A leadership speaker we've had at Lake Forest the past couple of years has a drum he beats constantly with other church leaders - find the young eagles and let them fly.
When Larry Osborne says this, it's a way of following the example and teaching of the Apostle Paul, who exhorts Pastor Timothy this way:
2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will also be qualified to teach others.
This teaching is for every leader at every level of vocational and volunteer ministry. During our early years as a church (we're now 16 years old), Mitch and I and our elders loved giving permission to younger spiritual leaders to emerge, flap their wings, and learn to fly. This happened most markedly with Davidson students who worshipped with us and had an inkling God might be calling them to lots of ministry the rest of their lives. I just had lunch with a 10-years-ago-Davidson-grad-LFC-dude who is now planting a church with his wife in Florida.
A few years ago, as our church continued to be graced with serving more people, I conducted a personal study of consistent elements of the leadership of some of the most notable Early Church Fathers (in the 300's and 400's, leaders like St. John Chrysostom and St. Martin of Tours). What I discovered was they were all known for personal holiness, involved service to the poor, anointed biblical preaching, and the raising up of younger pastors and priests.
Now that we are maturing as 'One Church, following Jesus in three Lake Norman communities,' we are constructing what we hope will be powerful, sustained pathways for 'young eagles' to learn and experience spiritual leadership under seasoned mentors. We will continue to do this relationally and organically throughout our ministries (the best spiritual leadership development role at LFC has been when people lead a mission trip for the first time). But we are stepping up formal pathways of training as well: College Interns (summer), Ministry Fellows (college grads for two years), and EPC Church Planting Residents (post- seminary).
Monday night I hosted this crew, our summer college interns, on my back porch for dinner and conversation over Henri Nouwen's book about healthy spirituality for ministers, "In the Name of Jesus."
Our smiling interns are (from left to right) Alexandra (children's ministry in Huntersville), Alex (pastoral ministry), Ashley (youth ministry Huntersville and Davidson), Cesar (youth ministry at Westlake), and Landry (worship ministry in Davidson).
We also have two Ministry Fellows who just started (one in Missio Dei, the other at LFC-Davidson in worship and youth ministry), and an EPC Church Planting Resident (particularly assigned to LFC-WestLake) who will start in the fall (we have room for one more Resident, and also are looking for an LFC family who feels called to host our Resident to live in their home for one year).
There are a lot of things I'm jazzed about in our church family (like baptisms and new Ministry Partners and God-stories last Sunday - I was out of my mind for joy). But this LFC School of Ministry is exciting to me - just because its energizing to be around eager young eagles testing their wings, and because this is an important building block of being a long term Kingdom-building church that's not just built for our generation, but for every generation.
In your own ministry - leading a community group, mission team, men's or women's group, elder, deacon, elementary school small group, or a whole church - how about being prayerful today about applying God's Word in this way:
2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will also be qualified to teach others.
