John's Story ‒ Real-Life Transformation in a Church Network
An East Asian leader shares his new life with over 200 leaders in his network.
In 2011, after several days of prayer and strategy with four of the main LeaderSource team leaders from a country in Asia, we determined that God wanted us to start a “prototype” leader development program.
This would be a program that LeaderSource would directly design and implement. The purpose would be to demonstrate what effective leader development can look like in this country so that many church networks could easily follow this example.
The first of these programs began in one strategic city the next year, and since then we have held one per year there and in several other cities. Out of these prototypes, we have counted 175 distinct training programs across the country as a direct result of this work, more than 60 of them in one year alone. Through these programs, we have nurtured more than 5300 leaders.
One of the first churches that hosted the prototype program was a large urban church network led by a national worker, Brother Jay.* When LeaderSource first approached Brother Jay about the possibility of running a program with them, he immediately agreed. He gathered all of his co-workers from twenty different branches of the church network to share the vision for this project.
The original prototype was initially designed as an experiment in building leaders the way Jesus built leaders. It is based on our 5C/4D model, building healthy leaders (in Christ, Community, Character, Calling and Competencies) through a holistic process (using spiritual, relational, experiential and instructional dynamics). As the LeaderSource team developed the program, they were intensely aware that this would be a starting point for something much bigger: a movement of God across the whole country and beyond. It is clear now that this prototype was highly strategic – a path forward for the church in the midst of a new wave of persecution.
But every movement starts small and grows, as is the case in the life of one of Jay’s leaders, John.
FROM ONLOOKER TO PARTICIPANT
In order to provide the relational dynamic (mentoring, encouragement, accountability, etc.) for each participant, the prototype integrates participants into the life and relationships of the local church. This integration provides a rich relational context as well as diverse opportunities for ministry practice.
Ultimately, the whole church needs to be involved in building leaders, not just a few representatives. Each church provides accommodations and support systems for the participants by mobilizing families to host a participant for a year, and then mobilizing co-workers to be pastoral coaches, intercessors, and ministry mentors for each emerging leader. John was the leader of a 500-member church plant in the church network, and originally joined the program as a pastoral coach to a young emerging leader, Timothy.
John was a very credible leader in his network because of the good work he had done with the church plant, but he was cautious and afraid of making mistakes. Beyond this, he was extremely busy in his own personal life. In addition to pastoring a church plant (as an unpaid worker) he was running his own business to support his family. He and his wife were caring for their first child. He felt it would be wiser to be involved only as a pastoral coach.
In this role, John met regularly with Timothy, answering questions, encouraging him, coaching him through problems, praying with him, and holding him accountable. He had always been interested in discipleship and was excited to see how the prototype might actually impact people. Through his own experiences in leadership training outside of the program, John knew how difficult it was to actually develop transformed lives in a holistic way. He knew how difficult it was to achieve the depth of training necessary to see real change.
Here, through this training, it was actually happening! He began to see real life transformation, primarily through his mentoring relationship with Timothy.
“BIG BROTHER, YOU MUST COME!”
During the first module of the program, as John walked with him, Timothy experienced challenges and difficulties in his personal life, one after the other, including the death of a family member. However, he began to embrace suffering and responsibilities, and ultimately to embrace the cross. By the end of the first year, he had more depth and maturity in his prayer life and more dependence on Christ than ever before.
The year-long prototype program consisted of a series of three-month-long modules, with a month in between for reflection and ministry work. At the end of each module, the church hosts a celebration night, a time to rejoice in the transformation of lives with the community that has surrounded each leader.
These were John’s favorite nights; the change in each emerging leader’s life was on display in dramatic ways. Many of the participants shared about developing qualities of fear of God, trust in God, deeper prayer lives and love for each other. Timothy shared all about what God had done in his life and how he had grown as a result. John was moved to tears by Timothy’s testimonies.
John was so moved by the changes he saw in Timothy that he seriously considered being a part of the program in the second year himself. However, he was also conflicted. He was still experiencing significant personal and practical challenges at the time. The care of a young child, running a family business, and pastoring a large church all took their toll. He didn’t feel that he could drop everything and go to the training for a year. He had personally seen how effective the program had been in the life of Timothy. He saw fruit in every person who had been in it. Yet in the end he decided not to attend the second year of the program.
Throughout the second year John saw more and more evidence of God’s work in the life of the next participant he coached. God kept prompting him to join the program through other participants, Brother Jay, and his co-workers. The emerging leader he was coaching approached John specifically about joining, saying “Big Brother, you must come! Please come join next year’s program. It will be so good for you.” The upcoming year promised even more personal challenges: John’s wife was pregnant with their second child, and their business was taking off. Even so, every time he kneeled down to pray, God was pressing him about joining.
Finally, one day late in the second year, God got a hold of him. When John finally decided to join the program for the third year, God filled him with such joy that he literally leaped for joy.
It was definitely and undoubtedly the right choice.
