same Gospel in all three continents.”3

Nor would anyone have imagined that the Coptic Church in Egypt would boldly declare that their church tradition “is based on the teachings of Saint Mark,”4 or that one of the church fathers, Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, would “honor Mark as his predecessor.”5 No one would have ever predicted John Mark’s story would turn out like this when he was entering that boat with Barnabas sailing toward Cyprus. How did this happen? As you read this book my hope is that you will see how God developed this amazing leader.

I pray, as you look at the life of John Mark and how God worked through him in lifting up the name of Jesus and expanding the Lord’s church, that your passion for raising up new leaders will be set aflame. And if there is someone like John Mark in your church, that you will invest in developing him or her for a future in church leadership.

Who is the next leader in your church?

Can you identify anyone with potential to lead? In particular, can you identify anyone who can lead for the glory of Jesus Christ? Is there anyone in your sphere of influence that you can see leading in some capacity within your local church?

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These are important and revealing questions. They are questions that the Barna Group and Pepperdine University in 2017 discussed concerning church leadership when they conducted their research on The State of Pastors Report. Their findings are quite interesting.

Under the Mentoring section, the report states, “The first step toward mentoring future leaders is finding them, and two out of three current pastors believe identifying suitable candidates is becoming more difficult.”6 The report goes on to highlight that 69% of pastors believe that it is becoming more difficult to identify suitable candidates.

That quote and statistic fascinated me; but a word in the quote sent my mind racing—suitable. I began to ask myself questions:

• What do they mean by suitable?
• Suitable to whom?
• Suitable by what standards?

A clue to the answer is given in the next sentence of the report. It gives us the percentage of pastors surveyed who agreed with the statement, “It’s becoming harder to find mature young Christians who want to be pastors.” Those who strongly agreed were 24% and those who somewhat agreed were 45%. This makes up the 69% of individuals who said, “It’s becoming more difficult to identify suitable candidates.” So, when leaders are saying “suitable,” what they are really speaking of is “maturity” and “desire” (want to).

This revelation made me wonder, Are most leaders looking for people who are already mature before they will think about mentoring them? Now, I understand the concept of not placing a person in a major leadership role when he or she lacks maturity. The words of the Apostle Paul remind us of that when he tells Timothy, “A church leader must not be a new believer, because he might become proud, and the devil would cause him to fall” (1 Timothy 3:6).

But, if leaders are speaking about waiting to begin the conversation about leadership and mentorship until people are already mature, then I do not understand. If they were already mature, their need for a mentor would be greatly reduced. The need for mentorship is exponentially greater wh...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Who’s Next?
• Chapter 2: Relationships Matter
• Chapter 3: Exposure to Opportunity
• Chapter 4: Facing Failure
• Chapter 5: Persistent Progress
• Chapter 6: Legacy Building
• Chapter 7: Final Thoughts
• Appendix
• Endnotes
• Bibliography