I will never forget the day my high school physics teacher, Mister Elliot, made me stand in front of the classroom and looking up at me said, “Denton, when are you going to grow up?” I replied, “Mister Elliot, I am already nearly two meters tall (six foot six inches), how much taller do I need to grow?”
It wasn’t the answer he was looking for as he wanted to make an example of me for misbehaving in his class.
However, it does remind me of a lesson that has been of primary importance to me; leaders need to continually grow on and never just go on. This lesson has been powerfully brought home to me with the recent publishing of a book by John Maxwell called, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. He sets a valuable foundation with his first law, The Law of Intentionality which says, “Growth does not happen by chance. Getting older is automatic, getting better is not. If we are going to grow, we need to grow on purpose, we need a personal growth plan.”
Another law that stood out for me as I look back upon my life is The Law of Modelling. This law explains that it is hard to improve when you have no one but yourself to follow.
John Maxwell explains that “most of us grow because we watched other people grow. We need to get out of our world to meet people we have never seen before to take a path we have never taken before. We need to meet people who know the way, go the way and show the way.”
Right from the time John Maxwell started out in ministry, he knew that it would only be by getting out of his world that he would be able meet people who would model for him how he could grow to greater levels of impact in his own life. He did this by identifying the most significant leaders in America and taking the initiative to contact them and have them answer key questions he had identified that would be most helpful to him.
Interestingly, when I first stepped out into full time ministry as a pastor, I was only too aware of my inadequate preparation. Out of a need for survival, the laws of intentionality and modelling became an important part of my year-to-year living. At the beginning of each year, I intentionally identified a number of growth goals that were a priority for me at that stage of my unfolding journey. Having done that, the next step was to contact key leaders who I could meet with who were excelling in these goals in their own lives and ministry. At a very early stage I developed my own Law of Selection; To assist me in getting with people who could help me with my growth goals, I needed to “Start at the top and work my way down, they might say ‘no’ but they could say ‘yes’.”
A significant year of growth occurred for me in the year 1985. It was my fifth year in ministry as a pastor and I was starting to see encouraging signs of growth in my ministry to youth and young adults. I had identified some key areas in which I needed to grow as a leader, those being:
- mobilising a strong prayer base for the ministry
- strengthening the small discipleship groups that formed the foundation of the ministry
- my ongoing personal growth as a leader because I could only grow others as I grew myself. John Maxwell refers to this as The Law of Expansion; “Our growth always increases our capacity to lead. The greatest asset I have received in personal growth is that it has increased my capacity to lead.”
Having identified my growth goals for 1985, I then began to prayerfully consider what steps I needed to take to achieve those goals. There were a number of steps that I did initiate in 1985, but the prompt that surprised me the most was the word I received in a time of prayer, “Rod, go to the largest church in the world and spend quality time there.” As John Maxwell said, “I needed to get out of my world to meet people I had never seen before to take a path I had never taken before.”
I had just been reading about the world’s largest church, Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea led by Pastor David Yonggi Cho. The church had over 700,000 parishioners at that time and could accommodate as many as 12,000 people at a time in its many services which were translated into 16 languages. Interestingly, the church was birthed in 1958 in a tent with just five people.
Somehow, I located Pastor Yonggi Cho’s address and wrote to him asking if I could visit him and spend some time at his church to learn as much as I could about my three growth goals I had set for myself that year. When I shared my goal setting adventure with others, they were surprised at my bold initiative.
Eagerly I waited for a reply, and I wasn’t disappointed. I received a warm personal response from Pastor Yonggi Cho in which he invited me to be his guest at his church’s annual conference for leaders from around the world that was soon to be held in South Korea. I shared my reply with my church council who graciously approved my leave and agreed to pay for my expenses and not only for me, but for one of my leaders that I wanted to take with me.
My time spent with Pastor Yonggi Cho and his church was life changing and would significantly impact my ongoing ministry. Some of the many highlights of my time in Korea included:
- attendance at the conference.
