Austin Stone—Leadership Documents

Leadership Documents from Austin Stone

I send you all this because one very significant solution to our leadership problems we’ve been implementing over the past two years is installing a more defined, more effective leadership pipeline.

We came to questions like, ‘Who are our leaders?’ ‘Where are they coming from?’ ‘Who are we developing them into?’ ‘What are we developing them for?’

The best way we could surmise to answer all those and give us some handles on our leadership development efforts was to define and refine a leadership pipeline. The God-appointed offices of elder and deacon are examples of later stages in our pipeline, and earlier on we have staff, interns and residents, missional community leaders, service volunteers, and the earliest stages are our church partners and especially those partners who are active in missional community and smaller groups we call life transformation groups.

Elders and Deacons at The Stone

“The Austin Stone has always been a New Testament church existing for the supremacy of the name and purpose of Jesus Christ, and this means that we look to the Bible as our authority in all matters of faith and practice, including leadership in the church. We believe the New Testament outlines very clearly the pattern for this leadership, and there are many resources available that outline biblical leadership.

In discussing leadership at the local church, however, we have found that it is often more helpful to start with the “why” than start with the “who” of church leadership. Like everything in the Christian faith, the answer to church leadership is sourced in the gospel message itself.”

Men’s Development Program

“The Men’s Development Program is a church-based higher-education program built to train men for biblically qualified leadership in the home, church, city and world. The program offers the education, experience and accountability necessary to transform students into biblically qualified leaders.”