In “A Golden Age of Philanthropy Still Beckons: National Wealth Transfer and Potential for Philanthropy Technical Report,” John J. Havens and Paul G. Schervish of the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College estimate that the greatest wealth transfer in history, more than $50 trillion, will occur in the next few decades.

I was listening to the Coaching for Leaders podcast interview with Chip Espinoza, author of Managing Millennials, when he compared that historic transfer of wealth to an equally historic transfer of knowledge. Nearly 80 million U.S. baby boomers will attempt the greatest transfer of knowledge to more than 80 million millennials in the next two decades.

As a Fellowship, the Assemblies of God must ask: How are we managing the transfer of our century-plus knowledge base? It is much more than theological and polity writings. It is the understood, and often unstated, knowledge of our roots — tacit knowledge that goes beyond the information in organizational handbooks.

It is clear that our leadership recognizes the urgency of effective transfer of knowledge, another way of describing mentoring. Perhaps the most poignant example of this that I’ve seen was from my second-row seat at the 2015 National Fine Arts Awards on a muggy August night in Orlando, Florida. The energy in the room was electric. Cheers were long and loud with each award announcement. It was inspiring to see the talent and passion of the next generation. However, what captured my attention was our National Assemblies of God Executive Leadership Team’s participation in announcing and celebrating the winners. Here’s my take-away from that event: The awards night that celebrated days of competition was not a post-Council activity that only the youth leaders stayed around to witness. Developing leadership potential is intentional.

In this article, we will consider three steps to building a healthy strategy for multiplying the next generation of leaders: determine your leadership development goals, identify and invest in mentees and motivate for results.

Step 1: Determine Your Leadership Development Goals
We do not have the same goal for every leadership mentoring relationship. As a new professor, I enjoyed bringing my missionary field experiences to the classroom and hallways of Vanguard University.

As a Fellowship, the Assemblies of God must ask: How are we managing the transfer of our century-plus knowledge base?

I was excited to see opportunities to mentor, and I poured into these new young leaders, creating spaces for them to exercise their growing skills. The result was a thriving campus justice club, Live2free. Then commencement came, and the entire leadership team graduated. I had been mentoring using a succession model and found myself in a leadership gap of my own making.

We must determine our goals. Are we mentoring leaders for succession or replication? There are entire books on succession-oriented leadership development. Author Bill Bliss in Success in the C-Suite says, “The number one role of any leader is to identify and prepare their successor.”

His advice focuses on bench strength. Imagine a pitcher warming up and a batter practicing his swing as they wait their turn to take their places on the field.

We can see a great biblical model of succession leadership development in the story of Elijah and Elisha. Elijah’s relationship with his mentor was clear. He recognized God’s call on Elisha and groomed him for leadership — essentially training and preparing his own successor. When the authority transferred to Elisha, Elijah was no longer on the scene.

Contrast that with Jesus and the Twelve. Jesus’ goal was producing leaders to go to the nations. There are many books and articles that can expand our competency and capacity to do this well. But I’d like to look at a few lessons I have found especially useful when mentoring millennials. 

Step 2: Identify and Invest
Whom will you mentor? How will you recognize leadership potential in a different generation, especially if leadership models do not reflect traditional church paradigms? When we return to the model of recruitment that Jesus used, it’s clear that He did not depend on established qualifications. A seasoned leader may even wonder at the insistence of the Holy Spirit’s nudging to sit and talk with a rather ragtag group of young adults.

Jesus’ mentoring style is evident in Matthew 28:19, what we call the Great Commission. While living in Greece, I discovered that the first verb in the verse — “go” — was originally a participle, poreuthentes. This Greek word describes how to make disciples. Many scholars suggest the verse should sound more like, “As you go about your life, make disciples.”

