(less than 900 words, 90 seconds of reading time. It’s a bit salesy this week)
There is a secret that many large churches have. It’s a secret often denied to a smaller congregation.
It’s a secret though that ends up blessing not only the congregation but other organizations, other churches and even companies.
Here it is: 74% of large churches have a residency and/or intern program for equipping leaders for the future.
These programs and processes help teach and equip:
Develop deeper discipleship
Core culture concepts of healthy churches
Ministry skills that can be used for life
But here’s the problem. Often these programs are more headache than help.
Why is that?
In our experience that is driven by three primary factors:
The process design is flawed.
Underfunded.
It hasn’t been updated regularly.
There are several other key reasons as well but these programs need constant readjustment to fit the context and the leaders you want to serve. If you haven’t rethought and remade your process in the past 3-4 years, especially in light of the pandemic, we would encourage you to do so.
We believe every leader in training deserves a high-quality experience that propels them to their next step in leadership.
Over the last several years I have been able to serve several clients in the design and set up of their first residency programs. Additionally, I have counseled some on the revisions they need to make.
My colleague Greg Ligon and I have written a new e-book to address these challenges. We call this the “Leader Advance Framework: Five Approaches to Residency and Intern Programs.”
There is more than one way to do this type of initiative. Our five approaches are pure models and churches often have much in common with one of them. There are even hybrids.
Each type has its own outcome desired, target market, format and roles that residents play within the organization.
In the ebook we have a simple grid that displays these. While our simple model in the book has five components, there are many more we cover in our coaching to help a church define and build a program and process that is right for them.
The process even helps you develop the partnerships and funding for your program.
Yesterday we did a workshop in the Generis Start Strong Series. You can sign up for that right here:
https://resources.generis.com/start-strong
In addition, if you are on the weekly Senior Pastor only call, we covered the concepts yesterday.
But if you were on neither, and want to interact with the resource and bonus materials, just send me an email directly with the subject line: Leader Advance.
I first started helping churches with these programs in 1998 and Greg followed soon after that. With that long experience we have observed how these programs have grown, changed, stopped, restarted.
There is only so much we can share in our brief e-book.
We also do a FREE one-hour ROADMAP session with church leaders to help them think through THEIR specific next steps to undertake the remake or launch a new initiative in this area. You can access time with us by emailing me to get started.
We will send some bonus tools and materials as well.
We believe every church needs to develop high-quality leadership transformational experiences to train up the next generation of church leaders.
We can’t depend on educational institutions, parachurch groups or random chance to get us there.
Our process helps you have a good map, clear navigation and an experienced guide along the way.
Even if you don’t take advantage of our process, you will benefit by reading the tools. So just ask.
This week’s podcast:
Jamie Loya
I speak with Jamie Loya Senior Pastor of Cross Church in San Benito, Texas.
That’s south Texas, border counties. Jamie is such an effective leader in a part of the country where he could easily be forgotten. But that part of the country influences the whole of our country.
Jamie is a great example of a leader that has to communicate across culture, class, language and races.
Jamie discusses Cross Church’s emphasis on outreach and the importance of meeting the needs of their community (13:45). Dave asks Jamie to share some things he has learned and Jamie talks about doing the best with what you have (19:00).
Jamie speaks about his work with BetterMan and how his involvement opened the door to engage other men at Cross Church to serve as well (28:00).
To find out more about Jamie and Cross Church you can visit their website here or find Jamie on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Jamie’s Book, Discover Who You Are can be found here.
Hear it all at: GreatthingsGODhasdone.substack.com
That’s all for today – I know today was a lot more focused on a particular consulting practice that I do in partnership with Greg Ligon. Most of these issues do not though. But occasionally, if I think it will help my friends, we need to share the resources!
PS. Those on the weekly, one-hour Senior Pastor only call heard in January from Jim Sheppard, one of our Generis Principals, talk about the new governmental provisions for churches for 2021 that will really benefit forward thinking leaders. We have several other guests coming up, in addition to the regular feedback and open forum questions where these pastors are learning how other pastors are leading in certain areas during this crucial time. If you haven’t applied for an invite – just send an email to Linda.Stanley@generis.com to get one. This is limited to large church Senior Pastors.