Your purpose as a Team Member in the Kingdom of God:
What Do Potential Leaders need?
(Numbers 11: 16-30)
Often pastors in traditional churches ask, “Is it really my job to equip
people to serve and lead? Am I not merely to be a shepherd and teach people on
Sunday?”
This question demonstrates how our culture has blinded us to the biblical call
for leaders to equip other leaders. Numbers 11 demonstrates that equipping
laypeople to lead and serve is God’s idea, not man’s. Leaders are to identify,
prepare and release teams to work.
God left no doubt about how Moses was to train the seventy leaders he has
selected. In Numbers 11: 16-30 we see the answer to the question: What do
potential leaders need? God says:
1. They need authority (v. 16, “bring them…that they may stand there with
you”).
2. They need anointing (v. 17, “I will take of the Spirit…and will put the same
upon them”).
3. They need ownership of the vision (v. 17, “ the Spirit that is upon
you…upon them”).
4. They need responsibility (v. 17, “they shall bear the burden of the people
with you”).
5. They need specific ministry roles (v. 24, “placed them around the tabernacle”).
6. They need to express their gifts (v.25, “when the spirit rested upon
them…they prophesied”).
7. They need a secure shepherd who will release them to succeed (vv. 26-30,
Moses).