[00:00:00] A very, very small percentage of the people that are coming into ordination are what we did, going to a campus somewhere for two and three years to either do a Master of Theology or a Master of Divinity. Part of the equation of where are these future pastoral leaders is, like, we're rebuilding, I think, an entire imagination for people becoming pastors and how that actually happens.
[00:00:26] Welcome to episode 447. Many denominations are reporting that there are hardly any young leaders or pastors stepping into congregational ministry. Research from LifeWay says that the average age of pastors is now 55 years old. We're talking with Jonathan LaBarge about the pastoral leadership crisis in the U.S. and what we can start to do about it. That's today on The Reclaimed Leader. Welcome to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. I'm Jason Tucker.
[00:00:55] And I'm Jesse Skiffington. We're two pastors in the trenches who are passionate about church health for greater gospel impact. We share the ups and downs of ministry, strategies that work for us, and some that didn't. Best practices and practical tools for church leadership. The goal? To help all of our churches flourish. Let's get started. Hey everyone, welcome back to The Reclaimed Leader Podcast. It is great to be with you again.
[00:01:22] And thank you so much for listening. Thanks for taking your time. I hope this podcast is helpful to you and to your church. Our whole goal, as we say in the intro, is just to help each other kind of cultivate healthy churches, to partner with God and what He's doing in our communities, in our world. And Jesse, I love our conversation today. And a guest that we know well, a friend of ours from Seminary Days.
[00:01:47] So it's great. Talking all about really a giant problem right now. And that is the lack of young folks going into pastoral ministry and the sort of void that that has created. But I think this is a good start to a conversation that we're actually going to cover over a couple of episodes. So anyway, we're excited that Jonathan's on with us. Super important to talk about.
[00:02:12] And I think a lot of us know about this or it's running kind of under the, you know, in the undercurrent here and there. But it's something that the longer we're in ministry, I think the more attentive we are to this conversation. Because we're like, wow, at some point we'll have to pass the baton to the next generation of leaders. And will there be anybody to hand the baton to? And what's that going to look like? And so, yeah, I'm excited for this series of conversations on pastoral leadership and what we might call a crisis in the U.S. Where are our future leaders going to come from?
[00:02:42] And how are we doing as churches, as denominations, identifying and developing and then launching those people into ministry? So looking forward to that. We're getting into a conversation today with a seminary buddy of ours, Jonathan LaBarge. And we go way back now, Jason. I mean, I think we can use those words. We go way back. We can say way back. It's been a while. It's been a bit since we were back in our seminary days. We were flag football champions, as we note every time. Important to note. You're going to hear that a lot as you listen to this episode. I know.
[00:03:12] But you should. It's a badge of honor. Because we don't have a lot to hang our hats on and successes to point back to, maybe. We got to cling to our high school football days or something. So anyway. It's not just a participation trophy, by the way. That's right. It's a legit championship. We did win. It was good. It was an important mile marker in our lives, I think. Apparently. Yeah, apparently. Right. But Jonathan's awesome. Jonathan serves as a pastor of River of the Valley Church in the LA area and does a great job.
[00:03:41] We've talked to him about sort of cross-cultural, intercultural community in the church and leading change and some of the stuff over the years that we've kind of walked with him and talked with him about here on the podcast. But this time he's coming on to talk about leadership wearing a little bit different hat. So Jonathan comes to us as the co-director of ordination for ECO, for the denomination. And he's right on the ground floor seeing what's going on with who are the people that
[00:04:10] are coming into the ordination process? What are we noticing about them? Are they younger? Are they older? And we're going to hear a little bit about that from Jonathan as he shares with us. Going to get a little sneak peek at the ordination process in ECO, which we get to hear about. And then we're just kind of talking shop on leadership, Jason, trying to figure out how do we as local churches, as pastors, how do we, what's the part that we need to play in this whole emerging leadership conversation? So can't wait to get into it with Jonathan. Yeah.
[00:04:40] So, so let's do it. Let's get right to it. Here's our conversation with Jonathan LaBarge. Well, so good to have Jonathan Labarge back on the podcast. I think, is this third, third time, fourth time? Something along those lines. Yeah. Third, maybe. Yeah. A frequent flyer, but it's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a little bit. Yeah. He got me back on the plane. Yeah. Fun to have an excuse to have you back on. We're going to talk leadership and leadership pipelines.
[00:05:08] And, you know, we kind of all know some of the challenges that maybe are coming down the road for churches and church leadership. But before that, just welcome back, man. Tell us a little bit about what you're up to now. And yeah, how are things? Yeah. Well, I'm a pastor in Los Angeles. And most of my time is spent doing that. I've been there now 14 years. So kind of a long-term thing there.
