Lead My Sheep: A Guide for Training Elders and Deacons

Jon Stoddard's work on leadership development and officer training in the context of the local church has been an indispensable help to me for years. His thoughtfulness and care in bringing together biblical and theological foundations, a structured road map, and practical principles for pastoral leadership and ordained service in the church is evident in Lead My Sheep. What you will find in these pages is a mature, faithful, and useful guide to putting together (or improving) your church's program for discipling leaders who are qualified, equipped, and competent to serve Christ in an ordained capacity. Stoddard's three-phase approach to leadership development in general, and officer training in particular, is simple: assess, teach, and train. All three phases are thoroughly grounded in biblical precept and example. The emphasis on character and vocational assessment is particularly valuable and must be present in any Christian church worthy of the name. Anyone who puts this material to use will find that God's Word is clear and sufficient for the ordained servant who seeks diligently to show himself "approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed" (2 Tim. 2:15). I heartily recommend this resource in conjunction with Timothy Witmer's The Shepherd Leader. Christian pastors and church officers of all denominational stripes will find this material valuable, but it helpfully applies especially to men serving in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), which makes it uniquely useful to my closest colleagues and me.