We must keep the conversation alive about staffing and what to do next.

A look at Lp’s Masterclass in Denver - October 2023.

We do this because the success that your organization will have in leadership development will only be as strong as the leaders you have who are doing the coaching and the one-on-one meetings.

At the end of a leadership pathway is not a nirvana where young twenty-somethings “finally get it right.” We should think of a leadership pathway more like a two-way street of influence where the student may at times becomes the teacher.

Leadership Pathway is in its fifth year of helping churches recruit, support and develop their next leaders through coaching and field experiences of a church residency. Over those five years of launching church residency programs my tune has changed…

Senior and Executive Pastors tend to say one of three things when the topic of residency comes up:

Leadership Pathway (Lp) matches potential ministry residents with churches that have committed to being a teaching church. We then coach the staff at the church in the best practices of equipping the resident for two years in 20Core Competencies in our coaching manual we’ve called a Guidebook.

Over the last eleven years I’ve been in a church leadership conversation that sounds something like, “We’re looking for someone who is probably 29 – 32 years of age, and has built a ministry and ready to take their next step. Know anyone like that?”

No matter the role in a church, this seems to be the center of the target when it comes to looking outside for the next team member. When churches have depleted their internal pipelines, and connections, it’s time to go out and hunt.