From the time we planted Saints Community Church, the vision has always been to plant multiple campuses. In a city like New Orleans, where people don’t like to leave their neighborhoods, we could see how a multi-campus model was uniquely suited to our community.

This is not a vision that is for every church or one that happens easily. In fact, during the past we have been part of multiple campuses that ended up closing. It left us very aware of the fact that the second and third campuses are often the most difficult to plant.

One of the biggest questions we have asked ourselves over the years has been this: Do we hire people from the outside, or try to raise up people from the inside with our philosophy of ministry to lead additional campuses?

There are so many ways to approach staffing, and for many churches, the right thing is to hire from the outside. We have generally leaned toward raising up people from within to move in to staff positions. But how do you have enough people to launch campus after campus, not just one position at a time?

A good friend of ours, Jeffery Portmann, wrote the dissertation for his doctoral program on this topic: Apprenticing at a Hub Church for Greater Effectiveness in Church Planting. Jeff is the lead pastor at newhope Church (Assemblies of God), a multisite congregation with a hub campus located in South Hill, Washington.

The topic fascinated me. We hear about leadership development all the time. For years, there has been much talk of mentoring — and more recently, coaching. But apprenticing? It’s not a new idea but an old one retrofitted to apply biblical principles to developing people.

The Apprentice Model

I talked with Jeff about this approach and how they are implementing it. Here is what he had to say:

“The heart of it is this: In many careers — surgeons, tattoo artists, plumbers, teachers — you have to be an apprentice in order to finish that career path. Apprenticing happens up close. It’s different than mentoring. Mentoring is going on a roller coaster and describing it. Apprenticing is going on the roller coaster together and then reflecting on it together.

“We see examples of this model throughout the Bible: Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Paul and Timothy, Ruth and Naomi. But the best model was Jesus himself with the disciples. They were with Him, walked with Him, listened to Him, and saw how He handled situations. It was the greatest example of apprenticing, and look how they changed the world!

Let’s take the time as leaders to open our lives to the proximity of apprentices.

“The key to apprenticing is proximity. There’s something about real-time learning up close. Real-time feedback comes out of hands-on, shared experiences in proximity together: ‘This is you at your best,’ or, ‘This is what you need to improve on.’ Jesus said to His disciples, ‘You’ll do greater things than I have done.’ This is the heart of apprenticing.

“Our vision was to plant campuses, so we knew we needed to have a leadership pipeline.

“We currently have three campuses — each with a primary leader pipeline, family life pipeline and creative arts pipeline. We are always bringing people up from within, whether it’s nursery directors or worship leaders. It comes out of apprenticing.

“Each main area has a pastor who oversees that area. Under the staff pastor, the different areas are broken down and have directors. Each one of them — pastoral staff and directors — have people [who] they have invited to be part of apprenticing in their area. We walk them through the newhope lexicon, which highlights expectation of high-level leaders to be doing apprenticeship. It’s not just about being a doer, but being a developer.

“We have monthly all-leadership team meetings, communicating the heart from me and other leaders. With multiple campuses, it’s easy to forget we’re all a part of something bigger, so these meetings are really important. Then we break it down into smaller settings — their own ministry teams, smaller groups where they get more feedback and more collaboration with the people they’re alongside doing week-in, week-out ministry. The goal is to get people out of rows and into circles, where they’re talking and sharing.

“Ultimately, apprenticing is about encouraging what people do well and helping them understand what they need to improve on. Again, proximity is the key, leaders walking beside them. Young leaders feel like they have to do everything. But seasoned leaders realize the more they give away, the more influence they have. So they let apprentices actually lead, while they are right there beside them, following up with feedback.

“This is how we’ve been able to have volunteers become directors, and then when we launch a new campus, some of those directors move into staff positions. It’s not a perfect system. Sometimes you realize a director doesn’t actually have anyone in the pipeline, and you realize how thin your pipeline may be when you add another campus. In any church, you have the first phase of leaders, the planter, but for the church to go to a place it’s never gone before, apprenticing helps fast-forward the growth in the second wave.

“Our burden to create an apprentice culture comes from Jesus’ model and our vision of planting ‘5in5’ — which is five churches in five years.” 

Final Thoughts

What I love about Jeffery’s leadership concept is that it continues to build and equip people. There’s a certain appropriate vulnerability that happens in the life of a leader when they open themselves up to proximity. It shows the ups and downs, and gets people past the administrative task list that can take over the work of the ministry.

The apostle Paul said to the Corinthian church, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Let’s take the time as leaders to open our lives to the proximity of apprentices, and be so bold as to let them walk together with us closely as we follow Christ.