- one on one time with Pastor Yonggi Cho.
- attendance at one of the church’s 50,000 small discipleship groups. • attendance at a small group leader’s training night where 50,000 group leaders attended and were required to bring their assistant leader with them. The evening for those 100,000 leaders was held in the Seoul Olympic Stadium and it rained for most of the night.
- a day’s retreat at the church’s prayer mountain convention center on the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. Nearby were caves where leaders went for seven-day prayer and fasting retreats. The main purpose of these retreats was to fast and pray for conversion of the people that their small group had committed to leading to Jesus.
- attendance at an all-night prayer meeting in the church’s car park basement. Those meetings were conducted every night of the week and the large number of people in attendance would together cry out to God in prayer to move upon their lives and their church.
Those days away were incredible times of growth that deeply impacted my life and the life of my church, which was almost immediate. On the following Sunday I preached in the evening service about my time in Korea. At the end of the service, my lead pastor stood up and shared how God had spoken in the message and led him to announce that on the following morning (Monday), early morning prayer meetings would now be held seven days a week and all would be welcome. This prayer initiative was a catalyst for a new step of growth in the life of our church. Other initiatives followed.
I was living out some of the laws of growth that made it all possible.
The Law of :
- Intentionality : Growth doesn’t just happen. To get better we need a personal growth plan.
- Awareness : I needed to know myself to grow myself. John Maxwell said, “The moment I see something I have never seen before I can do something I have never done before so that I can become someone I have never been before.”
- Environment : I placed myself in a growth environment realising who I was with, influenced who I would become.
- Modelling : I needed to get out of my world to meet people I had never seen before to learn things I had never learnt before.
- Contribution : Growing myself enabled me to grow others. Adding value to myself helped me to add value to others and allowed me to be a river and not a reservoir.
The idea of growing in order to add value to others became an increasing reality when leaders from around Australia from a number of denominations started to enquire about our expanding ministry of discipling youth and young adults. This led to the establishment of an annual weeklong Summer School of Youth Leadership each January, where over one hundred leaders from all Australian states could gather and be equipped to develop their own discipling ministry to youth and young adults.
The investment of my time in Korea through an amazing door that God opened, was to produce fruit that was beyond anything I could have expected.
A PERSONAL GROWTH CHECKLIST
To go on a personal growth journey, you will require:
- An awareness from God regarding the question of what on earth you are here for?
- A passion to grow, for one person with a passion is better than many others who only have an interest.
- A willingness to pay whatever price is required to help you grow to realise the potential that God has placed within you.
- An awareness of the growth goals that you need to focus on as you travel through life.
- To follow the prompts of the Holy Spirit who will guide you in your lifetime of growing.
- To take bold steps to achieve your growth goals by starting at the top and working your way down when you seek out mentors.
- An understanding that you are a river and not a reservoir and that growing yourself enables you to grow others.
One of the greatest compliments anyone can give to me is that they have noticed my growth from time to time, unlike my physics teacher, Mister Elliot.
Paul wrote to Timothy and told him to live in such a way, “that everyone will see his progress” (GROWTH) 1 Timothy 4:15
And may we follow the example of Jesus who “GREW (and never stopped growing) in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and all the people.” Luke 2:52
When Paul was an old man in jail with little of life left, he could still write to Timothy and ask him to bring two things with him; his coat, for jails were cold places, and his books, because he had never stopped learning. For even in such a situation, Paul was saying, “Timothy, I want to grow on, I don’t just want to go on.”
P.S. Not all my growth goals resulted in experiences like my time in South Korea. That was quite exceptional. But I never cease to be amazed at the way the Holy Spirit has opened doors for me to meet people I had never seen before to take a path I had never taken before.
NB : John Maxwell’s book : The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth
Follow link to GROW ON……don’t just go on Part 2 :
GROW ON…….don’t just go on. (2) | Rod Denton