When I learned that, I thought of Deuteronomy 11:19, a verse my dad shared with me on the arrival of his first granddaughter: “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Matthew’s listeners already knew the Old Testament model of transferring knowledge from generation to generation. But Jesus rocked their world when He mandated they ramp it up to include all nations. Would they find enough leaders in the traditional pipeline?

Jesus found disciples while He was walking along the road. As He identified them, He began a relationship. He invited His students to walk with Him.

I don’t walk along the road, but I do invite students to go with me to professional trainings and meetings I attend. Living in Southern California, there is the added benefit of being able to use the carpool lane. Students even stop by my office to ask whether I need someone to ride along so I can drive in the carpool lane. Such opportunities are about much more than convenience; they can have eternal significance. The camaraderie, the one-on-one time and the lack of interruptions create rare opportunities that mirror the “walk along the road” model of the Old Testament.

This was especially clear when a female student of mine made a decision that produced less-than-desirable results. Later, she called and asked whether she could go with me to the next training I was doing. As she got in the car, the student said, “I’m staying in the seat next to you from now on.”

She is now a valued Homeland Security special agent. I didn’t teach her to investigate crimes or show her how to clean a weapon; I did pass on the values and beliefs that frame my life and commitment to making disciples of all nations.

Others may have seen a ragtag group of young adults when they looked at the disciples following Jesus. But Jesus saw them differently. Identifying the next generation of leaders requires a little study to learn more about who they are so that we can avoid generational stereotypes and assumptions that distort our expectations.

“By 2020, Millennials will be approximately 50 percent of the U.S. workforce, and by 2030, 75 percent of the global workforce.”

A 2015 IBM Institute for Business Value study says: “By 2020, Millennials will be approximately 50 percent of the U.S. workforce, and by 2030, 75 percent of the global workforce.”

The study identifies five “myths, exaggerations and uncomfortable truths” about millennials (ages 21 to 34) that can inform our expectations, as well as our communication style. There are many stereotypes about millennials that we must overcome. This report suggests millennials have more in common with other generations than we may realize.

Let’s consider myth No. 3 and deconstruct one very tired stereotype about millennials. This myth arises from the fact that this is the first generation of digital natives entering the workplace. In spite of their digital immersion, however, millennials are not disconnected from real human interaction. The report found that they prefer face-to-face engagement as they learn. They even ask for opportunities to work with seasoned colleagues.

Do churches embrace this stereotype? I was at a youth event for college students when I heard the speaker declare, “If Jesus walked the Earth today, He would text you.”

I don’t agree. I believe this generation wants to see Jesus face-to-face. They want personal, up-close relationships. Millennials use technology in a utilitarian fashion. For example, this week a student texted me three times to see whether I was in my office. When our schedules were finally in sync, we sat at the table as we discussed the big question every senior has, “What is next?”

After our discussion, I had to ask, “So, I’m curious, why didn’t you just ask this question in your texts?”

The reply: “Oh, no! I had to see you face-to-face!”

Once you identify your own group of young leaders to mentor, invest in them. Bliss’s corporate model suggests a 10 percent strategy for annual professional development of up-and-coming leaders. Should we do less in developing the next generation of church leaders? Factor it into your budget.

Be sure to capture results so that you can track the benefits and support sustainability when new board members come along and suggest cost reductions.

Take some time right now to make a list of everything you have invested in young leaders that you hope will impact ministry. What is your expected ROI (return on investment)? What results will demonstrate success?

Jesus sent them out rather than building His own organization. For the past two years, we have invested in a leadership seminar for our Live2free team, knowing that these students will not stay at Vanguard forever. We are investing in leaders to send out! 

Step 3: Motivate
Once you identify potential leaders and intentionally begin to set aside resources to invest in their development, the third step is building a strategy that will motivate and produce results.

Daniel Pink, author of the highly acclaimed book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, made a 140-character summary of the book in the style of Twitter: “Carrots & Sticks are so last Century. Drive says for 21st-century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery and purpose.”

