In Today's Conversation, Leith Anderson and George O. Wood discuss denominational leadership, including setting goals, inspiring growth from the top down, and speaking on behalf of a diverse constituency. 

In this podcast, you’ll be inspired in your place of leadership as George shares:

What leadership examples in Scripture were particularly meaningful to him;

How he developed core values for his tenure;

How God led him to this unique ministry calling; and

The challenges and joys of leadership.

Read a Portion of the Transcript

Leith: We live in a time when there are a lot of non-denominational churches. And while most churches in America are denominational churches, what’s your best case for why we should have denominations and what denominations offer to churches, pastors, and to culture at large?

George: Denominations offer resources. They offer accountability. For example, with our credential ministers, they must go through a preparation and examination, but I think more importantly I compare the association of churches banning together to local Christians banning together. When I’m with the congregation explaining what the Assemblies of God is I’ll say, “Just as you have found that you cannot live the Christian life by yourself; you need others; and by banning together you do the work of Jesus better in your community than you could do it if you were trying to be alone and a singular Christian.” So it is with churches, when we ban together, we better advance the work of the Lord, and the primary support for this is just simply the empirical data of what’s happened in the Assemblies of God.

Right from the get go, when our churches were very small, we said we’re going to do missions globally at the same time we’re doing it locally. So in the early days, they developed a very strong methodology. Today that has resulted in a worldwide network of the Assemblies of God of over 370, 000 churches and 68 million believers. That could not have happened by an individual, independent church working by itself to advance world mission. There was a need for churches to band together to accomplish the mission of Jesus. I think that’s the great asset of a denomination that it provides forward movement to make possible what could not be done by a singular church acting by itself alone.

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Today's Conversation is brought to you by Faithkeepers.