[00:05:31] And then two years ago, I also took on a position national level with ECO, the nomination. And I've been doing that now as the co-director of ordination for the past several months. And yeah, so a lot of my time is spent in those two spheres and still have an amazing family.
[00:05:57] Whenever I'm thinking about putting something down about who I am, I always want to put the top like great at choosing a wife because I got like the best. So yeah, but things are going really well. God in his mercy brought Christy into your life. God in his abundant mercy. I love it. You know, Jason and I were talking leadership stuff. And for years, we've been having these conversations. And 14 years in, I'm 17 here at Marine View in different hats that I've worn.
[00:06:26] And Jason, is it how long? 14 as well. 14 as well, right? So all the things that need to change at our churches now are our fault, are things we can't do. That's exactly right. And I was last, a couple of weeks ago, I had like a 55 slide sermon deck. You know, I was just like, it was too many. And our new awesome young worship leader, she was just like, hey, maybe less slides.
[00:06:55] How am I going to remember all the things to say if I don't have a slide for everything? Anyway, I'm like, we're kind of, you know, we're not the young emerging leaders anymore. We've been in the trenches for a while. We've learned a lot of lessons. We've talked a lot of shop. We've done a lot of things. And hopefully that have been healthy and good for our churches and for our communities and things like that. And now we're talking about who's next. Where do we go from here and what are we seeing in leadership?
[00:07:24] And are there pipelines that we're seeing being developed for emerging leadership in the church? Or what are some of the gaps? I mean, I was getting ready for this conversation. I was kind of looking at stats and it was something like half of all pastors are over the age of 55 or something like that. And it was like, you know, there's a crisis on the horizon. And so what are we going to do? And you're, you know, director of ordination. You get a front row view to how ordination is working, who our candidates are and all that kind of thing.
[00:07:53] So anyway, thanks for coming and having a chance to talk with us. Yeah. So we wanted to dive in and just kind of start with that question about the pipeline itself. And what kind of trends are you seeing? Like, are we seeing an eco and Jason, if you know, you know, in the PCUSA world, what, what are the trends we're seeing? Who are our ordination candidates? Like, are they career people? Are these people coming out of seminary? Who are we noticing? Yeah.
[00:08:23] So the, what we're seeing is it's multi-generational. We, so we have twice a year, we have called an ordination retreat intensive where we, people are launching into our process and both times, uh, the retreats are full. So those, that's between around 20 different people coming to these retreats twice a year.
[00:08:52] So about 40 people a year are entering the process. And, and I, I, I've been consistently surprised or just, I didn't know coming in that it's very multi-generational. So we have, we have, um, like when, when we went to seminary, you forgot to say that we were all in seminary. I know. And just an aside, flag football champions. Just in case anybody's listening that needs to know. I was tempted to go up in my rafters and find a shirt and wear it today. I think that's your uncle, man.
[00:09:22] Maybe the first time might come up. Okay. Yeah. Four times. Four times. But yeah. So there's, there's a good cross section of, I would say that, you know, like just at a college straight and seminary folks to like a 25 to 30 ish group. And then there's another solid group that probably like they're, they're built to be pastors, but they didn't go to seminary right away. They started into church ministry positions, like a director position or youth ministry.
[00:09:51] So they're not actually engaging the ordination process until their mid thirties. So mid thirties to mid forties. And then I've been most surprised by, uh, like a early fifties to like early sixties cohort that we also usually have a third represented in our retreats of these folks who are second career or even like, uh, it's getting ready to, to, to wind down career in general and are
[00:10:17] taking on ordination and they want to be some form of pastoring in, in their context, or maybe, maybe they're a supply pastor. If they're in, in, in areas that have small churches that need someone to come into a pulpit supply thing. So, yeah. So I've, it's been very across the, the age spectrum. Mm-hmm. That's really interesting because, you know, again, when we were all going through seminary
[00:10:43] and it, you know, it's mostly folks who are coming from college or Bible college, going into seminary, and then they're off, you know, becoming pastors. And, you know, we were at Princeton, there was a pretty healthy size class that we graduated that went out into ministry. And, uh, recently hearing from folks, uh, I don't have a whole lot of connections at Princeton Seminary anymore, but, um, but I did sort of hear a little bit about what their stats are for graduating seminarians.
[00:11:12] And a couple of years ago, they didn't have any graduates that plan to go into congregational ministry. Or is this, is this a bigger trend that you also are seeing elsewhere? It's just young people aren't, that's not the pipeline for them at the moment. Yeah. There was a lot of things around this. Um, the seminary reality is one of them.
[00:11:34] People, no one, a very, very small percentage of the people that are coming into ordination are what, what we did going to a campus somewhere for two and three years to either to do a master of theology or master of divinity. That's just not, that's not the reality anymore. And so, um, I think that imagination is, is not there anymore.
