The Most Important Questions (MIQ’s) for Church Leaders

The best church leaders do not have all the answers, but they repeatedly ask and answer their church’s Most Important Questions (MIQ’s).

There is no such thing as an authoritative list of questions for church leaders to ask and answer. However, categories and questions like the ones below are always important precisely because they are tied to explicit or implicit commands in Scripture. We believe church leaders must wrestle through the following categories and questions to effectively pursue Jesus’s purposes for his church. The questions below are useful for guiding discussion within elder boards and with other leaders in your church. As the months and years go by, strive to ensure that ALL your leaders know how to answer these questions in accordance with your church’s unified vision.

Add to, subtract from, or modify this list of questions, but keep asking and keep striving for answers.

Life in Community

  • What is the primary context where we want our congregants to live out the vision of passages such as Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–37; 20:7; 1 Cor. 11:17–34; Heb. 10:19–25? Yes, the people of God participate in those activities in both public and private settings, and certainly other passages come to mind. But that question and those passages generate excellent discussion within leadership teams to discern what they want to do and where they want to accomplish it. Within our network, the primary (though not exclusive) context where we live out those passages is neighborhood house churches, including the relationships (with both Christians and our non-Christian neighbors) that express themselves throughout the week (Heb. 3:13).

  • How do we want to structure those meetings?

  • What are the mechanisms that support our vision for “life in community”? See the questions below.

Evangelism Training

  • What are our church’s strategies for serving our neighbors?

  • What are our strategies for sharing the gospel with our neighbors?

  • What is the relationship between house churches and helping our neighbors to know God? More specifically, what role, if any, does a weekly meal have in our outreach strategy? What role does the Lord’s Supper have in our evangelistic strategy (1 Cor. 11:26)?

  • How did the apostles talk to non-Christians about God the Father prior to explaining how to know him personally (Acts 14:15–17; 17:22–31)? What is sin and what are its consequences (Jer. 2:1–13; Rom. 1:18–32; 3:9–20)? What is the gospel (answer: the good news of Jesus’s death AND resurrection; 1 Cor. 15:1–11)? How does someone become a Christian (answer: by turning from sin AND trusting in Jesus; Acts 20:21; Eph. 2:8–9)?

  • How will we equip our elders, other leaders, and the rest of the congregation to answer those questions clearly and concisely?

Discipleship Training

  • Is there an identifiable body of teaching (particularly, though not exclusively from Jesus and his apostles) that God expects us to pass on to others? If so, how do we summarize this “sound doctrine” or “the apostles’ teaching” as an accessible body of truth for the purposes of teaching God’s people?

  • How and where will we train our people to know, embrace, and share “the apostles’ teaching” (see here for our curriculum)—passing it on from one generation to the next?

Leadership Training

  • What is our approach to leadership development in the church (see here for ideas)—including equipping (a) current and aspiring elders and (b) other leaders in the church?

  • With those answers in mind, how and where will we equip leaders for new and existing initiatives (see here for our curriculum)?

Biblical and Theological Commitments

  • What truths do we consistently need to proclaim, explain, and apply so that our congregants will never merely assume those truths (e.g., the gospel and the mission of the church)?

  • For each truth we identified, what is our plan for strengthening our congregants’ understanding of and submission to that truth so they can pass it along to the next generation?

The Ages, Stages, and Roles of the Christian Life

  • How can we encourage those who do not fit into a typical family structure (single but never married, divorced, or widowed)

  • What role does the family play in our discipleship strategies?

  • How can we equip men to lead their families, treat their family members with dignity and respect, AND serve them sacrificially?

  • How can we equip women to make disciples of Jesus in and through their own families and networks?

  • How can we equip parents to raise their children to know and love God?

  • How can we equip children to love God and obey their parents?

Habits for Christian Growth within Our Congregation

  • How are we educating and encouraging our congregants in the private habits for Christian growth (such as individual Bible reading, prayer, and fasting)?

  • How are we educating and encouraging our congregants in the public habits for Christian growth (such gathering together in larger and smaller groups, taking the Lord’s Supper, studying and applying God’s Word together, praying together, and confessing their sins to one another)?

Other Categories and Questions that are Important to You and Your Leadership Team (?)