Xenos Summer Institute

Raising up Home Group Leaders

The path to home group leadership in Xenos is many-faceted. See four aspects in the description below. Each home group seeks to duplicate leadership to be ready at the time of planting. The group’s efforts are supplemented by important classes provided by the Equipping Department. From these two sources the prospective leader learns about his/her own spiritual growth, and acquires the needed skills, faith, experiences, and knowledge to serve as a home group leader.

. Key qualifications for leaders include:

  • Character qualities of a deacon as given in Scripture

  • Member of the Fiscal Support Team (FST)

  • A lifestyle of ministering as a servant

  • Experience mentoring (discipling) others

  • Direct involvement in personal evangelism

  • Must be mature enough to work with a team of leaders

  • Every leader must commit to becoming a future member of the Servant Team

Leaders must demonstrate that there are group members choosing to follow them.

  • They should have some experience

  • They should have some experience discipling and teaching others, perhaps in a cell group.
  • Members look up to them spiritually

Xenos home group leaders have typically been mentored by one of the existing leaders of their home group before leading a group of their own. They have had occasion to:

  • Experience firsthand the dynamics of a group over a period of years

  • Have ministry responsibility within the group

  • Sit in on leader’s meetings as an apprentice. (No one should be sitting in and learning about the leadership process without the willingness to lead in the near future).

  • Get leader’s encouragement and constructive feedback on the above work
  • Existing leaders must coordinate with the staff consultant to officially welcome new leadership to the home group leadership team.

  • Normally we wait until the planting of a new group to give official leadership status.

  • Once the staf consultant has endorsed the new leadership, the existing leaders should make an announcement to the home group members so they can welcome the new leaders (again, this most often happens at the time of planting a new group).

How do we motivate people to become leaders?