A PARALLEL PROGRAM
John came into the program expecting growth in a few areas, not realizing that God wanted to change every part of his life. He discovered that his entire culture of leadership and way of thinking needed to be realigned. Going in, he was bound by a lot of fear of people. He would try to please everybody by staying within his boundaries and not offending anybody or doing anything different. He believed that it was very important to follow the rules and respect his leaders, to the point of doing nothing without permission.
During the first module he not only gained confidence in Christ and in his role as a leader, but he received prayer from the program staff for spiritual deliverance and freedom (we do this for every participant). Beyond this, since he had joined the program, his business had continued to grow, and he was able to hire someone to run it for him. This freed him up in such a way that he could focus on the training.
He came out, like so many he had seen over the last two years, a totally different person. In fact, he was so struck by the first module that he called an emergency meeting of his leadership team at the church. He told them, “We are going to start our own ConneXions training program, in our own church, immediately.”
And that’s just what they did.
He ran his first training simultaneously with his own participation in the second module, teaching 16 new participants everything he had learned from the first module on the weekends with the help of his other classmates in the ongoing program. Through this parallel program, he became even more deeply involved in the process. As a teacher, he learned twice over.
Eventually the culture of their leader development group overflowed into the culture of their entire church. His church began to acquire a deeper desire for God and a renewed passion for prayer. Previously, getting people to pray was like pulling teeth. Now, church members were hungry for prayer, in love with the Word, desiring growth. Before, they had known little about each other. Now they were growing closer in relationship with their brothers and sisters. Their character developed; instead of showing up late for worship and church meetings, people were running to be there on time. The sense of unity and direction was amplified, and everyone had a deep desire to learn, grow, and serve. In essence, the 5Cs (Christ, Community, Character, Calling, and Competencies) were taking over!
FROM CHURCH BRANCH TO ENTIRE CHURCH NETWORK
Towards the end of John’s training, Brother Jay and his family moved out of the country out of necessity, not knowing exactly when they would return. He left the entire network of churches under the leadership of John and two other leaders in the church. Brother Jay recognized the deep maturity now that was in John.
At this time of transition, the church network was in a difficult phase, struggling with unity and commitment. It was full of conflicts and tension, and every member was going their own direction instead of working together.
John immediately began overseeing the ministry of the church, applying strategies and structures based on what he had learned in the prototype program. He built people to take over areas that needed support, all the while remaining accountable to Brother Jay for his decisions. He brought people together with a shared vision, changing the culture of the network to one of unity and commitment. And of course, he initiated leader development programs!
Two months after he completed his own training, he initiated two more programs, one for his own church and one for the entire church network. The next year, three graduates from his initial programs started their own programs in the network alongside his, five in total. In the years after that, the church network ran seven programs, then twelve. They weren’t just running trainings, though; lives were being transformed across the network.
A few years ago John wouldn’t have believed that he would move from teammate to leader. As a young father, he has risen to the challenge of balancing family and ministry by pressing into accountability structures they have built at the church. He is currently leading the entire church network and overseeing his own church, all while building new leaders. In addition, he has established a new church plant among young people with a new vision of a healthy church, a new kind of church based on the principles of building people’s lives. He is essentially working himself out of his position so that the church can be led by the next generation of leaders.
John’s prayer is to have a father’s heart in this process of succession:
“One thing for sure, the people you build, one day they’re going to be better than you and they will exceed you. So I want to be able to rejoice and celebrate with them when that day comes.”
Over the course of the LeaderSource training, John’s perspective and vision was widened and heightened. He grew in his union with Christ and dependence on God. He was truly transformed, and in the process, God used him to transform the church network, personally building more than 200 leaders across the entire network of churches.
Leaders built in those initial prototype training programs continue to grow and multiply, responding to an urgent need for healthy leaders in the church across this Asian country. As security pressure heightens, leaders in this church network and others have seen the desperate need for healthy leaders to lead small church groups in the homes of church members. Over time, this church has gradually transformed from a passive, disinterested and disparate network into a proactive and passionate body full of leaders, intent on sharing the Gospel of Christ and building each other up. Recently, this church was one of many shut down by the government. What is crushing for other churches has proved an opportunity for this network, because they have focused on building leaders. While others disintegrate when their meeting places are broken up, John’s church is increasing in number and in life.
John and his team are devoted to building leaders across the network, and are even now gathering first and second-year graduates of the initial programs to dive deeper into further training, using LeaderSource’s model for healthy church growth.
Their biggest challenge currently? Too many people want to join the training.
Update: Recently, John’s church has been shut down by the government, as part of the current wave of persecution across their country. They are not permitted to meet in the buildings they own. As a result, they have completely shifted to house churches. But they were fully prepared for this. John now has seven training programs going. All the churches in his network are running training programs. They are training leaders and all the saints. As a result of this continuous training, since shifting to small groups meeting in homes, the number of people in the church has not declined but has increased! In the midst of severe persecution, the church is alive, vibrant and growing – as the direct result of the implementation of LeaderSource models.
*All names have been changed.
