Changing the Ministry Team Dynamic Around the World

WCCM Strengths Intensive

What the Bible Says About Team Dynamics

God placed specific gifts inside His people so that we could lead and serve each other in the body of Christ. (I Peter 4:10) To have a healthy and complete team, each team and body member should know exactly what they are gifted with. (Romans 12:4-8; I Cor. 12:12-26) When leaders and team members are clear about people’s natural talents and strengths, the quality of serving and being served in the body of Christ rises. WCCM is always looking for ways to let the team members of churches and ministries around the world love Jesus and love each other by regularly having the opportunity to serve each other with their strengths.

That’s why WCCM and LifeCycle Leadership Strategies have partnered together to bring Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder to the leadership in countries where we teach Strategic Church Leadership conferences. Together, along with other WCCM Partners, we are helping to create stronger, healthier, more effective and more satisfied ministry teams around the globe.

The Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF) Assessment

In August 2015, we traveled together to El Salvador where we partnered with Abigail Association and Corporación Evangelica de Pastores Salvadorenos el Rey David to bring a 3-day Strengths Intensive to about 40 pastors and 10 Women’s Center workers. For this event, Abigail Association purchased codes for most of the attendees to be able to take their Clifton Strengths Finder (CSF) Assessment.

Researched and refined over the last 40+ years by the Gallup Organization, this 177-question assessment gives insights into the unique talents that God created in each person. These insights are helping pastors and church leaders around the world recognize which “body part” they were made to be in the body of Christ. Helping people to find their natural strengths and regularly do what they do best honors the job God has called a person to, strengthens natural talents, encourages excellence within the body, and increases personal satisfaction in a person’s ministry.

These assessments—a $10 investment—are a significant cost to a minister in a country like El Salvador where the average annual income is only $3,580/yr. In a country like El Salvador or the majority of African nations, purchasing a code to give to a minister to take this online assessment so that the minister can discover and fully harness their Top 5 natural talents is a ministry of benevolence in and of itself.

“I recently had a conversation with the Strengths Community Manager for Gallup about the work we’re doing with the StrengthsFinder assessment around the world, and particularly in Africa. What he told me is that very few of the 12-million-plus assessments that have been taken around the world have been from Africa. That $10 to take the assessment is just too cost prohibitive. An entire continent is missing out on being the very best ‘body part’ they can be for Christ because of $10.” — Rev. Shaun B. Wilson, Founder and Engagement Strategist, LifeCycle Leadership Strategies

The Strengths Intensive

WCCM/LifeCycle Leadership Strategies’ Strengths Intensive takes things a step further and helps ministers understand themselves and their team members better than they ever have before by helping them to fully understand all 34 of the CSF’s naturally occurring talents.

During our Intensive, a personalized book of information is given to each participant that helps them understand the Biblical context of their natural talent and the context of their strengths in their leadership role. It also provides personalized insights into how each minister can use their natural talents in ministry, leadership, and in their personal life, marriage, and parental relationships. Each book also gives personalized strategies to implement their natural God-given strengths in ways that make their team the absolute most productive it can be for the Kingdom of God.

“Having been through this material on several occasions, I know that this Intensive in October will really help our church planters to be more effective in Africa and to have much greater results in their church planting endeavors when they return home from the conference.” — Rev. G. W. “Bill” Wilson, Founder and President, WCCM

Rev. Shaun Wilson has been studying the CSF Strengths and helping apply them to churches and ministries since 2008. And since October 2014, he has partnered with WCCM to share the base information to ministers from a little more than a dozen countries on three continents through a 90-minute teaching called “Why People Follow”. This teaching focuses on creating more effective leadership by using strategies that allow people under your leadership and on your ministry teams to regularly use their strengths in ministry.

As of September 2015, the Strengths Intensive has been taught in El Salvador with an Intensive scheduled for WCCM Africa’s leadership during our Tanzania October 2015 trip. This 3-day Leadership Development Intensive will be an implementation of the Strengths Intensive material to all of WCCM’s top leadership and partners in Africa. In all, 11 African countries will be represented.

A shorter, 11-hour Strengths class will be taught over two weeks in a church setting at the Abundant Life Church of God in Lakeland, Florida in Fall 2015. Another full Strengths Intensive is planned for a women’s ministries group in El Salvador in February.

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