What does the door inside your refrigerator look like? When you come to my house, you have ample options of salad dressings, steak sauces, and of course two to five different varieties of bbq sauces.

We have both Polynesian and regular Chick-fil-a sauces, sweet Thai chili sauce, Whataburger spicy ketchup, and the secret sauce from the hibachi restaurants! That stuff is good on… well, anything. But what about developing leaders in ministry? What’s the secret sauce that expands through church size, context, and denominations?

Time.

Time is the secret sauce in leadership. The good thing about this “secret” is that it does not matter the size of your church budget, how new your facility is, how gifted of a communicator you are, if you have eight people or 800 people, what your music preferences are, or if you are in the city or down a dirt road.

We all are given the same number of hours in a day. The struggle is that time is a limited resource. We cannot go buy more of it and Walmart pick up definitely does not deliver it to the curb. This is often one of the hardest things to give, but it has major potential of return on your investment…though it may not seem like it in the moment.

I don’t know about you, but ministry can seem like watching grass grow in August. In southwest Missouri where I live, that is the time when the rain has pretty well stopped showing up in the sky and as you look around everything looks grim and dry. But, with a little time and a sprinkler, you can see that green pop out if you routinely water and spend the TIME caring for your lawn. This is what I have found true in ministry.

In thinking about how to develop leaders we need to be asking ourselves: how can I include others in my everyday activities? In our church, we change the design of our stage depending on the focus of messages and time of year. I have two guys who are handy and like building things and they have been helping me with this.

In the moment a few weeks ago, we were just cutting PVC pipe that was painted black, drilling holes in 2×4’s that were painted black and fastening them together to make a jail. Nothing big right? I got some pizza and we all hung out for a few hours as our church was preparing to focus on what it means to live free in following Jesus Christ.

Then I got a message from the wife of one of those guys that said: “Thank you for letting my husband get more involved in things at church and helping him find a place he fits and can grow. The random things that probably don’t mean much to others have really meant a lot to him. The times of helping build sets at church to you guys going to pick out study books for Men’s Discipleship groups have been good. Thank you.”

Wow… some of that wasn’t necessarily spiritual things. We were just screwing boards together and having regular conversation. That is what building leaders is all about: spending time together to build relationships and using people’s skills for God’s work.

We need to pay attention to who God has around us.

Sometimes we can wish we had someone with a certain gifting in a certain role in our church… and we completely miss who God has placed right in front of us.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be as easy as taking someone to lunch with you or asking someone to go with you to visit another person. It could be letting someone teach you something.

We have guys that love to build things with wood in our congregation. I’ll go over to their house and learn the process of building a cutting board or even ask their advice on a project I’m doing around our house.

Do I have Google and Youtube where I could look that same information up faster? Yes. But spending a little extra time can reap a huge investment of a deeper relationship with someone you lead.

Isn’t that what Jesus did while He walked with His disciples? He let them participate by using their talents and possessions for His Kingdom work. That’s why time is the secret sauce in leadership development.

How can you use yours to raise up leaders in your church? Be authentic and patient with this and you will be amazed by what God does in your church. I have.

About the Author: Tim Reese is the pastor of Ava General Baptist Church in Ava, Missouri. He and his wife Lyndsey have two wonderful little girls. They’ve been in ministry together for the past 14 years. Their ministry focus is to meet people where they are and help them on their journey with Jesus.