Transform Your Church’s Leadership

When I arrived as the lead pastor of my church, everyone on the board was white and in their 50s, 60s, or 70s. This pretty much reflected the rest of the congregation. There were three elders—all older, white, and male. There were a few young adults in the church and almost no children.

I knew that we desperately needed a change, and we needed to begin with our leadership team. We had to empower the next generation of leaders.

Growing young

As our church grew and we needed more top level leaders, we began to explore adding younger people to our church's governing board. We took our time identifying those within the church who had had skills, exemplified godliness, and had earned a good reputation.

One of the first things I did was start a Bible study for the young adults. I met in a home with them every week and began to get to know them, to value them, to see who they were, and to invest in them. I had a gut feeling that these young ones would become key leaders, and they did. One became our leader of children's ministry, another our office manager, another our worship leader, and another now serves as our youth pastor.

When he was in his 70s, our treasurer—who had held court in the church finance office for decades—agreed to mentor a new guy in his 30s. He told this young man, “I am going to see to it that you are successful here.” And he did. At the end of last year, the older leader passed away, but he left his young replacement thriving as the church treasurer.

I remember when we added a 30 year-old man to our elder board. We had some animated discussion about it. Was it appropriate to place such a young person on the team?

Was it appropriate to place such a young person on the team? He certainly didn’t look like anyone else on the board. He was half the age of most of them.

He certainly didn’t look like anyone else on the board. He was half the age of most of them. But we knew him, his character, and his heart. He was a solid believer and was already serving in the church as a small group leader and member of our worship band. He was an encourager of others who had his life in order and met the 1 Timothy 3 qualifications. He was already acting the part of an elder in our church—without the title. Since becoming an elder, this young man has been a good leader for us, playing a vital role in the oversight and encouragement of the church body.

Recently, during a board meeting one of our oldest members turned to him and asked, “And what do you think about what we are talking about?” The issue at hand was tough. It required extreme sensitivity because another leader's role in our church was at stake. The younger leader spoke carefully, expressing a differing view from the one who asked him to speak up. When the young leader was finished, the older one nodded his approval, and when we voted on the issue we were in agreement, all of us supporting our youngest leader's assessment of the situation.

Diversifying

Besides courting younger leaders, I also felt led to move forward in including women in our top levels of leadership. Our first step in this direction was to consider a female elder. In addressing this issue, we went slowly. I presented material on women in ministry for the board to read. We discussed the Scriptures that address women and church leadership. I shared my conviction that there was biblical support for including women at the elder and pastoral level. We talked through some of the leaders' concerns. I included teaching on this in my sermons.

Eventually, we came to the place as a leadership team where we were ready to add a woman who had a great reputation in the church to our elder board. She had been a member of the church for a long time, had previous leadership experience as a school principal, and was at a stage in life where she wanted and was able to devote significant time to the church. The congregation approved of her as our first female elder. She has been an outstanding leader and now serves as the chair of our board.

Needing even more staff leadership, we approached a local seminary to see if they would place an intern in our church. The seminary offered a young, female pastoral intern to us. At first our elders and board debated this, then coming to agreement, we decided to include her. Her work was so well received in the church that when her internship was up we offered her a paid position on our pastoral team. Now she preaches, counsels, disciples people, coaches other staff, and leads our developing young family ministry. Did we run into opposition along the way? A little. But the support and affirmation for this far outweighed the few dissenters.

As we focused on the leadership changes we needed to initiate, we also began to talk about the racial makeup of our church and community. Our city is half Hispanic, yet when I first arrived the church was almost entirely white. When we met to pray about and discuss our values, we agreed that one of them needed to be local outreach. So we began a family ministry, started doing projects for children, began a kids' club, and started a food ministry. These outreaches changed our racial makeup. At a recent church movie night I did a little math. Two-thirds of the children present were not white. Our goal isn’t to fulfill a racial quota, but to bring all people to God. For us that entails reaching a multicultural community.

As we continued to grow, we also embraced some racial changes at the leadership level. We noticed that a woman from El Salvador who had joined our church was particularly effective in mentoring and teaching. We added her to our elder board. The seminary offered us a Hispanic female pastoral intern. We added her to our pastoral team. A Hispanic man accepted Christ through our church and began to help us with our site renewal. We made him the leader of our site improvement team. God is bringing us a mix of leaders—well-qualified to help—and we are embracing them. We are still a relatively small church and our adult population is still not as racially mixed as our community, but we are growing and changing.

Here are a few suggestions for churches seeking to diversify their leadership:

1. Start slowly. Don't be afraid of discussions. Respect differences. Always pray for God's leading. Be brave and intentional. Make needed changes using good processes.

Regarding the women in church leadership issue, study competing interpretations of the relevant Scriptures. Dig into the Bible yourself. Explore the tensions between passages. Invite a range of people into your discussions. Many of the young, educated Christians I have talked to don't want a church that limits the potential roles of women in the church. They don't believe Scripture supports it. Whether or not they agree, church leaders need to expose themselves to such perspectives.

2. Take small steps. When adding new leaders, take small steps your team feels comfortable with. Start with a woman leading a couple's group or a young person leading a part of a church service. Add a staff member who represents a cultural minority segment of your church. Have the courage and sensitivity to go in the direction God leads, but always respect other churches that don't make the same decisions you do.

3. Identify leaders within your church. Finding a variety of new leaders might be as easy as looking right in front of you. You may discover them in your own church. We did. We loved our young people into maturity, and then handed them the keys to the offices. To do this we had to see young Christians not as the church’s children or the church’s young adults, but as potential leaders. That is the barrier that a changing church must be willing to cross.

4. Seek out local leaders-in-training. To find qualified leaders, and ones who reflect the diversity of your need, connect with nearby schools. Some students are required to do internships as a part of their university or seminary degree requirements, and churches can develop ongoing relationships with these schools to become part of the training experience.

The school may require that a stipend or small salary be paid, but for the church it can be money well spent and much cheaper than hiring seasoned professionals. These internships may be the perfect fit for a large or small church willing to develop and benefit from aspiring leaders. We currently have an MFT intern on our staff who provides excellent counseling at very low cost to our congregation. This is one of the best staff members we have ever added.

While coaching new, young, or inexperienced leaders has its challenges, there is a significant benefit to training your own leaders. It gives you a great opportunity to steep new leaders in the culture of your particular organization, to groom them into the very leaders you are looking for and need. And you can choose to hire them after you have trained them.

Changing the face of your leadership takes a healthy leadership team with the support of its Christian community. It’s a delicate balance of the right timing, a bit of courage, a commitment to making leadership development a core value, and the confidence that God wants you to move forward. With the right steps, change is possible. I was recently at a large, fairly conservative church to attend the seminary graduation of our most recent pastoral intern. In a hall just off the sanctuary of this church, I happened across a wall of photographs of the church’s pastors, going all the way back to the 19th Century. They were all male; they were all white, most were old.

One portrait was different. The new pastor is black. Things are changing.

Randy Hasper is pastor of First Baptist Church in Chula Vista, California.