There's more and more talk these days about the importance of a church leadership pipeline. And for good reason– although you won't find the metaphor of a leadership pipeline in scriptures, you will find the robust practice of leadership pipeline building in both the Old and New Testaments, including Jesus himself. (I will show these in my next posts.) Before uncovering six essentials I want to share a brief overview of my journey in understanding and applying a leadership pipeline in the local church.
- My journey started in 1999 when I served as the pastor of spiritual formation and leadership development at Clear Creek Community Church. At the time, I was one of the few pastors I could find in the country who was given significant time to think about and practice leadership development in a growing megachurch context.
- In 2002-2004, I spent time with Aubrey Malphurs and began a transition for local church ministry to trans-local ministry as I began coaching and consulting with other churches. Aubrey invited me to co-author Building Leaders (get your free chapter here) which published in 2004.
- In 2004-2013, I was most significant influenced by Mac Lake, who was in a dedicated leadership development role at Seacoast Church while they were running 10,000 in attendance. A few new books came out, including Ram Charan's book, The Leadership Pipeline, revised in 2011 (originally published in 2000). Mac Lake created a 4-part construct (structure, system, content, people) built around a simple picture, adapted from Ram Charan's book. Even though Aubrey and I cover the same principles in Building Leaders, Mac's re-application of the pipeline drawing added break-thru value for me personally and the churches I was consulting.
- Since 2013, Auxano has offered Leadership Pipeline, a 6-month, onsite service. After watching many churches talk and talk and talk about leadership development but not achieving break-thru at a cultural level, Mac joined the Auxano team to lead the development of a 6-month intensive to design, build and implement a leadership pipeline. We are now working with our first 50 churches, and are seeing tremendous results with a growing toolbox and significant revisions significantly in the first three years. (Interested churches can learn more about our 6-month process, which includes 3 days onsite, coaching calls, milestones, worksheets and a 100-page plus notebook for your entire staff for $19,500 all expenses included. We also do a 6-month track when 8-12 or more churches can pool together in a city to cover a similar price point together at one tenth the cost.)
- Recent Developments: I am excited that my friends Eric Geiger and Kevin Peck are releasing a book on leadership development this October, entitled Designed to Lead that will no doubt be the best work on leadership development and the church. Both of these men are anointed church leaders with incredible integrity, capacity and wisdom. In addition, a team at LifeWay, led by Todd Adkins, will be taking our Auxano process and applying it to churches in a one-day intensive one-day plus coaching at a lower price point with integrated resources with the Ministry Grid. This LifeWay Leadership powered by Auxano will be released shortly. Follow the LifeWay Leadership podcast and sign-up for the first Leadership Pipeline Conference in Nashville this year. I look forward to seeing you there.