It’s no secret that there’s a leadership crisis in the church today. Pastoral health, leadership pipelines, and pressure on leaders is greater than ever. Simon Harris, a member of the 5Q Leadership team and author of Wholehearted Leadership says it this way, “Church leadership faces a crisis that is impacting pastoral longevity and congregational health.”
It would be hard to overstate the importance of building a leadership pipeline for the health and future of the local church. Pastoral challenges have a ripple effect throughout the entire leadership pipeline of the church, not only for trained vocational leaders, but for leadership that fuels the entire ministry.
One key part of the pressure pastoral leaders face is, in fact, the health of their leadership pipeline. Having others share both the burden and the vision of a thriving church is part of what makes pastoral leadership thrive. The leadership pipeline has to have a much bigger vision than just preparing people for paid vocational roles, if small groups, missionary work, community outreach, evangelism, church planting, and other expressions of church life are going to get legs.
In short, the health of the leadership pipeline determines more than just how we can sustain our church; it fuels our ability to multiply and grow.
While a lot has been written, and much is being done to focus on pastoral health and well-being, we might be missing one of the New Testament's not-so-hidden realities when it comes to leadership.
The leadership pipeline of Jesus and Paul had a very distinct characteristic
It was comprised largely of people from business.
At least half of Jesus’ team came from business. The same thing is true for the teams that the Apostle Paul recruited. And this is only for the disciples and apostolic team members for whom we know their occupation. We’re aware of the fisherman who were part of a sort of fishing guild on the Sea of Gallilee and ran their own family business, the infamous tax collector, and a Zealot who probably operated a trade. It might be easy to miss the network of household style businesses that provided hospitality and support for Jesus ministry.
There’s a reason that Jesus and Paul recruited business people for their teams.
Paul’s itinerant tentmaking is well known, but it was a primary driver for his missionary teams and resulted in a broad network of trade relationships along his missionary routes. It also resulted in teams that included Aquilla and Priscilla, who created the business foundation that Paul later built upon to create the multiplying ministry that came from the city of Ephesus and reached the entire region in such a dramatic way.
We should ask the “why question.” Why did they make the inclusion of entrepreneurial business types (we interpret that label broadly and think you should, too) an anchor for their leadership pipeline?
One key answer is that what they wanted were leaders with demonstrated capacity and a level of toughness. These were people who knew how to build networks, had lived through the challenges of business and economic pressure, and who understood the fabric of the community and the broader marketplace.
Who better to recruit than someone who had already been toughened up by the marketplace?
And, that old saying is also represented here-- “you can’t kid a kidder.” People who come from the marketplace have heard all the spin, marketing lines, and schemes, and while they may have bought into a few, they were wiser for it. These business people that both Jesus and Paul recruited had a wiser perspective on the realities of how leaders in the political and religious world were trying to steer people for their own benefit, and probably weren’t drinking the Kool-Aid. But they were attracted by the authenticity and authority that Jesus demonstrated. And once they committed, they became fierce followers.
Their marketplace experience made them more stable potential leaders because they already knew what it takes to set a course and stick with it. Of course, there’s always the need for discipleship, especially when someone as brash as Peter comes along. But it was that loudmouth, no filter, individual who ended up leading the Jerusalem church. The investment paid off.
Built on a foundation of business experience, the impact of discipleship was transformational both in their ministry roles and in the rest of their lives. Investing in someone who has a marketplace expression not only brings impact to the church, but also in the broader networks where they already work.
The current trajectory of marketplace leaders?
Because they don’t tick the box for most of the volunteer roles in church, their ministry tends to develop outside the church, if at all. Many of them come to the middle or end of their career still longing for a way to make a difference. It’s a Kingdom priority for that leadership to develop in their business - that makes them marketplace missionaries. But if they cannot find expression for their leadership in the local church context, they’ll end up doing so somewhere else, and miss both relational health and discipleship. Often, they get connected in a parachurch environment because they don’t perceive that the local church has a way to express their gifts or experience.
The real issue (in two parts)
The real issue is whether they are sold out for the kingdom and the central role of the local church. Jesus had a plan, and it was to build a family through the local church. Because context matters, when you are discipled in the local church context, and your leadership blooms there, then it becomes a natural extension of your leadership.
There isn’t a shortcut for any disciple: they have to call Jesus Lord, and be sold out for the Kingdom. That applies to business people, too. The pull of wealth and success is strong, and business people need to be anchored in a community of other believers who are sold out for the Kingdom.
For the business leader, when they become sold out, then they begin to see their whole life as an opportunity for God’s Kingdom to show up. That means that all of their talent, experience, resources, network, and opportunity come to bear for ministry purposes.
But the second part of the issue is whether they understand that God’s plan is to work through the local church.
If they can’t find a place for their own gifts and leadership to fit in the local church context, then this becomes very hard for them to live this out. They will continue to live compartmentalized lives, only bringing to church what fits into the box (volunteer or giving).
Like Jesus and Paul, build your pipeline so that it includes business people
That starts by recognizing that they do, in fact, have a different perspective, and that many of them don’t believe that the church “gets them.” But if we follow Jesus’ and Paul’s model, then we’d be comfortable with bringing together people who have diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
The founder’s table can help you build a stronger leadership pipeline that includes business people. We offer a leadership development cohort that invests in church leaders to help them understand and activate business people, a powerful small group program with curriculum and facilitator training, all provided under a grant to the church that makes it easy to start.