[00:12:03] And so part of the equation of where are these future pastoral leaders is the, like we're rebuilding, I think an entire imagination for people becoming pastors and how that, how that actually happens. Like there's this, something happens where you get, get seminary education and you enter an ordination process. But I think for us, the pathway was very clear on what that would look like.
[00:12:30] And I think even for some, maybe, maybe, maybe for churches, even a pastor is I, I, I think for some of us that are serving where we don't even have a lot of clarity anymore about what that looks like. So maybe before we're like you, you pastor material. I'm sure now I think, and maybe we're even subconsciously confused about what does it look like for someone to become a pastor? What was that pathway? Hmm. I think, so I think it's also a reflection of what young adults are going through right now.
[00:12:57] You know, when we were young adults and coming up, you know, you sort of like go to high school and then you go to college and then you guys, you know, you get married, you have kids. It was a very linear kind of clear progression. And now it's, it's all over the place because of the state of the world and job market and delayed adolescence and all sorts of things going on. It's like, it's, it's a more complicated picture than ever. And I think a bit disorienting.
[00:13:23] Interestingly for, for the young adults who are looking for work, there is plenty of congregational ministry work. So that's, that's interesting to me too. There is a path to a really steady job with benefits in ministry, but they're just not taking them well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the point about emerging adulthood is really interesting too. Like people just aren't imagining themselves, sell down the career.
[00:13:48] I've also been thinking a bit about the advent of the college experience in this country and how that has impacted perhaps people imagining going to seminary. Cause I think right when our young people should be taking on meaningful positions of leadership in our churches, and perhaps that would be the bridge to them imagining being pastors and then us launching them into seminary experience, further formation or ordination process.
[00:14:18] As we were expecting now them to completely unplug from their church and move somewhere and they might plug in somewhere. Yeah. They might not. And so that, I think there's that also that critical moment where that, that sense of call would be nurtured and fed. And that's the, in that crucial moments where they detach. Yeah. No, it's interesting.
[00:14:42] I think too, in some ways we, we were still products of, of late Christendom kind of structures that allowed us to walk a certain pathway and people that carried those, those processes. But I think also some of it, I wonder about like the denominational breakdown, kind of post denominational as well. And I went from kind of a neighborhood community church, non-denominational land growing up to a Presbyterian church, UPC in Seattle, which had a really strong culture of developing leaders
[00:15:12] and then launching and casting vision for calling and around that. But I can imagine if you go from like, you grew up in a Presbyterian church, you'd go off to college, you end up attending a Baptist church or like, there's not the same kind of continuity of experience too. I've often wondered about that. So thinking about the people who are coming in as candidates, are these people who grew up Presbyterian or who are these people as far as like their background and things like that? Do you have a sense of that? Yeah.
[00:15:40] Not, there are many who are coming in that are not from a Presbyterian background. They're in the, in our process context, they, they've connected with one of our churches churches. Um, and they've come to, they've come to be convinced that this is where they should be long-term, this their fit. And then they enter the process. Uh, so there's
[00:16:03] a lot of times we are building reformed theology into people as they're going through our process because they don't have that previous exposure. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. One of the things, you know, I've been a part of some of those, uh, retreats and build a map with the candidates. I think you guys do an awesome job of that, Jonathan, of like customizing it for each person and saying, there's some general things we're all doing, but we want to work out a map for you to follow that gets
[00:16:29] you ready and ordination for ordination down the road. And one of the things that almost ends up on that every time is work around reform theology, because I think in some ways, I wonder about this other traditions, maybe non-denominational land, or maybe some of the more charismatic movements are somehow better or, uh, more effective at asking the question about calling, you know, what is the Lord calling you to? Could ministry be something? And, um, that was a question that
[00:16:57] was part of my growing up. But when I think about even the way that we operate here at Marine to you sometimes, that's not really a question that we are asking kids from a young age. So anyway, it's just a couple observations. Yeah. So when you were, when you were younger, how, like, how early was it when you were asked those? I should tell you, uh, multiple times that people would pray over me. This is, I grew up in the assemblies of God that became non-denominational and they would have a word from the Lord. Uh, you were called to lead in the church and God has
[00:17:26] his hand on your life. And I was a little skeptical, frankly, at times, because I was like, you don't even know me. Why are you know, uh, and for, when I was 14, I was at a camp and some, it was the same camp where the, you know, people were like learning to speak in tongues. Like it was just a little wacky. And so then some of that came with it. Like the Lord's hand is on your life and you're, you're going to be a, you know, called to the masses to preach the gospel or something. I'm like, okay. And, but, and the thing is that turned out to be the case.
