September 11, 2024
Since the Ancient Egyptians, incubators have been used to warm eggs to the hatching stage. The idea is that a warm comfortable environment can provide the atmosphere needed to bring the egg to maturity and see the birth of new life. Just as physical reproduction was given as a divinely blessed command for human perpetuation (Gen 1:28), spiritual reproduction has been blessed and encouraged throughout the New Testament for ongoing church leadership (see John 15:8; Matt 28: 19; 2 Tim 2:2).
Local churches should be incubators for spiritual leadership. Pastors, missionaries, and other church leaders are best reproduced and matured within a loving local church body. Unfortunately, many Southern Baptist churches do not have a process to identify potential leaders, nor do they provide hands-on ministry opportunities for missional leadership training. So often they depend on outside institutions for basic discipleship. Many local churches in Georgia have recognized this and are creating opportunities for new missional leadership to emerge and be trained.
One such church is First Baptist Woodstock. Missions Pastor Craig Ormsby relates that First Woodstock has both an intern program and a resident program for pouring into young leaders. The residents are provided a place to stay, and an annual salary of $25,000, along with benefits and insurance. These programs have already proven successful as “the current resident and his wife will be IMB missionaries beginning in early 2025.” Ormsby says the church has developed a Missions 101 class, a student missions cohort, and a mission lab for adults as they “aggressively pursue those who we feel rise above others with relation to a heart for the nations.” Woodstock also has a five-month preparation process for their mission projects, with individual responsibilities given for training future leadership. In the last two years, Woodstock has sent three families and a single to the fields of Portugal, Nepal, Toronto, and Yuba City, California. Additionally, another couple and a single woman will be sent next year to Norway and Western Europe. Their short-term mission teams regularly visit these fields to provide support for their members’ work.
Another incubation example is Sherwood Baptist in Albany. Sherwood’s former pastor Michael Catt often said, “Whoever wants the next generation the most will get them.” Paul Gotthardt, the current senior pastor, points to Sherwood’s Legacy Park for sports and recreation and the formation of Sherwood Christian Academy as starting points for reaching and raising up the next generation of missional leaders. Gotthardt mentions that they’ve “created training opportunities for young people to grow in leadership and missional engagement [through] a leadership pipeline in each area of ministry.” The student ministry at Sherwood vets, equips, and engages adults to actively disciple and mentor students. College students are offered paid summer intern positions to serve in ministry roles for future church positions. Gotthardt explains that Sherwood also has three training pathways within an official Residency Program: full-time church planting, full-time ministry training, and volunteer mission mobilization. Considering it “a kingdom investment,” Sherwood has “financially, prayerfully, and missionally supported 32 church plants since 2012” as well as offering personal mentorship over the past decade. Like Woodstock, Sherwood has a 12-week “Sherwood on Mission” course that trains leaders in gospel integration, discipleship strategies, and missions and cross-cultural immersion. They currently have leaders in training for trips to Clarkston, Georgia, Guatemala, and Ethiopia, and this past month 45 professions of faith were reported from mission trips.
Yet another great illustration is New Providence Baptist in Smarr. Senior Pastor Brian Moore says that New Providence invests in a new generation of missional leaders by providing preaching practice and staffing opportunities. As they identify young men in the church with a call to preach, they work with them to develop and deliver sermons and then even offer their supply preaching free of charge to other churches in the local association. They have used internships and non-paid staff positions as ways to generate new leaders. Moreover, their general budget covers half of all costs for mission trips for members in good standing. Moore points to GBC president Josh Saefkow’s recent emphasis on “calling out the called” as catalytic for their active search for young people experiencing God’s call to ministry. This has led them to implement a 6-week “Missions Course” and a 3- to 5-month training for each of the 6 to 8 mission trips they take each year. Moore shares a recent success story about 27-year-old Christopher Sandusky who, when as a teen in the church experienced the call to missions while on a trip to El Salvador, was brought on staff to become their missions director. “Through one-on-one mentorship in evangelism, missions, and discipleship, along with meeting with his wife to confirm her calling,” Moore explains, “Christopher was employed full-time two years ago, provided a pastorium to ensure no debt, and now has been sent to an international training program to eventually reach a people group without a gospel translated into their language.” The church is paying for the training and will sponsor Christopher in his mission funding when he launches into the international field.
More could be said about the great example of other churches like First Baptist Watkinsville, Christ Place in Gainesville, Beech Haven in Athens, or Bethlehem Baptist as incubators of future missions leadership. Local church internship opportunities for ministry are also promoted through Send Me Now (https://sendmenow.net/church-internship-opportunities/). Some smaller or more rural churches might argue that leadership incubation will not work in their locations, but the New Testament never put a size qualification on discipleship or leadership development. Development and training could happen one-on-one with a single staff pastor and a layperson. Churches could also partner together within their local association to develop a training mechanism or associational internship for future ministry leaders.
Because of this recent renewal of local church leadership incubation, the missions consultant team of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board has developed a new six-week Missional Outreach Leader Training that can provide help for any church that wants to see new people equipped for ministry and missions. It seems that God is doing a great thing in calling people to ministry. And it seems that His calling for the local church to be the locale for their training is still His primary method for incubation.
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Buck Burch is the state missions catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.