According to Pink, it takes more than rewards and disincentives to motivate people of any generation. Mentees need encouragement and support, as well as a developing sense of autonomy.

Autonomy is not the same thing as doing things alone. Autonomy creates an environment that supports self-sufficiency in increments. Throwing young leaders into the deep end to see whether they will sink or swim is not autonomy. It would not be wise to send your brand new intern to the hospital alone to visit a parishioner whose family is gathering around the bedside to say their good-byes. Instead, send the intern to visit a lonely saint in the assisted living facility.

Providing feedback and facilitating access to resources is part of investing. Experiment with self-directed work timelines and offsite project work. Will it always work out? Absolutely not! That’s why the second aspect of motivation is mastery.

Mastery is the desire to get better and better at something. It turns out that video games may be more than just mindless entertainment. New studies suggest gaming may help develop a mastery mindset.

In the case of ministry, access to resources promotes mastery. Education levels matter; there are no shortcuts. When mentors invest in education, the ROI may not be immediately evident.

As a returning missionary — not a millennial, but a leader in need of transitional mentoring — I needed a support network. Several mentors made the difference in helping me complete my Vanguard University master’s degree. They gave me their best, passed on their books and even wrote personal checks to keep me in the program during the 2008 recession.

Millennials want to know that their purpose is bigger than them.

 Mastery also requires practice. Listening is useful, but doing builds consistency and confidence. Jesus gave His young leaders many opportunities to practice — and to fail. Remember the story of the demon-possessed boy? The disciples asked why they couldn’t cast out the demon. Jesus did not make it easy or pretend the disciples had not missed the mark when He said, “Because you have so little faith” (Matthew 17:20).

As a mentor, you may sometimes be disappointed and frustrated. You may even be tempted to give up on a slow starter so you can move on to a more promising candidate. That’s understandable, but what if Jesus had given up on Peter?

Pink’s third ingredient for motivation is purpose, which he defines as “the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves.”

Not unlike my generation, millennials want to know that their purpose is bigger than them. When we do not know why we are doing what we are doing, it is easy to stop. When we know the bigger vision, we persevere. Purpose for millennials is often reflected in their pursuit of justice — a quest to restore the broken and make things fair. Purpose will sustain us when inspiration has evaporated.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose were aptly illustrated in a recent modification of former knowledge transfer practices as SoCal Women in Ministry sought to engage women religion majors. When an activity fell flat, the students received an invitation to attend the next planning meeting. At first, the students were reluctant to criticize the activities, but they eventually opened up about their desire to grow and hone their preaching skills. So for the next activity, students accepted the responsibility of choosing three of their peers to present minisermons. Autonomy and mastery were key elements that contributed to the ultimate success of the activity. As each young woman preached, seasoned ministers took notes and then made comments, affirmations and critiques to promote mastery. These millennials explained their response: “It’s powerful to do what I’m called to do.”

Purpose inspired them. 

Conclusion
It is vital that we develop intelligent and intentional plans for mentoring the next generations so we can transfer hard-won knowledge and wisdom. There are obvious risks if we drop the baton. There will be gaps in leadership in our churches, as well as in our mission to all nations. However, there is another risk that is subtler. If our youth do not find a path for serving and taking on their generation’s call to lead, where will they go instead?

Sometimes I hear ministry leaders expressing fears of social justice creeping into churches. To protect the mission, some put up resistance and erect barriers. Nevertheless, the next generation of leaders are eager to learn and serve and will look for alternative opportunities in the ever-growing surge in nonprofit social justice organizations.

The result is a significant drain of potential leaders from our pews and resources to fund those initiatives. They will create new nonprofits where they have autonomy to work toward mastery to fulfill their purpose. Without an intentional strategy, many will not find a path to serve in our churches. Determine your leadership goals. Identify and invest in young leaders. Motivate with a pattern of autonomy, mastery and purpose.

This article first appeared in the February-March 2016 issue of Influence magazine.