I hear a lot about the need for churches to have a “leadership pipeline.” We hear about it at conferences. Podcasters podcast about it. Denominational leaders encourage churches to have one. Pastors talk about it – and often confess that they don’t have one.

I have decided that I don’t like the phrase “leadership pipeline” as it is currently used in churches. The word “pipeline” feels so industrial. Pipelines transport fuels. Pipelines transport large quantities of water. Pipelines transport sewage. I don’t want to envision our pastors and church leaders coming out of a “pipeline.”

But if we have no pipeline – no vision of some industrial process that takes people from one place in the church and provides a means to move them to another place – where will church leaders come from? As the number of people accepting calls to leadership in churches appears to continue in decline and no visible pipeline gushing out leaders to quench our thirst for new leaders, what do we do?

That’s something to talk about.

There is no reason to build a pipeline if its starting place does not have what we desire to transport. We don’t build a water pipeline that starts where there is no water. A fuel pipeline needs to start with a source of fuel. A sewage pipeline needs…, well, you get the picture.

In my conversations with church leaders, I often get the sense that we have an expectation that some pipeline will deposit leaders into their congregations without giving much thought or effort to consider where the raw materials come from and oftentimes have no thought that they have a need to be the start of a pipeline for others. But there is no gushing pipeline – just a slow trickle and, at times, dryness.

For a season, the policing organization I worked for preached the concept of “every officer a leader.” But that’s simply not true. Sure, everyone is likely to have someone they lead or led in some kind of way at some time, but not every cop is a leader of cops. The same is true for churches. Not every Christ follower is a leader of Christ followers. The truth is that church leaders are grown in churches, and not every believer is gifted to be a leader. Leadership is listed among the spiritual gifts – not every believer exercises every spiritual gift.

How then will we find leaders for our church in this generation and next? That’s something to talk about, and here are some ideas that might guide your team’s conversation.

Intentionality:

Every church and every church leader needs to be intentional about raising up leaders for the Church (yes, the big Church). Most church leaders with whom I have had the leadership pipeline conversation have never included finding, preparing, and releasing leaders on their to-do lists. It’s seldom among the top strategies for the church. Because it’s not on our strategic priorities lists, we never talk about it. One of my favorite sayings is, “If it goes without saying, it doesn’t get said; if it doesn’t get said, it doesn’t get done.” Creating and implementing a plan for developing leaders is something to talk about – have that conversation with your team. Be intentional.

Specific, long-term prayer:

Leadership is listed as one of the spiritual gifts bestowed upon people by the Holy Spirit. Do we consistently pray for God to gift people in our congregations with gifts of leadership and that we would recognize such gifting and take actions to allow them to exercise even nascent gifting – developing and maturing their gifts throughout their lifetime? Finding and developing potential leaders is something to talk with God about – and to do so often.

Opportunities to grow:

We often strive for excellence in all we do in our worship services and ministries and, if we are not careful, our striving can ensure that only the most highly qualified people get to publicly develop and grow in their gifting. The highly qualified are consistently platformed while those desiring to develop their abilities are left out. When consistently left out, they quit. And the church loses. What opportunities are there in our church for people to develop potential leadership gifting?

Opportunity to participate with mentors:

I believe I was 27 years old when I read I Timothy 3:1 and was struck by the thought that I should aspire to be a man who met the qualifications to serve as an overseer at my church. I had a conversation with our church’s board chairman and, the next thing I knew, I was elected to serve on our church’s board. But I wasn’t just thrown into the deep end of the pool. I was placed on their 4-person executive team with three older, experienced church leaders who mentored me and showed me the ropes. They apparently saw something in me, took a chance. and that’s how my life of service in the church and among churches and with the EFCA began. I am forever grateful to them. A young, inexperienced man was invited into the leadership circle and developed by more experienced and mature leaders. I wonder what would have happened if I had not been invited into their leadership circle. Who in your church should be given an opportunity to tag along with you or other leaders for the sake of exploring and developing their leadership gifts?

Start young:

Give children opportunities for age-appropriate leadership. It can start in elementary school, but for me it started in high school. Our youth pastor allowed me and several friends to engage as up-front leaders within our high school group. Yes, we were young and, at least on occasion, I did stupid things. But we were given a chance and I developed as a leader even through lessons learned from my stupid things. And guess what – we grew up to be leaders in churches in our adult lives – including one in full-time service as an Army chaplain and then a pastor. Have a conversation with your team about where they had their first opportunity to spread their leadership wings. Do our student ministries leaders have conversations with students about considering vocational or non-vocational opportunities for serving the Church – missionaries, Gospel workers, church ministry leaders, board members and pastors of all kinds? If conversations don’t start there, where would they start? Remember that EFCA has opportunities for your students to develop leadership potential through its Reach Students ministry and Apex Missions. You can find more information by searching www.EFCA.org

Sharing opportunities among other churches:

I love that our church’s vacation Bible school staff is filled with high school students. It’s a great week to see so many students engaged in serving others – an opportunity to explore areas of potential giftedness. Yet, I wonder what it would be like to also devote a week to helping another church host their vacation Bible school, especially a smaller church that doesn’t have enough workers to do it well? What if instead of focusing only upon our own ministries we also focused on those of others? Might those additional opportunities to serve further our efforts to find and develop the future leaders of the Church?

Minimize our selfishness:

I think most of us are naturally selfish. I know I am. Oftentimes during conversations about raising new generations of leaders I sense the conversation is focused upon raising leaders for my church rather than the Church. The church I attend is located near a Christian university and we are blessed to have a good group of their students attend our church while classes are in session. I am thankful that we started a ministry for college students and young adults knowing full well that almost every student from the university will finish their education and move away from us, likely never to be seen again. We are engaged in discipling young people and developing leaders for the Church, not just our church. What is your church’s role in developing leaders for the Church?

Put a bug in people’s brains:

How early in a young person’s life should church leaders put a bug in their brain about potential service as in some aspect of church leadership? While opinions may vary, I want to suggest that the high school years are prime time finding and developing the future leaders of the church. If we don’t at least start there, when would we start? There are lots of options. I enjoy having students give announcements in our church services and participating as singers or musicians in the music team (yes, they need to be pretty good). But there are other opportunities as well to develop leadership skills and confidence in their own group or serving elsewhere. We have students serving in our coffee place on Sunday mornings, working with the facilities team, working in children’s ministries, and more. Every time we deploy a student in real ministry we prepare a potential church leader. Have a conversation with your team about how you might find and raise future leaders from within your student ministries activities. And, don’t forget to deposit some bugs in adult ears, too – sometimes it takes years for someone to agree to serve in leadership. Don’t bully, but be persistent in asking and encouraging.

I don’t think there is a leadership pipeline. There’s no pipeline that I’ve heard of that is gushing out leaders – perhaps there are some smaller pipes that are dripping out leaders, but we need more leaders than are being developed and released to lead. Perhaps rather than envisioning a leadership pipeline we might consider a pathway to leadership. Leadership development is a journey – in fact, it’s a long journey and few are willing or called to walk it. The journey requires intentionality, patience and taking one step at a time. But the starting place is intentionality. What am I and what is our church intentionally doing to find and develop the next generations of leaders for the church and for the Church? That’s something to talk about, and we encourage every leadership team to have that conversation.

Let us know if we can help and how your conversation goes. Contact Bob Osborne by e-mail at bob.osborne@efca.org. 

This is one of a series of articles intended to facilitate and guide church leaders’ conversations about significant issues that often are not talked about among pastors, boards, and church leadership teams. Visit the EFCA West website to see prior Something to Talk About articles.