Source: What is Coaching and Who Needs It?

The post What is Coaching and Who Needs It? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Stan Rodda: When it comes to making disciples, one of the areas that can be confusing is the relationship between people. Ultimately walking with others the way Jesus did is messy and personal. It’s all up in your time and business. There is a need for healthy boundaries at the same time, but a lot of questions come with a relationship that personal. Questions like…

How much time do I give?

How much do I let them in to the real me?

Do I have to talk to them everyday?

What do they ultimately look like?

Can a Patriots fan be discipled or are they too far gone?

Paul gives us a picture of what the disciple making relationship should look like in 1 Thessalonians 2. Take some time and read it. Don’t worry, the blog will still be here when you get back. Read it through a disciple making relationship lens. Look for all the phrases Paul uses like, “you, with you, among you, for you,” etc. Also highlight or mark in some way the characteristics of what that relationship looks like. It truly is a beautiful picture.

Go ahead and read that chapter now. We promise we won’t go anywhere.

Now that you’ve read it, here are a few things that stand out to me in a disciple making relationship (DMR).

DMR’s are Rooted in Purity

Every disciple maker must have their own hearts tested by God in this. I will speak for myself; many times in sharing the Gospel I have not trusted the power of God to change lives. So I have tried to convince people with my own words and flattery. I have made promises that God doesn’t make in an effort to win people over. In v. 3 Paul says his appeal for the Gospel does not come from impurity or attempt to deceive. I have had to check my heart on this many times and I would encourage you to do the same.

DMR’s Become Shared Lives

Like a gentle, nursing mother who cares for her children, Paul had a strong affection for the people in the church at Thessalonica. His affection for them was so strong he says he didn’t just want to share the Gospel, but he wanted to share his life with them as well. They were so dear to him he wanted to share his own self with the church. Like a mother who cares that deeply for her children and is that involved in daily life with her kids. There are a lot of practical questions that come along with this.

How much time do I give?

How do I share my life with them?

What does that look like?

Are they in my house everyday?

Will I never be an empty-nester?

Those are questions for another blog post, but for now some of you may need to pause and wrestle with Paul’s words here. What does it look like for you to be so affectionate toward those you are discipling that you aren’t just giving them a meal to sustain them for the next few days, but you are sharing your life with them?

DMR’s Come With Direction

Paul had to charge those he was discipling by telling them the direction to go or the manner in which they should go. He writes in v. 11, 12 about treating the relationship like a father to his children, exhorting and encouraging. The DMR doesn’t just need a motherly touch (previous point), but sometimes it needs a charge. It needs a mission. It needs guidance. It needs to be pointed in the right direction. Like a father directing his children, so a disciple maker must direct those they are discipling.

What do my kids need from me today?

Where am I noticing they might be a little off?

How can I support them?

How can I encourage and charge them to walk in a manner worth of God today?

These types of questions become practical and helpful in the DMR. There is a balance between the previous two points about being nurturing and encouraging in a certain direction. If both elements are not present, you don’t have a complete DMR. Are you leaning in to one because it’s who you are naturally to the exclusion of the other side of the relationship? In other words – are you too harsh on those you are leading and forgetting to be gentle and share your life? Or are you sharing life so well that no one is on mission because they are enjoying food at your table? Balance the two.

DMR’s Produce Great Joy

Paul couldn’t wait to see them face to face. He was so eager to get back to his people. They brought him so much joy. He does write that Satan hindered them from being face to face sooner. I think this is a prophetic text about COVID and ZOOM. Pretty sure that’s in the original somewhere.

Not only did the relationship result in great joy for Paul, but it was also his boast before Christ. When Christ returns, what would Paul boast about? He would boast about these people. His hope and joy and crown of boasting before Jesus was the disciples.