[00:17:52] So I want to go back and it was like a casting a vision over my life, even, um, that then planted seeds in me that when those conversations came up later, when I was at UPC and Ryan church was like, Hey, have you ever thought about ministry? I was like, well, funny. You should say that a couple of times in my childhood or when I was young, people kind of wondered about that for me or said that might be something God has in mind. So I don't know. I, maybe, maybe we need to embrace
[00:18:19] some of that more. I mean, I'm getting, did you head to college expecting to go to seminary afterwards? No, I was going to law school afterwards. I tried really hard to be a major league baseball player, but I was five 11 and 160 pounds. So that didn't work out. And then my backup career was to go be a lawyer and I was going to take a gap year to go be an intern in college ministry. And, and, uh, I couldn't, couldn't shake ministry after that. Yeah. And Jason did, how early
[00:18:47] did you know? Right when I came to Christ, I, it was a call to ministry because it happened at a summer camp during staff training, uh, at a Christian camp, uh, Presbyterian camp. And I was the next day or the next week expected to lead Bible studies with 10 year olds. And so it happened at the same time. I had no idea that was coming. Was it, is that a non-denominational camp?
[00:19:15] Presbyterian camp? I can't remember the Presbyterian camp. Yeah. Okay. Well, there you go. Yeah. Well, it was a Presbyterian camp that was run by evangelicals. It was run by two Baptists. Okay. That's, that's how that happened. That's awesome. But I think what's happening with our process is people are on the, some of the people are on the French. They don't know actually if they're being called. And part of, part of the front end of our process is helping
[00:19:43] people parse that question. Yeah. So there's people that are serving in churches. I mean, I want to say a hundred percent of our people are already serving in meaningful ministry in churches as they enter our ordination process. Yeah. And they, there's, there's some of them who are clear. Yeah. Uh, ordination ministry award sacrament that this is, this is my future. And
[00:20:12] there are some of them that are still trying to decide, um, is that full ordination something that that's required? And within, within our polity, both, both, both denominations, there's, there's lay pastor, um, pathways that they could take that wouldn't require the full ordination process. So there, there's these different levels. And so a lot of people are, are hearing about what we're doing in the ordination process. Kind of what Jesse was pointing to a moment ago of, of the robust
[00:20:41] journey that we take people on. And that's, that's for some, the impetus to start the journey, just because they've heard about the intentional formation that we're bringing into it. That's, that's amazing. Oh yeah. What are some of the key components of that formation? You know, when you take them on this journey, what, what would you identify as like, these are the couple of things that really seem to move the needle for folks. So one thing that this process is assuming
[00:21:09] is that seminaries can't form a pastor by itself. What? Turn it off. Shut it down. Oh, so, um, speaking from experience. So we have, we have four main, what we call ordination outcomes and they're four, the four
[00:21:37] buckets that we're focused on. And one of them is that you're integrated biblically and theologically. So that might be more of what you would hope a seminary would be able to, to do in that formation process. But we still have, we still have ways that we, we hone in on that. The other three, um, one of them is, uh, skilled in leadership. Uh, your, your, your podcast a lot of times revolves around
[00:22:05] this, right? I mean, we, we've, as pastors have a new, a new set of tools we need in our belt that didn't exist maybe 40 years ago. Um, and we're having to figure that out. So one of the entire, like four main frames for us is skilled in leadership. Uh, third one is proficient in ministry. So, you know, things like preaching, uh, administering the sacraments, uh, writing a session
[00:22:30] meeting. And then the last one is healthy spiritually and emotionally. And so that one we, we see as an, um, it's a thorough going element that if you're not healthy, spiritually, emotionally, if you're not personally growing in Christ, if you're not a disciple who is flourishing in that way,
[00:22:57] then all these other elements, who cares? So, um, so from the, from the very beginning, we make it clear that this is going to be a place where the covenant community, uh, of that tribe is going to be encouraging them in their emotional, spiritual health as they're also theological education, biblical training, uh, leadership, uh, skilled leadership training and proficient ministry.
[00:23:23] So they'll do, they'll do an initial intake interview with, with one of the co-directors of ordination and also with, uh, a mentor that the ordination, that the, uh, presbytery gives them. So the first step, let's get them already in the community. And that's where we begin to process that sense of call. And then if it, if there is the sense of call there and we're ready to go, first thing they do, Jason, is they go to a retreat and we used to just call them a retreat.
