Right before I graduated high school, God opened my eyes to what he had been doing in my life up to that point. He had provided experiences that not only helped me develop as a musician and a leader but guided me towards a heart of service.

I am currently a full-time ministry resident for the Online Campus at Real Life Church in Santa Clarita, CA. I chose to do a residency through Leadership Pathway because I felt that the protection and care that they offered in assisting me to find a church that was a good fit for me was unmatched.

Leadership Pathway helped me with my next step after college by getting connected to where I now serve as a Production Resident at Waters Edge Church, a multi-site church in Yorktown, VA.

I really had no intentions of ever being in ministry. I had always wanted to be a manager of a company, and that’s what I pursued in college. I loved my last job, where I was able to share Christ with my coworkers nearly every day. I thought that was God’s plan for me, until I realized that God was laying it on my heart to do more for the church through full-time ministry.

I knew when I was 13 that God was calling me to ministry. I want to give students and kids the experience I grew up with. I want to be part of teaching the next generation about Christ. I had so many awesome leaders in my life, and I want to be that for someone else!

I think a lot of pastors were thrown in the deep end of the pool during their early years in full-time ministry. I get it, ministry is hard when you get started. You have to learn how to swim while getting some water up your nose. I think that kind of development has surely produced some grit in this generation of church leaders, but I think it’s also produced a false assumption that young leaders should be taught the same way.

Don’t let your leadership development plans get bogged down this year.
Here are four reasons why I believe it’s the perfect time to start:

I think the hardest part for me is learning all of these new skills that I have never done before. I want to know it all. I want to be able to do things right the first time and provide detailed answers when someone asks what would be best for their church. Blocking out this fear of failure has been a challenge for me, but Residency has taught me to take on the new challenges and learn from my mistakes in the process.

I’m (Steve) a read-the-instructions kind of guy, so I thoroughly read the Leadership Pathway materials and asked lots of questions. These are some specific thoughts we learned and began to value in this process:

1 It’s not about what a resident can do for us but what we can do for them.

2 We had to anticipate and embrace our roles as a supervisor, coach, and PARENT.

My leadership journey began when I was in high school, volunteering as a Sunday school teacher and in college, leading some high school girls in my church. For about a year, I began praying about God’s call on my life to ministry. I knew I needed to be obedient to trust Him and take that leap into ministry. I hadn’t actually pursued a ministry degree while in college, so I didn’t quite know the right route to take. I searched for internships and residency programs.

Stefanie Rowe LPC, LIMHP is a licensed counselor and Strengths Coach in Omaha.  As a wife, mom, Christian University professor, people helper, elder and on the teaching team at her church, Stonebridge Christian Church, she has a unique view into current and future church leaders. She seeks to empower them to lead and love those who are on their team and within their reach who have mental wellness concerns.

One tool we use to help young leaders get perspective we call Data Points. It’s a non-scientific way for a young leader to look back twelve or eighteen months and see objectively how they’ve been doing in key areas.

We mark the data against the timeline (across the bottom) as well as a grading scale of 0-100 vertically.

This is the first in a four-part series on helping young leaders get through the first year of ministry and helping them take the healthiest steps.

I learned from my long-time friend & Lp board member, Bart Rendel of Intentional Churches, that the best planning is done when in perspective.

Residency has provided me the courage to pursue ministry rather than continue only as a volunteer; plus, learning leadership soft skills has been much more valuable to me than any time I spent in a classroom while enrolled at a Christian college.

Currently, I serve as a Worship Resident at the Lexington, KY campus of Crossroads Church (Cincinnati, OH). From the beginning, residency has been a challenge, but in the absolute best way that is making me grow and get better! I have known for a long time that God called me to be a worship leader, and now I am in a position to do everything I can to make that a reality.

Leadership Pathway connected me to Community Christian Church in the Atlanta suburb of Sharpsburg, GA. I was taken by their motto as a church ‘for the rest of us.’

You should look for a residency program like this one, and if you’re at all considering ministry, I’d say that’s probably the Holy Spirit nudging you to do this.

When I first began in residency, theology and doctrine were the most important things to me. Now that I have experienced what ministry really is, I understand that relational skills, leadership, and counseling are just as important.

Residency has been transformational for me. 
My journey towards leadership began with my desire to not lead, yet I moved forward with a sense of responsibility and an attitude of obedience and heart to follow God no matter what, even if that meant feeling uncomfortable or out of my element.

Being overwhelmed with a pile of work can be daunting. It is especially troublesome early in a career of ministry. Potentially someone on your team is in their first “real” job. This could be a resident or the youngest and greenest among you.

“I can’t do it. I can’t keep up. Will this ever slow down? Maybe ministry isn’t for me,” began a coaching conversation I recently had. I’ve had a version of this conversation many times as a coach. And I admit I’ve had it many times in my head with myself, too!