The more I disciple, the more joy I get out of seeing what my disciples do than what God is doing through me individually. It’s a lot like this in life. I loved sports and got a lot of joy out of being the fastest person in my high school and college. I got a lot of joy out of my accomplishments. But I get even more joy out of my children’s accomplishments. When they do something great I stick my chest out a little bit more, I stand a bit taller, I smile a bit bigger. They are my hope, crown and joy.

And in disciple making, my disciples are the same. Wow! Did you see what God did with them. I’m so proud. Do your disciple making relationships results in that kind of joy?

There is much more to be written on disciple making relationships and I am sure I will write on that in the future. For now, a simple read through 1 Thessalonians 2 gives a strong picture of what a DMR should look like.

As you read, what do you see?

What other characteristics jump out at you?

What do you think God wants you to do differently as a result?

Source: A Snapshot of a Disciple Making Relationship

The post A Snapshot of a Disciple Making Relationship appeared first on Passion for Planting.

A mentorship relationship starts with purpose and intentional relationship. Kevin stated that, “More time with fewer people is greater kingdom impact.”

At Radical Mentorship, their mentorship groups are high commitment, as they call their participants to application and high standards. Radical Mentoring’s groups meet once a month for three hours at the homes of mentors instead of asking for weekly meetings. This cadence of meeting has been found to help participants go deeper in their relationships with each other.

Mentees get homework that applies to spiritual development, and they do one-on-ones with other men in the group in between monthly sessions. The success of this mentorship program comes down to the accountability and standard, the quality of the mentors, and the willingness of mentees to do the work and be transparent.

A best practice around mentor and mentee relationships is that the mentors have a season of life experience that is ahead of the mentees. That experience gap allows a mentor to speak into the lives of their mentees in many ways. It’s also helpful to keep groups demographically similar and in the same season of life. However, you might have younger individuals at your church who are old souls and have perspectives on life and faith that might be helpful for guiding others. In these cases, you have the opportunity to pair a younger mentor with an experienced mentor to co-lead a group.

Our current context in dealing with COVID-19

We’re all in a strange time where we are trying to figure out what relationship looks like for our people. Engaging people can sometimes be difficult, and we’re heading into a season where some people are apt to be even more disconnected.

There are three types of people in this environment:

Those who have to be alone due to self-isolation or quarantine.Those who choose to be alone. Maybe they have been travelling and don’t know how to engage in community, so they actively decide to pull themselves out of relationship.Those who are at home but are still alone because they’re normally gone all the time and don’t know the people in their own homes.

There is no playbook or textbook for this. Kevin noted that someone has got to make the first move when it comes to connection. If you’re waiting for someone to call you, they’re likely on the other end waiting for you to call them. Pick up the phone and call your people, whether that’s those who you mentor, your fellow small group or Bible study members, the youth you normally connect with on a weekly basis, or your accountability partners. Just start picking up the phone.

Sometimes it’s not best to text; seeing faces and hearing voices is a greater level of connection. That goes for leaders as well. It’s important for us to get in front of our people and get face to face. We can all be practically leveraging the technological tools we have access to.

For those mentoring many individuals, just start working down the list by calling them to check in. Leverage technology by setting up Zoom or Facebook video calls, one-on-one Facetimes, etc. Create a sense and place of community where your group can connect with each other in a meaningful way. If you are connecting with a group that has history together, it’s a lot easier to have those video chats and conversations and intentionally ask people are doing. People share more easily when they’re known, and when you’re known it gives some permission for your group to lean in and ask some questions.

In times like these, it’s easy to sink into using technology to escape from reality in unhealthy ways. It’s the easier thing to do when we just disengage or numb out. We can turn that escapism around by leaning into creating community and connection instead.

Question and Answer

How structured are Radical Mentoring’s usual monthly conversations? What are some best practices for this time?

In a typical Radical Mentoring session, there is an agenda around topics and things the group has been working through. At this point though, take the agenda and push it off to the side. You can’t do a three hour session on Zoom, so we’re transitioning to probably bi-weekly hour or hour and a half chats. Changing the cadence of check-ins might be helpful with group momentum and communication.

