How does a church prepare and send out leaders? That question has obsessed J.D. Greear, lead pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, for years. Why? Because his church is committed to planting churches, which naturally will need leaders.
When we asked Greear about his path to church leadership, he said, some key older men “held a crown up over my head and grew me into it,” he said. By that he meant he was entrusted with leadership responsibilities far before he felt able to shoulder them. For a church located only 30 minutes from a major Southern Baptist seminary, the challenge was to create more formal leadership development. We caught up with J.D. Greear at Exponential East in Tampa, Florida to talk about that process, and the ways a culture of sending has transformed his church.
How do you identify potential leaders within your church?
It’s a process where the initiative is on us, and the initiative is on them. We get that from Acts 13, where the Holy Spirit says to the church to separate Barnabas and Saul. So it was the church that took the initiative, but it is clear God had also been working in Paul’s life so Paul wasn’t taken off guard.
Our favorite way to identify leaders is when somebody is leading a small group ministry and it’s growing and multiplying. We like to say the principles for church planting are the same as what worked for this small-group leader; one is a microcosm of the other. So when we see somebody whose small group is growing, multiplying, making disciples, and they have the ability to preach, we say, “That’s probably a planter.”
What’s the first thing you do with that person?
We’ve got three stages beyond member: intern, apprentice, and residency.
Intern is where we take them from member to leader. Sometimes there’s [payment] for that, but sometimes it’s just a core volunteer.
Apprentice is where they are usually being paid, because they’re becoming a pastor.
Residency is a fully-funded nine-month program. We limit it to three or four people, we pour all of our energy into them, and we give them a head-hunting license where they can recruit, and take whomever they want with them.
In your process, what role does seminary play? Do you send people to seminary often?
Absolutely, we do a lot. There are certain things a seminary can provide that a church acts like it can provide, but can’t. You need to learn systematic theology, and you need to learn that from people who can teach it. You need to learn church history. Why would we want our Bible teachers to be less skilled and lesser thinkers than our doctors?
But we also recognize there’s a role the seminary can’t play. Churches produce leaders. So the best paradigm is when a church is doing what it’s supposed to do: teaching people the goals, the focus, how to be a pastor, how to teach the Word. But then the seminary is providing some of that skilled expertise.
I don’t think seminary is a requirement. For certain people, it’s just not for them. Nor do I think going to seminary makes you [a good pastor]. It can be a nice complement but the locus ought to be in the local church.
Are you sending leaders away with a portion of your congregation?
Yeah. This year it’s 153 members that were tithing to The Summit Church. They’ve already ceased tithing and have started to tithe at their new church plants. Soon they’ll all leave and move.
So you’re giving up the right to have a larger church over time?
Yes, but for every one we give away, God keeps giving more. So, am I saying I’m going to have a small church? Well right now it hasn’t worked that way. But I’m willing to have a small church.
So even though you’re giving up many people, you’re still growing. How does that work?
Movements move. People want to be a part of a movement, so that helps draw people.
But it’s also just God’s blessing. And isn’t that the way evangelism is supposed to work? We always say God is like a spiritual cyclone: he pulls you in and then pushes you right back out. So that’s all we are: just a clearing house.
Do you think that will be the standard experience for a church that tries to do this? Is it possible that a church could remain small doing all of these things?
There are some that will experience the same type of growth, and there are some for whom it’s going to be a sacrifice. But I would say in general, when a church is devoted to sending, it will not hurt, in the long-run, the attendance of the church. Sending creates movement and movement attracts people.
Did your church always have this culture of sending?
A little bit, but there were a few key turning points. I was a missionary before I was a pastor, so I always wanted to send people to the nations. But God confronted me with my idolatry: I only wanted a big church. I started to really get burdened about other parts of the city we weren’t reaching and other cities.
I said, “The New Testament strategy for completing the Great Commission is to go to strategic cities and plant churches. If I’m not going to do that personally, I’m going to raise up the people that do it.” So there were a handful of key moments where God took my eyes off of myself and my church and put them onto his glory and his kingdom.
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