Hardy Clemmons and I were serving churches in same city several years ago. Our churches were about the same size, except Hardy was doing much better than I was.
My leadership style was frantic, even manic. I jumped from one fire to another. I was becoming a pretty good fire fighter, but Hardy seemed to understand what you had to do to stop fires from getting started in the first place. His leadership was calm and purposeful. Hardy seemed to know where he was going and how he was going to get there.
Hardy knew something I didn’t know and I wanted to find out what that was. So, I asked him to lunch. During our conversation about the ups and downs of leading a local church, I realized their was a lot I didn’t know. I asked Hardy if he would help me and he agreed.
Hardy was my first mentor. We met twice a month and talked about everything. We talked about life, marriage, grace, disappointment, vision, strategy, preaching and caring for our congregations. We talked about spiritual disciplines and how to let things go. We talked about how you deal with failure and more importantly, how to deal with success.
Hardy became my advocate, my friend, my challenger, my interrogator, and my coach. He had this amazing ability to become whoever I needed him to be during that part of my journey. Some of the deepest and most profound moments of my life happened in my conversations with Hardy. I will be forever grateful for him agreeing to take me on as a protege. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about something he said or quote him outright.
The fallacy of the way we train our ministers is we assume because they have graduated from seminary and been ordained by their home church that they are ready to lead a local congregation. They aren’t.
Doctors aren’t ready to practice medicine when they have graduated medical school. They’re assigned residencies. They work with other doctors to learn how to actually do what doctors do in real life.
We should require the same of our ministers. Graduating seminary should be your first step in your ministerial training. Graduating ministers should be required to serve along other pastors to learn the nuances of effective pastoral leadership. There are things about leading a local congregation pastors can’t learn from books or academic conversations. Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved my seminary experience, but there are things you encounter in local ministry you never encounter in seminary. Either someone has to give you the hands on training or you’ll learn it the hard way.
In establishing the Engage Church Network, we’re working to connect young pastors with established pastors who can mentor them as they begin serving local churches. We want young pastors to have the support and backing they’ll need to succeed.
This isn’t anything new. We’ve always done it this way. Moses trained Joshua. Elijah trained Elisha. Jesus trained Peter and Peter trained Mark. Paul trained Timothy and Titus. Hardy trained me and I trained Jay, Aaron, Matt, David and Wade. They are training the next generation of leaders.
The future success of the church in North America depends on the establishing of a leadership pipeline for local churches. Every pastor has to understand that half of their calling is to identify and train the next generation of leaders.
Every Paul makes a Timothy just like every Hardy makes a Mike.
Need a Next Step?
Join us for an one-day-conference on August 29th- Every Paul Makes a Timothy!
When: Thursday, August 29, 2024
Where: Brentwood Baptist Church
Who: Retired + Current pastors of all ages
Price: Free!