How can churches get started mentoring with Radical Mentoring? 

Our entry points include word of mouth, senior pastors, staff pastors, discipleship group pastors, or just a lay leader. Anyone can create an account and the Radical Mentoring team will guide people in the process. The content is all free to make coaching and material available to ministries.

Looking at the coming weeks, is there anything we should be thinking about in the area of keeping churches plugged in and connected? 

Online church has almost reminded us of the power of community. In light of the fact that we can’t worship with a community of believers, we are now craving that worship and conversation together. Maybe the busyness shift might recalibrate us to help us see the power of community and not use online church to as an easy way to just do church and move on to our other activities.

For the church right now, it’s communicate, communicate, communicate. It’s the authenticity of seeing the pastor off the stage talking about how this time is impacting him or her personally. Everyone’s off the platform now to some degree. Churches are doing worship nights online. It’s not a production, it’s just a person with a guitar. It’s raw, it’s real, it’s authentic, that coming down off the stage and offering ways to be real and connect. Ensure your people have the tools and know how to leverage some of the technology that can bring them together. You don’t want to lose your grip on your people right now; you don’t want them to drift.

Do you have/know of any resources or have any recommendations (outside of the typical video or Zoom calls) for maintaining those groups and connections in a time like this? The reality is it’s really about forcing ourselves into the habits of reaching out to people. Pick up the phone and call to ask how you can pray for them. Right now it’s about doing anything you can to engage your people. Be as creative as you can. These connection points can be both high tech and high “touch,” though—not actual touch though, of course. The idea of doing video or phone calls is great, but this can also be about finding those alternative but allowable methods to connect, including ways to check-in and serve others:

Set up a competition or scavenger hunt for your group on group text or using an app like GooseChase, where you take pictures around your home or town, and then meet up at a location at the end and check in with how people are doing (while practicing social distancing or whatever the current protocols are for your locale) Serve with organizations and initiatives such as Boxes of Hope or other initiatives and efforts going on in your community to meet needs Hide Easter eggs for the young families at your church while respecting whatever the current guidelines are for your church or community

Looking to the future beyond all this, what does it look like for Radical Mentoring?

There are some core things that will never be replaced. We are leveraging technology to engage in a time that calls for it. However, you can’t replace that face to face communication and community. That will likely never change. We are learning things and having conversations about other ways to use technology in the interim, including the variety and frequency of connection to maintain the momentum of our groups.

Track with Radical Mentoring

radicalmentoring.com

Create a free profile to access all of Radical Mentoring’s content today!

Source: Continuing Intentional Community in a Socially Distant World

The post Continuing Intentional Community in a Socially Distant World appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by unSeminary: Thanks for joining for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have Kadi Cole, who serves as a church consultant, with us today.

Kadi has served in full-time ministry for about 20 years and worked with her Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. During a period of intense church growth, Kadi was appointed to research multi-site in its early days and gathered the information needed to help her church launch their first campus. She now works to help churches with leadership development.

Kadi is with us today to talk about what she’s been learning regarding women leading in the church.

Stained glass ceiling. // A big challenge to think about regarding women or any minority in leadership roles is the stained glass ceiling. These are invisible barriers that are structural or cultural that women run into as they are trying to advance in leadership.Find the discrepancies. // One of the easiest steps to take is to look at how you are paying and giving titles to everyone on your team. There may be a lot of pay and title discrepancies in your church, without your realizing it. Consider a man and a woman who may have the same role targeted in slightly different ways. Are they being paid equally? Do they have the same titles with the same authority and weight in the church?Sticky floor. // The opposite of the glass ceiling is the “sticky floor” and a lot of women run into this problem. The sticky floor is when women hold themselves back because of internal mindsets and biases they have against their own gender based on things they can or cannot do or where they belong. You can do a real service to the women in your whole church body when you approach them and help them see themselves as leaders.Take two for development. // Kadi recommends to always take two people with you when working on mentoring or leadership development. Leadership development often includes meetings or traveling out together to places such as the hospital to visit with people. But instead of taking just one person with you on these trips, take two—a male and female, two males, two females. It prevents the being alone situation and gives more people the chance to learn leadership development. Develop female leaders. // Kadi’s book Developing Female Leaders: Navigate the Minefields and Release the Potential of Women in Your Church gives male pastors and leaders an inside look into how women are thinking and how they can leverage their great leadership potential in your church. Churches are 61% women, but leadership roles are less than 10% women. There is a lot that can be done to develop women that are leading in ministry and Kadi’s book provides tips for how to work on this in your church.