[00:23:49] And then people would come and they go, that wasn't very retreat. Like we were assessed and put under a microscope. So we changed it to retreat intensive. Appropriate description. That's good. Yeah. So it's a, it's a two and a half day retreat where there's evaluation. There is education on, uh, we, there's two retreats from the beginning, one at the end, but there's evaluation. There's also a lot of teaching to help them be better pastors moving forward around those
[00:24:17] forward nation outcomes and all the evaluation we do. Yeah. At the end, of course, we want to be able to say, yeah, this, this man or this woman is been through process and they're ready church. You can trust that they've been, they're certified ready. But for me, like the, the evaluation is for formation. So if we can help people two things, one, understand your strengths to understand your weaknesses or your growth areas because right. The strengths are typically not, we'll get us in
[00:24:46] trouble. It's a lack of awareness of our weaknesses or our growth areas. And sometimes you can't change those. It's just a matter of being aware of. So we do lots of evaluation throughout the process to help the candidates see who they are. And at the end of this retreat, every time we hear them say, wow, I feel like I've been known and cared for and challenged all at the same time.
[00:25:11] Mm-hmm. So we bring in, uh, three quarters pastors, one quarter elders about that ratio to these retreats as assessors. So if there are 20 pastor candidates coming, there are 20 pastors and elders coming from across the country. So we have 40 people there running these retreats, doing these evaluations. And by the end of all the instruments of the counselor, all the things,
[00:25:39] they get what Jesse said is a map. And that is a, a growth plan for the coming year. Plus that's awesome. Keeping in mind their strengths. How can we encourage you? How can we leverage these for you? How can we bless you by giving you opportunities? Like if you're saying you want to consider church planning, let us connect you with three church planners and your map will include like interviewing them. And then the growth areas where, where, where are you weakest? Where, where do you need to go? Where are we going to challenge you? So yeah, so the maps have some
[00:26:09] elements that are the same for everybody and then they're personalized. So everybody's own strengths, strengths, and weaknesses get built into these, into these maps. And for the next year, they're going through, uh, a spiritual formation group with three of their pastoral candidate colleagues led by one of our other eco pastors. Um, they're, they're every two weeks, um, reading things like
[00:26:32] Scazzaro's book or doing things to help hone in that emotional and healthy spirituality. Um, they'll go through the ordination exams. They, uh, they'll do a theological integration interview, which is our form of, instead of, uh, examining them on the floor of Presbytery, we do it in a, in a, in an interview form with a couple of their people. And then they come to the second retreat and it's the same thing. We
[00:26:57] bring these pastors in, these elders in, uh, it's one day longer. And, um, and by the end of this retreat, they get their certified ready. We, we bless them. We anoint them. They feel like they've been through an intense journey to get there. So when they get that final approval, there's a sense of this was not, this was not a rubber stamp. Like I had to go on a hike to get to this view. So I think it also, as I'm, as I'm looking at these candidates are coming through and then being launched,
[00:27:27] there's a deep sense of confidence in the Lord and in their covenant community of that external calling that they've been through this. And I think it's giving them, um, a strong foundation stepping out into their context. Um, I don't know. There's, there's some statistics out there about, um, people walking away from ministry in the first five, 10, 15 years. I, there's a lot of different
[00:27:54] numbers. Uh, Jesse, were you able to see any of those when you pulled up numbers? I didn't. Anecdotally, I think we could all, it is, it's not good, but, uh, from what we, what we, what we're seeing with, with our process, uh, it's now been in play for six years. There's only, there's only three people who have walked away from ministry, um, that have gone through our process. Yeah. So which retreat do you make them run the 40 yard dash? And just, oh no, that's,
[00:28:24] that's, I'm sorry. Yeah. I think for me, my observation of it, you get, you get kind of the ordination mentor at the presbytery level support there. Then the national level, you know, one of the things eco really committed to is in it really being robust in the ordination process. So we, you know, people often say that our, our constitution is the pamphlet of order because it's really thin or whatever. And, but the biggest part is discipline because we know we got to have
[00:28:49] that dialed in and then a really deep commitment to developing our ordination candidates. So people get to the end of this process. Is it an automatic yes, or do you guys have to say no sometimes, or how does that go? We, it's not an automatic yes. Um, there, there are several examples of, of just in this past retreats we had of people who had a couple more things that we wanted to see
[00:29:14] them complete before we certified them ready. Um, a lot of times what happens is at retreat one, um, deep weaknesses are found and maybe even some of the assessors are questioning if this is the right long-term fit of ordination would be the right. But instead of, instead of just saying, you're not, this isn't for you. We, we will build a map that's congruent with the amount of work that will be
[00:29:42] needed, that will be needed to be completed before you would come to retreat to it. So what happens typically is if someone's really not got that sense of calling or they're not, that's not who, who the Lord's made them to be. Then along that journey of completing the map, they realize it. Yeah. Either, you know, this is longer than I want to put work into or just with the self-reflection and with other people. So we, we, we don't have people coming to retreat to. We, we want people coming
[00:30:09] there that we have confidence they're, they're ready. Yeah. I want to make sure, um, I don't want to end the conversation without talking about this question about identifying potential candidates. So, uh, one of the things, so it sounds like your work once they're in the process is incredibly good and
[00:30:34] effective. The question is obviously there's some sort of feeder problem generally speaking in the United States with, with young people becoming pastors. How, what role should local churches be playing? Because I feel like, and I have to admit this, I feel a sense of guilt around this issue because of the, it's like, I don't want to invite a young person into a mess going on in the
[00:31:01] denomination. At least in the, in the PCUSA, there's been so much infighting over the years. I'm like, I don't want to subject somebody, somebody to that. However, there have been times when I probably should have coached young people to consider going into a path of ordination. And I just didn't from where you sit, what do you think are some things that we can be doing or that churches,
[00:31:30] what's the role for us in identifying and developing future pastors and, and church leaders? That's interesting that you say like how you framed it that way, Jason, because I'd imagine you have, you know, like Tower Hill. I just, um, I imagine you have, you have a great soil there, uh, for, for leadership formation and, and people taking next steps and next steps in leadership.
