Brent Hoover is married to Julie and together they have four grown children. He was raised in California and came to faith in Jesus Christ in 1978. During college he committed his life to reaching out to the people of Asia with the Gospel. His 35 years of cross-cultural ministry includes seven years of living in Asia, leading campus and church ministries at the University of Michigan, and many years of training trips to Asia – multiple times a year. During those years he developed LeaderTrek – an intensive wilderness leadership experience for men, and a sports ministry to build the next generation. 

Since 2007 Brent has served with LeaderSource. His focus is building and caring for leaders in Asia and the United States. Deeply committed to building up men in churches, Brent has co-led Trailhead Fellowship – a men's ministry in North America for East Asian men. This includes LeaderTrek, Healthy Life Leader Retreats, Marvel Men Weekends, and Father and Son camps. His Burst Leadership podcast and articles for Healthy Leaders help leaders grow in becoming healthier leaders. Brent's formal education includes: M.Div. from Michigan Theological Seminary, M.A. in Intercultural Missions from Wheaton Graduate School, and a B.A. in Bible and Ministry from Azusa Pacific University. 

During Brent's time with LeaderSource, he has noticed the following paradigm shifts in his life:

One paradigm shift for me and many who get our training is that the building of healthy church leaders must be “intentional.”

We don’t just passively hope healthy leaders rise to the top.

We can engage in a process with intention and design.

Sometimes we are so close to our models and materials that we don’t understand the shock factor that it brings in people’s lives who are used to doing ministry the traditional way.

I think a big one for a lot of people I work with is the whole idea of “Be one. Build many.”

In fact, it’s the slowest one for them to fully embrace. Everyone wants to jump to “Build many.”

I’d say it takes a couple years before someone actually does embrace this one, unless they’re more mature and experienced and have seen enough.

In other words, we can’t just teach healthy leadership stuff; it has to flow from a genuine experience of life within us.

So we can’t just talk about leader health, we have to live it. We can’t just talk about building a few, we have to be doing it.

The principle is … the leader, himself or herself, should be actively involved in the building of other people, and not just teaching about it.

Another one is the power of community.

Most leaders just think of their influence as direct person-to person or teacher to students.

It’s a paradigm shift to see that leaders are built in community and wise builders will nurture and design a community around leaders to create a deeper impact on their lives.

In other words, it’s not about the power or talent of the leader, it’s about the environment they design.

I think it’s a paradigm shift overall to see that the local churches themselves can build leaders if they create a four dynamic environment. It is the Body of Christ and the gifts within the Body that build disciples and leaders. And it is this kind of life-on-life training that has the deepest impact.

So, nurturing the environment and trusting the local Body of Christ – this is a big one.