You can learn more about Kadi at her website www.KadiCole.com and learn more about the book at www.developingfemaleleadersbook.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Remodel Health

The benefits platform designed for faith-based organizations.

Download their Health Insurance Buyer’s Guide for churches.

Source: Developing Leaders (Regardless of Gender) at Your Church with Kadi Cole

The post Developing Leaders (Regardless of Gender) at Your Church with Kadi Cole appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Jim Putman: If you feel like you are not qualified to be a disciple or a disciple-maker, welcome to the majority – good disciple-makers don’t start out ready – we become ready as we start out. In my post Six Habits Of An Effective Disciple Maker I talk about the importance of establishing habits in your life that will move you forward as a disciple.

The truth is, if you don’t cultivate your mindset you will walk through your life in reaction mode. You will be responding to your day as it plays out, rather than intentionally incorporating actions and decisions that will lead you towards your core values. To cultivate means to prepare the ground. When we prepare the ground of our mindset for the seeds of discipleship, God will be able to plant and harvest so much more from our days!

With that in mind, I have put together some questions and prompts to help you intentionally frame your mindset and lens for the day towards discipleship.

Ask God for wisdom and insight:

We can’t even begin to direct our mindset towards spiritual things without the help of the Holy Spirit. The default human mindset does not automatically think of others and their needs first – we have to intentionally renew our mind with Gods word and through prayer. In the book of James we are told to ask God for wisdom, and he will give it to you. If we start every morning off by asking him for wisdom and insight we have a much better chance of viewing things throughout our day through a spiritual lens rather than the lens of flesh. Ask God to show you who he wants you to serve, who he wants you to invite, who he wants you to pursue. And then be sure to watch and listen for His direction.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you”. James 1:5

Jim Putman, author of this blog, is writing a new book called The Death of Discipleship about the dynamics of pride and humility in the discipleship process. Download the free primer for this book here.

Who is missing?

Sometimes we get so caught up in our busy lives that people we care about may fall off the grid without our noticing. When people go through struggles or trials, an automatic response is often to withdraw and isolate. This response may be automatic, but it is seldom what is best for the person involved. When we isolate ourselves from others, there is a greater chance that we start making up stories in our head not based in fact. For instance – even when we are the ones in withdrawal, we begin to think that no one cares, or that we have no value because no one is reaching out to us. In some cases, depression can even set in. Take time every day to think through the people you are connected with and in relationship with. Determine the last time you touched base with them and how they were doing. This simple action each day may prompt you to send a text or make a phone call that could be a literal game-changer in someones week.

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? Luke 15:4

How/Who can I serve?

As you go through your day, look around and try to take notice of who you could serve through your actions or your words. It may mean returning papers at work to someone who left them behind at the copy machine. It could be telling the barista at the coffee shop that her smile brightened your day. Maybe you let someone with fewer items take your place in line at the store – (or maybe even someone with more items and a crying child!)

It takes so little sometimes to make a difference in someones day – and we never know what a small seed we plant can grow into in the Kingdom of God. If we can just take our eyes off of ourselves and our own agenda sometimes and look around with intention, God will show us a number of ways he would like us to step in and be Jesus for the people around us. And that is the starting place of Real Life Discipleship.

“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Galatians 6:10

Who can I invite to go with me?