[00:31:56] Um, and that was one of the main things I was going to, I was going to say that, that question is, I think part of the reason we don't have as many candidates as we'd like to see for all the churches, um, would be our, our, the health of our, the health of our churches. If, if, if there's a church that is small yet growing and taking risks for new initiatives, I think that's where the need
[00:32:25] for leadership naturally emerges. We get a lot of our candidates from larger size churches in our denomination because they have more things going on, more people, uh, being placed into leadership positions. So that's, that's one of the challenges is a lot of mainline churches are mid to small sized. And so a lot of the ordination candidates we have, we have 130 in the process right now,
[00:32:48] but since a lot of them are thinking big church, it's hard for them to imagine serving small church settings. Yeah. But I think part of the answer is, as we're, as we're, we want more ordination candidates and what can we do on the local level? We got to get people in the game, right? We got to pass them the ball and get them in the game. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. I mean, I'm talking, even thinking to some of our conversations with Kara Powell and growing
[00:33:17] young and that stuff. It's like, I think that she calls it key chain leadership. If we're not creating meaningful leadership opportunities, how would we know to identify someone as a potential leader? And I think Jason, just knowing you guys at Tower Hill, I think there are probably those folks. And for me, sometimes when I think of the people, I'm like, maybe that was a missed opportunity to kind of help someone identify a potential call to ministry. Partly it's because I'm running in a
[00:33:43] hundred different directions and I go, that's going to be a lot of work if I say that. And now I'm responsible for cultivating that. And maybe in my better moments, I'm open to that. And other times I'm like, oh man, I don't know. So one of the things I'm wondering about too is how do we create not just discipleship pathways in the local church, but leadership pathways? And can we think in terms of both of those things? And for us, that's really a work in progress here at Marine View. And I don't
[00:34:10] know that we're necessarily succeeding at that, but when it comes to elders and people who may be called to ministry, I feel like there's a lot of room for us to grow. And yeah, I think you've identified a pretty good, interesting dilemma too. If the large churches are the ones cultivating leadership and those candidates are going, I know that system and I know that world, but being out in rural Washington at a small church, I don't know that world. And it's hard to have a vision for that.
[00:34:40] I can see how those things maybe are challenges we're facing. Yeah. And I'd say, you know, even here, so we have three who are either about to or in a process of ordination, considering ordination, but they're all over 40. So we have someone in their 50s and we have two in their 40s and
[00:35:03] you know, they're doing seminary, distance seminary and all that. And there are so many things that are good about it because they're doing that while they are still in real trenches of ministry. And that's all really good. But as far as young people go, it's like we have some leadership opportunities we try to give them in the church, but there seems to be absolutely no desire or consideration of what would it look
[00:35:28] like for ordination, you know, denominational ordination. And that's the thing. It's like, what was the magic of like a UPC that was churning out young pastors like crazy? I mean, is that just, do we just chalk it up to an era that no longer exists or is there something that we're doing that we need to remember how to do again? Yeah. I think honestly having, being a product about that is I think their,
[00:35:53] their college ministry helped a ton. There were 1200 of us in a room on Tuesday nights at 9 PM. So they had a group to pick from, but it was also a frontline thing for them. It was a top priority. Yeah. They were looking for leadership and they were looking to call people and they were looking what, what, for what God was doing. And I, I kind of, yeah, I don't know. I, I wonder if we've lost, I think you started with that imagination, Jonathan, have we lost that kind of vision and
[00:36:19] maybe those of us leading in the local church that have taken the bumps and bruises and had the scars to prove it of leading in the church. We kind of look at a young person and go, man, do I really want that for you? Maybe there's a little bit of that going on to him. Oh man, if you only knew. So yeah, man, good stuff. Yeah. Like I'm constantly, when I'm looking at stuff at our, at our church, I'm constantly thinking about who's the next person that's going to step into leadership here. Like I'm,
