by Cary Nieuwhof: When you think of large churches and mega-churches, what comes to mind?

If there’s one thing I learned from writing about the church, it’s that some people hate megachurches. With a passion.

I try not to engage the trolls and the haters in the comments on my blog (engaging them just gives them what they want). But I’ve also noticed that even among normally more balanced and nuanced church leaders, it’s easy to take swipes at megachurches.

Sometimes I wonder how much of that is born out of envy, a sense of inferiority or simple misunderstanding, but after years of hearing people complain about large churches and megachurches, it might be good to re-visit the subject more intentionally.

A while back, someone left this comment on about some large church pastors who burned out:

Wish these guys would get wise and start obeying Scripture and follow the New Testament model of interdependent churches under presbytery rule with representatives. Of course these preachers get burned out. They’ve made themselves the lynchpins of megachurches. They should get burned out. It’s a bad model of church government on many fronts, and it’s actually from the mercy of God that these men burn out. Churches are meant to be small, tightly knit communities, not splashy corporations. You build a monster, you get devoured. Or you become a monster. Burnout of megachurch pastors probably saves souls.

Burnout of megachurch pastors actually saves souls? I wish I was making this up. But I’m not. Somebody actually wrote this.

…

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Source: Engaging with People on Social Media Conversation with Autumn Miles: Podcast 250

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By Brent Dolfo: In their newly released research on multisite trends, Dave Travis and Warren Bird reveal some of the ‘why’ behind “the dramatic growth of church planting and of multisite,” particularly among the emerging generation of leaders. According to the report, leaders are converging on a new mindset: one that values not just reproduction, but multiplication. It is a vision that involves planting churches and launching campuses that, in turn, multiply through new church starts and campus launches.

This multiplication focus has led senior and executive pastors to an increased emphasis on the development of high-end talent from within their own large churches.  Churches that are having the most success in this endeavor are strategically appointing Pastors/Directors of Leadership Development. These leaders carry the primary responsibility of ensuring enough leaders are raised up so the multiplication of church plants and multisite locations can continue to flourish.

Another critical success factor for churches that look to accelerate their leadership development efforts: they choose not to go it alone.

That’s where Leadership Network’s cohorts have had such a tremendous impact. Over the past several years we have served hundreds of leaders who wanted to upgrade their leadership development models to increase the quality and quantity of high-capacity leaders developed from within. The ability to accelerate learning and speed up the implementation of new models for leadership development has had a profound impact on the health and growth of these churches.

Steve Hutmacher, an executive pastor at Cedar Creek Church described the benefits they saw this way:

“We really appreciated the collaboration with other churches and pastors learning from them. Coming in we thought we were doing good at leadership development, but now we see a path to becoming a lot better. With our renewed emphasis on developing our campus pastors, we’re seeing them focus more on the development of their leaders and teams.”

Cedar Creek, like so many large and growing churches, recognized the pressing need to continually develop enough leaders who can effectively oversee ministry teams and future campuses. But rather than try and figure it out on their own, they chose to engage in a process and experience that exposed them to effective models, engaged them in dialogue with other leaders, and encouraged their progress through coaching and accountability.

But it all starts with a clear understanding of your church’s needs.

A simple question to ask yourself to assess leadership development in your church would be: “If your church was to grow by 50% in the next year, would you have enough quality leaders to handle the influx of new members, ministry opportunities, and locations?”

For most large churches, the answer is “no.”

In May of this year, Leadership Network will launch its next experience for large churches that recognize the need for “upping their game” in leadership development.  Its called the Leadership Development Accelerator, a 12-month experience that goes beyond anything we’ve offered before.  The Leadership Development Accelerator will guide your team in:

Building a stronger bench of high potential leaders able to tackle the next wave of ministry opportunities ahead of you.
Engaging with several of the best church models of leadership development in the U.S.
Learning from some of the most dynamic, multi-national businesses about how they’re developing high potential leaders.
Clarifying your church’s unique core leadership competency profile, providing a baseline to compare to potential leaders
Retooling your processes for taking the raw material of high potential young staff and making them “better, faster.”
Using data to compare the profile of your existing senior leaders to those already sitting in your pews to determine who potentially might have the “right stuff” to be a future key leader.

If you are looking to leap ahead in your ability to develop high-capacity executive and campus level leaders, the Leadership Development Accelerator will provide you with the insights, relationships, and tools your growing church needs. Space in our upcoming group is limited. Set up a discovery call today by completing the form below.

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by Warren Bird: What did leaders from more than 1,500 new churches or multisite campuses tell us about what they’ve learned and experienced? “8 Launch Wins,” our newly released report gives you wisdom from comparing various approaches and circumstances. Here is the infographic from the richly illustrated report, which is a free download, available now. To download the full report, simply fill out the short form at the bottom of this page.

Click the image to be taken to the full-size infographic.

The infographic highlights only a few of the main findings. Over a dozen additional illustrations are included in the full report that look into issues that planning teams and launch teams want to know more about. For example:

Should we plant a new church or open a new multisite location?
Should we initially rent and be “portable” or should we immediately lease/buy something “permanent”?
How do we become more effective at making disciples of Jesus Christ, and not just at gathering a crowd?

Download the full “8 Launch Wins” Report:

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Source: Five New Reasons Why You DO Want to Launch that New Church or Campus

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