When Jesus was here on the earth, he was always inviting his disciples to go places with him. To weddings, to funerals, to impromptu picnic’s where he provided the food – Then when he began to send his disciples out to do ministry without him, he sent them in pairs. Discipleship is really better caught than taught. Every time we go ‘do’ something it is an opportunity to either model some aspect of discipleship to someone we are leading, or to go deeper in relationship with someone we are getting to know.

Think through your calendar – are you signed up to take a meal to a small group member who had surgery? Take a new small group member with you – you will have time to connect during the drive and the new member will get a better idea of what it means to depend on and support each other as a body. Are you spending family night at home playing games? Invite one of your kids teen friends who has a dysfunctional home life. Give that friend love and acceptance and a look at what family the way God intends it to be looks like. Volunteer to go pick up coffee’s for everyone at your office and ask a co-worker you’ve wanted to connect with to come along and help carry them.

People often talk about not having time for discipleship, not realizing that we can layer so much of into what we already do by just inviting someone to go along.

“Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.” Mark 6:7

Who can I tell about my life with Jesus?

It can sometimes be intimidating to think about sharing “The Gospel” – but the meaning of that term in the Bible is actually “Good News”. And I don’t know about you, but most people don’t have a problem sharing good news with each other. That is much of what social media is populated with (along with a lot of complaining and arguing…) I once heard someone say: “People can argue with your theology, but they can’t argue with your testimony.” and it really resonated with me. I have no problem telling someone that I wasn’t such a great person before God came along and changed me. Or mentioning that He took care of me when I was sick by sending my Life Group to help. I love telling people about how God has used tough circumstances to bring me closer to him, and I also have no problem telling someone I will be praying for them when they are struggling. I have found that even people who profess unbelief will accept prayers on their behalf when they have hit bottom.

Even if you don’t feel confident in your Bible knowledge, you are probably pretty certain about what God has done in your life. When we share those things with others, we are sharing the good news about our relationship with Jesus and what he has done for us – and that is the core of the Gospel. Sometimes even something so small as an offer to pray for someone can open up a conversation that might not have happened otherwise. And that is a start. Make it a goal to share something every day about what God is doing in your life.

“Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. Luke 8:39

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” Peter 3:15

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes reach the end of the day and realize there were opportunities that I walked right by that would have been more important long term than the things I was walking towards. I think spending a few minutes every morning going through questions like this will help us to walk through our day with a heightened awareness for the opportunities that God may be placing in our path.

Written by Jim Putman

This was originally posted on Jim Putman’s blog here. Used with permission.

Photo by Bryan Minear on Unsplash

The post Get a Discipleship Mindset Each Day with 5 Questions appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Get a Discipleship Mindset Each Day with 5 Questions

The post Get a Discipleship Mindset Each Day with 5 Questions appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Warren Bird: Who mentored you or believed in you before you believed in yourself? That person is your Hero Maker!

If you pick a recent day from your calendar, and review the ways you spent your time that day, how much were you the hero and how much did you make heroes of others? It’s easy to let the spotlight come to ourselves, but it’s so much more strategic to make heroes of other people that God is using on the front lines of ministry. Everybody wants to be a hero, but few understand the power of being a hero maker.

In Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders, you will learn how to bring real change to your church and community by developing the practical skills to help others reach their leadership potential.

Drawing on five powerful practices found in the ministry of Jesus, Hero Maker presents the key steps of apprenticeship that will build up other leaders and provides strategies for how you can activate gifts, help others take ownership, and develop a simple scorecard for measuring your kingdom-building progress.

Besides rich insights from the Gospels, Hero Maker is packed with real-life ministry stories ranging from paid staff to volunteer leaders and from established churches to new church plants. A practical tool accompanies each of the five practices, with several illustrations for how to use it.