[00:36:48] that's my, my mind, my heart. I just want to see, and I, and I don't see a ceiling. I think sometimes too, we, um, we, we select for them what they're going to be capable of doing. Um, and I, I don't know. I, I, we used to take, don't, don't say no for people and also take the ceiling off of people. Let them, let them leave, let them take the ball in their hands and starting and starting extremely young. This is a little dot. We've been talking about this with Carol already, but like we,
[00:37:19] if we're going to launch our, our college age kids when they graduate high school, then probably means we need to get them in leadership and imagine being a pastor earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So if you were going to challenge pastors, maybe a church leader, what's something they could do right now or in the next six months that would maybe move the needle on this for, for noticing and,
[00:37:47] I don't know, cultivating emerging leadership, any challenges you'd give us? Oh, for sure. So first write down people, write down a list of people in your church that with, with you, if, if you didn't say no for them, what, what are the list of people that you're like, Hey, maybe, maybe this person would take greater steps of leadership and just, you're, you were touching on discipleship. I think discipleship and leadership formation are
[00:38:14] kind of one of the same in a lot of ways. If we're, if we're going through a robust discipleship process, then there's going to be a moment where unless you're taking on leadership, you can't go any further in your discipleship process. So, yeah. So, and then I think there's a connection between our churches willingly changing, willingly taking on new initiatives
[00:38:40] that also is connected with leadership formation and pastoral imagination. So I don't think, I also think there's a tie between like decline in mainline church or the Presbyterian. Like every, every church, I think in both of our denominations at this point is a church that needs to, to go through change and to continue to emerge in healthy ways. And I think that's also
[00:39:05] that, uh, that tilling the soil, that cultivation also is a place where leadership emerges. Yeah. So I think the, there's a connection between church health, the change, and then the raising up of the leaders, the workers in the harvest. Yeah. No, that's really good. Yeah. So then I liked your idea though. Write some names down, pray for them, look for opportunities. And you said two times, don't say no for them. Yeah. And I kind of, yeah. And don't, don't say no for them. And don't say no
[00:39:34] for me too. So I'm trying to make that connection that there's probably ways in which the Lord is already putting on our hearts as pastoral leaders, some, some change or some new initiative. And I'm wondering our reluctance to go in that direction is holding back a future leader from being able to take on a new position and it could be either in whatever you're imagining, or maybe it's something
[00:39:59] back here that you have to leave behind to go forward. Um, yeah. No, that's really good. So start something and put a young leader in charge of it and see what happens. I like it. See what the Lord does. Yeah. Jonathan, thank you so much for being with us. I wanted to, you know, if anybody kind of wanted to reach out and talk with you, what's the best way to try to do that? I know that you're super busy and, uh, you got a lot of balls in the air, but if somebody just kind of wanted to follow up with some questions, what's the best way they can do that?
[00:40:28] Yeah. We can give, we can give them my email, either one, if it's denomination stuff, you want to talk ordination or if it's pastor stuff, you want to talk pastors. Awesome. Awesome. So we'll post that on our show notes if anybody wants to follow up with you. So man, thank you so much. We're just scratching the surface, but, um, but I, I think the, the, one of my takeaways from our conversation is just, it's just reaffirming what's been on my
[00:40:53] brain a lot. And that is successful leadership handoff in the life of the church is only going to happen when we're intentional about it. It's not just going to happen organically. It's, it has to happen intentionally. And the times now, well, the times yesterday, but you know, I, you can see it coming. I mean, we have a huge succession problem and the, the pool of candidates that we have to
[00:41:22] choose from is not a deep pool anymore. And there's just a lot of struggles trying to figure out, you know, what's this handoff going to look like? And I think part of it's for those of us who have a baton to hand off, we just need to, to get somebody in the lane and to practice it, you know? Yeah. I, what was it? Was it Fletcher or green? Some of us, you know, everything you need to reach
[00:41:46] the city is already in the house. Right. Like I think we need, I think as pastors, what Jason, what you're talking about, I think we need to be also more willing to raise up the people already here. Yeah. If we're always thinking about who's going to come in and that's part of the problem. We need to be thinking about who are we raising up? Yeah, that's exactly right. I love it. Well, thanks brother. Thanks for being on with us again.
