Established Churches and the Next Generation

“We don’t start with the position that needs to be filled; we start with the person that can be developed.”

Many established churches, proud of their legacy and visible ministries, quietly suffer from a creeping crisis: a shortage of next-generation leaders. Ministries creak under pressure, staff are stretched thin, and the burden often falls on a few. Mac Lake’s The Multiplication Effect: Building a Leadership Pipeline That Solves Your Leadership Shortage diagnoses the root issue. Mac emphatically states, this is not a leadership shortage—it is a leadership development shortage.

What if instead of scrambling to fill roles, churches intentionally raised leaders with intentionality. What if churches raised up leaders who would in turn raise others? That shift is not only strategic; it is profoundly biblical. One CGL church that embodies this philosophy made their mission “Making disciples that make disciples.”

From Scarcity to Strategy

Too often, churches operate in a kind of reactive “gap mentality.” When a role opens, we scramble to recruit someone, often defaulting to “who can fill this now?” Lake challenges that approach: “We don’t start with the position that needs to be filled; we start with the person that can be developed.” The difference is subtle but profound.

Mack highlights the importance of church culture that either identifies and empowers leaders or marginalizes and discourages leaders. Equally important is the structure and system of equipping and deploying people into leadership opportunities. This takes a different mentality in the traditional church that is staff driven in pursuit of “ministry excellence.” But, decentralized empowerment of others, while possibly unnerving, carries with it real responsibility and real benefits. 

Instead of reactive staffing, churches must build a leadership pipeline—a well-defined pathway for people to move from discovery, to development, to deployment, to multiplication. Jesus exemplified this: He didn’t call people first to roles; He called them to follow, then trained and sent them (e.g., Mark 3:14).

Paul likewise modeled this in 2 Timothy 2:2 “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (ESV) Can this verse apply to both men and women in leadership roles?

Entrusting leadership to faithful disciples is a blueprint for generational multiplication.

The Challenge to Legacy Churches

Legacy churches often resist three shifts:

1. From doing to developing
   Churches love programs, but Lake warns: “Programs don’t develop leaders, leaders develop leaders.” Relational investment, coaching, and contextual assignments matter more than curriculum.

2. From centralization to delegation
   Too many structures funnel decisions to one or two people. But that bottleneck chokes multiplication. A robust pipeline creates multiple centers of leadership, each with delegated authority and caring spans. A top down environment will not be life giving to those being equipped.

3. From short-term fix to long-term patience
   Replication doesn’t occur overnight. Lake suggests that four generations of reproduction may be needed before leadership development becomes a culture. 

Raising Up the Next Generation: Practical Steps

Here are 7 steps your church can take now:

• Map your pipeline stages
  Define key phases: discover (identifying potential), equip (training, mentorship), empower (deployment), and release (multiplication). Align your structures and roles with those phases. Each ministry staff person should have a clear strategy around these four pipelines.

• Start small relationally
  Resist scaling too fast. Instead of onboarding 20 at once, launch triads, apprenticeships, or one-on-one coaching for a handful, then expand as the model proves itself. Lake encourages “smaller and slower” growth for sustainable multiplication.

• Set expectations and competencies
  Clearly articulate what each leader should know, believe, and do at each phase. Shared expectations reduce confusion, and Lake warns that without them “we will have shared frustrations.” Always do a review to give progress affirmations and updates on things that could be more effective.

• Empower to reproduce
  Resist the temptation to keep control. A mature leader’s success is measured not by what they do, but by how many they develop. According to Mack, “It’s not a win when you produce a leader. It’s a win when the newly produced leader produces a leader.”

• Anchor it in discipleship
  Leadership development must not be an afterthought or corporate add-on—it is discipleship. Lake insists that leadership development should be an extension of your discipleship strategy.

• Track reproduction metrics
  Measure not just roles filled, but how many leaders are forming new leaders. Celebrate the generational shifts.

• Infuse Scripture & spiritual formation
  As new leaders grow, root their development in Scripture and spiritual disciplines. Use passages like Ephesians 4:11–13 (“equip the saints … until we all attain …”) or 1 Peter 5:2 (“shepherd the flock … exercising oversight”) to guide your leadership ethos.

A Kingdom Invitation

To established churches reading this: the future of your mission is not in your current infrastructure or programs—but in the leaders you cultivate. The next generation is not simply waiting, but seeking places to belong, to lead, and to serve. Will your church hand them blank roles or a pathway to growth?

As Mac Lake reminds us, “There’s not a leadership problem in the church, there’s a leadership development problem in the church.” That diagnosis calls us to bold reorientation. Develop a pipeline, invest in people, and entrust them to multiply. The ripple effect could define your legacy.

Let us together obey the pattern of 2 Timothy 2:2, raise new leaders who raise others, and see a multiplier movement for the next generation. Let your church not just last—but multiply.

6 Reflection Questions on Leadership Pipeline

• In what ways does our current church culture value doing ministry more than developing leaders? What practical shifts could we make in meetings, language, or planning to make leadership development a visible priority?

• Do we have a clear and intentional leadership pipeline from identifying to developing to deploying new leaders—or are we mostly filling empty roles as they arise? What would a first step look like to define or redesign that pipeline for our church?

• How does our church help people identify their spiritual gifts and areas of interest and then deploy them into areas of capability? What can we do to create small changes right away to invigorate spiritual gift awareness?

• Who am I personally developing right now to replace or multiply my ministry influence? If the answer is “no one,” what barriers are keeping me from investing in someone else?

• How do we currently measure success in leadership at our church—by what gets done or by who gets developed? What new metrics or celebrations could help us track reproduction instead of just activity?

• How can our team intentionally invest in younger or emerging leaders so that leadership development becomes part of our church’s DNA rather than a short-term initiative? What commitments can we make this year to ensure we are multiplying leaders, not merely maintaining programs?