Whether you lead ten people or ten thousand, Hero Maker will not only help you maximize your leadership, but in doing so you will also help shift today’s church culture to a model of reproduction and multiplication. The book, which has already made #1 ranking on three Amazon bestseller lists (see below), makes a compelling case that God’s power and purpose are best revealed when we train and release others, who in turn do likewise.

Become that rare breed of leader who brings change into our world by sacrificially investing in others who become the heroes. By becoming a hero maker, you will join a movement of influencers that are impacting hundreds, thousands and perhaps millions of people around the world.

Dave Ferguson is lead author, and I got to be his co-author. Besides being a board member at Leadership Network, Dave is lead pastor of Community Christian Church with 11 locations across Chicago, visionary behind a church planting network of 1,200+ churches, and president of the Exponential church multiplication conference.

Both of us feel this is our most significant book to date. For free materials to use with the book, see HeroMakerBook.com.

The post Are You More a “Hero” or “Hero Maker,” According to Your Calendar? appeared first on Leadership Network.

Source: Are You More a “Hero” or “Hero Maker,” According to Your Calendar?

The post Are You More a “Hero” or “Hero Maker,” According to Your Calendar? appeared first on Passion for Planting.

Source: 6 Mistakes I Made as a Church Planter

The post 6 Mistakes I Made as a Church Planter appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Brandon Cook: John Ortberg asked his mentor Dallas Willard what it would take to live the kind of life Dallas was always talking about—a life caught up in the goodness of God, a life lived from the kingdom of God, an abundant life of prayerful love. In short, the life of a disciple.

Dallas paused for a moment and said, “John, you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

John wrote that down and said, “Okay, I got it, what else?”

Long pause.

“That is all. There is nothing else.”

That’s Dallas Willard for you. But…how can that be all there is? At the risk of trying to speak for Uncle Dallas, perhaps what he meant, in part, is this: All of God’s abundance is there. The grace, the power, the resource of God has already been given. You simply need to become aware of it. And you become aware—and you become transformed—by slowing down. You must slow down into the life of God.

Blog Reader’s Discount on the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum

Discipleship starts with hearing the whisper of God’s Spirit which whispers “yes” and “draw near.” The whisper of adoption by which God reveals that, in him, “we’re in” and he is with and within us.[1] But there is little hope of staying grounded in this whisper, let alone growing in our hearing of it, if we have no quiet in our souls to receive it. It is like seed, and if the thorn of our inner life is over-grown with stress and anxiety, the seed will get choked out. Or, it will find no place to land in the first place.

Similarly, if we can’t hear the whisper of God, there will be little energizing power from the Spirit of God filling our lives to love others as disciples. And we will have little resource left for hearing and responding to Jesus’ guiding voice in our lives. In other words, we can’t live into the three pictures of discipleship if our souls are constantly in a hurry.

Each picture becomes a reality only when we have space to hear the whisper of the Father’s love, the whisper of Jesus inviting us to make present the Kingdom for others, and the whisper of the Holy Spirit, empowering us to listen and respond. Without The Slow Life, we have a hard time hearing these whispers and thus, experiencing the transforming goodness of God. The Slow Life is, quite simply, the cornerstone of spiritual life and the foundation for all other spiritual practices.

Written by Brandon Cook

Brandon Cook is the lead pastor at Long Beach Christian Fellowship and a co-founder of The Bonhoeffer Project. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, he studied at Wheaton College (IL), Jerusalem University College, Brandeis University, and The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He worked as a professional storyteller before joining a transformational training organization and moving to SoCal in 2006, becoming a pastor three years later. Over the course of five years of pastoring, he became convinced that his work—and the work of the church—is to become fully committed to discipleship and making disciple-makers. The Bonhoeffer Project is for him a quest to live into the question “How are people transformed to live and love like Jesus?”

[1] See, for example, Galatians 2:20

Blog Reader’s Discount on the 2017 National Disciple Making Forum

Photo by José Martín Ramírez C on Unsplash

Source: Unhurriedness: A Cornerstone of Spiritual Life

The post Unhurriedness: A Cornerstone of Spiritual Life appeared first on Passion for Planting.