[00:42:15] Third time's a charm. I'm going to go back and look. I think it's the third time, but fourth time we got Dutch uncle shirts we're going to wear. Yeah. We should bring that. We should get a copy of it, bring it back and maybe we can distribute those if people really want. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you so much for having me guys. You are welcome. Thank you. Jesse is so good talking with Jonathan for a lot of reasons, just really good to catch up. And he is, he's such a bright guy, such a great leader, such a good.
[00:42:44] I mean, when I think of a pastor, I think, yeah, he's got a pastor's heart, man. He really does. So I'm so glad that he's doing what he's doing for the denomination and the ordination process and everything else. I'm a little uncomfortable with the amount of times the word robust came up, but yeah, we're just going to keep going. No, it was, it was awesome. And I think for me, this whole conversation is very challenging to me and very timely. So in real time,
[00:43:12] we just had our annual meeting last night and one of our big vision goals for this year is to grow younger around our leadership tables and to have more young leadership upfront in positions that are very visible. And I don't know exactly how we're going to do that, but by stating it and saying this, we're going to try to do at least that's a step. And I love the takeaway.
[00:43:37] Hey, just start making a list. Just start making a list of who were some young people that you think maybe, first of all, can you identify some ministry gifts? And then does it make sense to start exploring with them? What would it look like to go into ministry as a career? So I don't, or, or maybe part-time tent making ministry, whatever that looks like. But I don't know. How about you? What are some
[00:44:03] things? I'm right there with you, Jason. I think it's, it's the power of noticing someone and then saying something about that and wondering about it with them. And because I think about, you know, as we think about our calling, I, there might be someone who's like, wakes up one day and is like, I, I think God's calling me to be a pastor. I found most of the time it's in the context of trusted community. Somebody sees some gifts in us, just like you were saying, notices that about us,
[00:44:31] wonders about it with us, asks, what is God doing with this? Gives us opportunities to lead, knowing that we're going to make a mess probably of some kind. And it's going to be work. And that, and yet they were willing to do that with us because they wanted to see what God had in mind for our lives and what he might be calling us to. So how do we be better at doing that in our own churches as, as pastors and leaders? And then Jonathan also said something, I think that is cuts to the heart of the issue that I think is, is, is also challenging in order
[00:45:01] for us to create a pipeline of emerging leaders. We need to be healthier as a local churches. We need to be more thriving. And when that happens, when, when, when, when that's going on, you're probably more likely to see that some leaders are emerging out of that. So lots of layers to it. This is the beginning of some conversations about that, uh, this for us, but, uh, one day would be really nice for us to be able to hand the baton of leadership to the next generation and go, we can't wait to see what you're going to do. So, um, yeah, a couple of takeaways for me, but where are we going from
[00:45:31] here? Yeah. So, uh, next week it should be next next week's episode that we're going to have a conversation with two pastors, uh, who I'm connecting with through the fellowship community and Presbyterian pastors who are, have been working with a team over the last almost a year on developing a leadership pipeline to do exactly what we're talking about. It's sort of like, um,
[00:45:55] if, if Jonathan's mapping out a process, uh, I think they're kind of, they're also talking process, but it's also how do we feed young people into that? How do we identify them? How do we encourage them? How do we build them up and equip them to do that? So it's really, it's in the same lane and, uh, I'm excited to keep the conversation going. So, uh, again, man, I think, I think this is really good stuff and really important and timely. So yeah, I hope listeners, pastors, churches, I hope this is
[00:46:25] helpful for you as you're thinking through this. And, uh, because maybe at first glance, you think, you know, the problems I have in my church are big enough. I don't need to be thinking about the bigger problems, but I think, uh, this is a problem that one way or another will affect every single local church. And that is succession. Who's, who's coming up behind us? You know, all of this incredible ministry work and blood, sweat, and tears. And is there going to be somebody to hand
[00:46:51] it to, or are we going to have to hang on to 75 years old because there isn't somebody to hand it? You know what I mean? So it's going to affect every congregation at some point. Yeah. And I think that's, that's right. And at the same time, the church will go forward. The church of Jesus is not going to be in trouble. Uh, the Holy spirit is at work there, where, you know, the church in different parts of the world is growing, thriving, flourishing,
[00:47:17] and all that. And, um, I think our heart is to see that, that be, to be a part of that movement here where we are and, and to, to, to see some, some, a future that is hopeful and bright. And so that's where our hearts are with this. And I, you know, I do look around sometimes and I see younger leaders emerging and I go, there is hope. There's, there are people that the Lord is still calling into ministry. So let's, let's do our part to have that kind of mindset and have eyes to see them and
[00:47:43] to come alongside them. So can't wait to see where all this conversation goes, Jason, and as always grateful for you and all you put into making this conversation go 447. Let's go. And if anyone wants to reach out to us, Jason or Jesse at reclaimleader.com and ministry is hard. It is so much better when we do it together. Take care, everyone.