Church Planting Opinion: Foster Apprenticeship from the Start
It was a goal of mine and I made it a goal for our church, that from the start of planting, we would strive to be a place that trained other people for ministry.
There is a tremendous need for pastors and leaders in Canada, and practical, hands-on ministry is one of the best ways to train others. Now, lots of people want to do this and see the value in it. Let’s get practical.
Here are a couple of ways we apprenticed people:
- We offered to pay for seminary courses for young people interested in ministry.
We didn’t have a reformed (*we are Presbyterian) seminary in our city, but plenty of places offer online courses. A great way to encourage people is to offer to help them study theology. Some seminaries will offer a discount if the church is paying for part of a course.
2. We made ongoing training part of every staff role.
If you are hired at Resurrection Church, there is ongoing training and development. This is not a new idea, but when church plants are scraping by financially, this is one thing that often gets cut. So, if you are hiring a musician to lead worship or a children’s ministry director, figure out how to build in a training component.
We are always reading a book together as a staff team. We have book club every Thursday, but we also are thinking about what seminary classes a person should take or what conferences they can attend to get good input. This will differ for each staff person and each staff role, but have a development mindset. We even made our summer intern audit a seminary class over the three months she worked with us.
3. Preach less.
As the founding pastor and as someone who likes preaching, I had a high value on preaching and I liked to be the one preaching. But from the start, I tried to build in an expectation that we would have younger people training for ministry or lay elders who would preach on a regular basis.
Lots of pastors, when they are off, try to recruit other pastors to preach. But why not use those slots for those people who are looking for experience? In the early days, when I didn’t have interns or elders, I would beg, borrow and beg some more for anyone to fill in for me. But even when I emailed other pastors, I would ask if they had any interns or assistant pastors who needed some preaching reps.
Right now I aim for preaching around 40–42 Sundays a year and we just started a once-a-month Sunday evening service where it is exclusively interns and lay elders that preach.
4. Ask people to raise support
One way that a poor church plant can begin training others is by asking them to raise support for their position. For some people this will be a foreign concept, but for others, they may have done this before for a mission trip or some sort of parachurch ministry.
Many people can raise a few hundred dollars a month pretty easily, and that amount of money can pay for a few hours a week where they can dip their toe into ministry waters. You could offer to match whatever money they raise if you have the capacity.
Even if your church is broke and cannot afford a single dollar to pay another staff member, maybe there are some creative ways to bring people on board part time.
5. Give people real things to lead
One of the best ways to train people is to give them real, stretching assignments.
Rather than giving someone all your admin work, why don’t you format the bulletin and get the less experienced person to lead a big neighbourhood event?
Rather than taking the lead on the most appealing ministry events, why not throw one to an eager young person?
Coach them, make a plan, figure out your goals, do all the things you would normally do, but give them room to do their thing. A person can’t learn to be a pastor or lead a ministry if they don’t get chances. Some people will be more ready than others, so figure out a right-sized opportunity and let them go.
6. Let them into the room where conversations happen
Oftentimes we want to shield younger leaders from difficult conversations or ‘confidential’ meetings so that they don’t get discouraged or burdened. As a younger leader I can’t recall ever sitting in on a church discipline case, a budget squabble, a tricky and complex decision about property, etc. Sometimes I was excused from meetings when they got to that point, but more often I didn’t know about them at all. Confidentiality might make some meetings private by necessity, but most meetings are not confidential, just private. Think about how valuable it might be for a pastor-in-training to sit in on a budget meeting or a messy discipleship situation.
Train. Apprentice. Coach. Grow more leaders for the kingdom of God.
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