By Lee Kricher:

Our church needed to make a tough decision. In the fall of 2003, I became Senior Pastor of Amplify Church, an evangelical church in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Weekend attendance had been in steady decline for several years and was hovering around 200 people. We were on an interest-only plan with our bank because we could not afford the monthly mortgage payments on our church building, which was deteriorating after years of neglect. But what alarmed me most was that the average age of those attending the church was just about my age at the time—50 years old.

My definition of a “new generation church” is one where the attendees’ average age is at least as young as the average age of the community in which the church meets. Since the most recent census indicated that the average age of those in the neighborhoods served by our church was 35 years old, Amplify Church was definitely not a new generation church. We could not allow the presence of a handful of young families and children in regular attendance blind us to the fact that we were one of the fastest dying churches in the city.

We decided to put our hearts into becoming a new generation church. This was not an easy decision. We knew that our approach to church had to change in many ways if we were going to lower the average age of our members and attendees by 15 years. Though our core beliefs and values would remain unchanged, everything else had to be “on the table” for possible change – every program, every ministry, every tradition and every practice.

The framework for change we employed was fivefold: adopt a new mindset, identify the essentials, reduce the distractions, elevate your standards, and build a mentoring culture. These strategies, along with specific corresponding actions, are detailed in the book, For a New Generation: A Practical Guide for Revitalizing Your Church.

First Steps

What are the best first steps to take when a church wants to get connected or re-connected with the next generation? Here are a few things that made a difference for Amplify Church:

1. Identify the average age of your neighborhood/community and compare it with the average age of those attending the church. Determine to do whatever it takes to close the gap.
2. Take key staff or lay leaders on “field trips” to healthy churches that have every generation well represented.
3. Regularly weave into weekend messages the importance of reaching the next generation.
4. Proactively engage church members in one-on-one discussions and conversations in small groups about the importance of becoming agents of change instead of blockers of change.

The Importance of a Mentoring Culture

Foundational to building a new generation church is a commitment to develop young leaders. This is not only critical for churches in decline, but also for churches determined to avoid decline! That is the primary reason that I asked a number of our key leaders to join me as participants in a Leadership Network cohort that focused on creating a Leadership Development strategy. With the help of Brent Dolfoand the Leadership Network team, we framed a document titled Leadership Development at Amplify Church (click to download). It affirms that “the primary role of every leader is to develop other leaders” and that “the leaders of tomorrow are already here.” It also reinforces the importance of shoulder tapping, shadowing and interning in order to build a mentoring culture and pave the way for “perpetual” church revitalization.

The Transformation

I was hoping that our multiple-year journey would go smoothly, but change seldom does. The concept of re-connecting with the next generation was well received, but when things started to change in order to actually reach young people, about one third of current attendees left. One of our top givers said to me, “The kids you are trying to reach don’t have checkbooks.” Then, to my dismay, he added, “If you go through with these changes, I’m leaving the church and my checkbook is going with me.”

Fortunately, most people did not respond in this manner. They began to embrace the hope that our church could more effectively reach the next generation. Their hope was realized as new people started to attend our church. Within two years the average weekend attendance doubled from 200 to more than 400 people. Within five years, our average weekend attendance exceeded 600 people. And 14 years after embarking on our journey, the average weekend attendance at Amplify Church exceeds 2,000 people. Even more significantly, the average age of those attending is just under 35 years old. Every generation is well represented for the first time in many, many years. We have been transformed into a new generation church.

As Scripture calls us: “We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about his power and his mighty wonders” (Psalm 78:4 NLT).

Lee Kricher is now in his fourteenth year as pastor of Amplify Church, with three locations across Pittsburgh. He is also author of For a New Generation: A Practical Guide for Revitalizing Your Church, available at foranewgeneration.com.

Original Post: Making Our Church the Same Age as Our Neighborhood

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