CRM - Empowering Leaders

Vision is more than merely a leadership assignment; it is also an issue of obedience. If your church has written a statement of "a preferable future from God's perspective," then living it out is about obedience on a corporate level.

However, as soon as you commit to anything, resistance happens! That resistance creates not just a challenge to a leader's skills, but on a deeper level, it typically challenges their faith.

Faith Challenge process items are those instances in ministry that challenge leaders to step out in faith and see God meet those steps of faith with divine affirmation and ministry achievement. Thus, leaders gain greater faith and spiritual authority for future ministry.

Explanation

All vision requires faith. God will often challenge the faith of his people and their leaders during kingdom expansion. Leaders must model faith by leading God's people to trust him in new ways.

Moses would have missed a faith challenge opportunity if God had allowed him to decline the call at the burning bush (Exodus 3:11-12). Moses wanted more proof that what he was hearing from God would really happen. God told Moses he would not know for certain until he came back to this mountain after leading the people from Egypt. God challenged Moses's faith. In Exodus 19, we see the fulfillment of the faith challenge.

A faith challenge may come in one act or over time as God's intentions are slowly realized. Typically leaders experience faith challenges during:

• New ministry assignments  
• Financial resources stretched  
• The emergence of new vision, ministry expansion
• Leadership Backlash  
• Needs for new leaders and workers 
• Family needs and concerns.

The truth is, we see faith challenge everywhere in a believer's life.

Typically faith challenges involve three elements:

• A revelation from God concerning future intent
  
• A realization by the leader that God is challenging him or her to act, based upon this revelation
  
• A resultant new mindset which becomes the basis for new leadership decisions.