When I first became a pastor, I quickly came to this realization: ministry work never ends. There’s always another sermon to preach, another person to meet with, and another need to be met. When I first started, I remember thinking, “If only I had more leaders to help.” The truth is, at the moment, there just aren’t enough new church leaders being developed in Canada. With that need in mind, I’ve come to believe that developing new leaders is one of the most important things I can do as a pastor. If I’m honest, though, there have been many seasons when I didn’t know how to develop new leaders or even where to start. Can anyone else relate? But if developing new leaders was important, I had to learn how to do it. The primary place where I learned how to do this was in our first church plant.
Our Church Planting Story
I remember first hearing about a small community in Ontario named Binbrook. It had around 10,000 people and no active churches reaching out to the community. That broke my heart. Did these people even have a chance to hear about Jesus?
A small group of us began to fast and pray, and we felt led to start this brand-new work called Mountainside Church. No, there aren’t any actual mountains in Binbrook, but one night, my wife and I were reading about Jesus making disciples on the mountainside. We figured that if the mountainside was good enough for Jesus, that name was good enough for us, too!
We got right to work and realized that church planting is wild. In our case, it was lots of work, little recognition, and sometimes, I had to wear ridiculous mascot costumes at outreach events. But church planting also feels like the Book of Acts, so it was all worth it. And even though there were setbacks along the way, God provided the right church partnerships and growth. People were being saved, baptized and discipled.
One of my favourite memories from these early days of the church plant was when my neighbour Aiden decided to follow Jesus. He was just a random, unchurched skatepark teenager who somehow ended up in one of our church services. He gave his life to Jesus and was baptized. What’s better than that?
Our Leadership Pipeline
Five years later, we sensed that God wanted us to start/replant a second church location in a town down the road named Dundas. In order for us to start a new location, though, we had to figure out the answer to this question: How do we develop new leaders? So far, we had gotten by without a leadership development strategy. But if we were going to multiply and grow, we had to figure this out. So, we built a simple leadership pipeline that has worked for us. It looks like this:
Attender → Volunteer → Volunteer Leader → Staff → Location Pastor
Tia, our Binbrook location pastor, is one example of how this pipeline works. She started as an attender and then volunteered on our hosting team. After some time, she began to lead that team. Eventually, Tia became our part-time kids pastor, and later, our part-time location pastor. She didn’t come from Bible college or another church staff; she came right from within our church.
Seventeen of our 18 current part-time staff members were developed in this way. None of them had been on church staff before, and this was their first crack at church leadership. We believe our future church leaders are sitting in our congregation; we just need to discover and develop them.
So, how did we set ourselves up to live out this leadership pipeline? We had to go through four simple steps:
Step #1: SET a Leadership-Building Culture
If we want to develop leaders from within, we need to build a culture that values leadership development. It starts with a mindset shift: God has already provided the leaders we need. They may not be perfect, but they’re here. We don’t need to go searching somewhere else; we can build leaders from within.
We also had to rethink what being a leader looks like. Leadership doesn’t always need to be full time or even paid. In our church, I’m the only full-time staff member, with everyone else working part time. Since all of our staff have other careers, they aren’t relying on the money from the church to take care of their families. Having part-time staff definitely comes with its challenges, but I believe that we get more done with less money.
One phrase we always say at Mountainside is, “Your calling is your qualification.” If someone is called by God, let’s set a culture where they have a chance to lead.
Step #2: SELECT Potential Leaders
This may sound obvious, but it’s wild how often we skip this step. We talk about wanting new leaders but seldom choose any. Here are some tips for selecting potential leaders:
- Test them first. Paul gives this advice to Timothy for a reason (I had to learn this lesson the hard way).
- Start with interim roles. Ask someone to try leading for three months and reassess from there.
- Focus on the heart over skill. Skills can be taught. Character and calling matter more.
- Be Spirit-led. Jesus spent all night praying before selecting the apostles (on the mountainside, by the way—just saying).
- Speak leadership into people. Most of our current staff didn’t see themselves as leaders until we called it out of them and told them they could lead.
Maybe you’re thinking: “This sounds great and all, but I literally have no one who can lead in my context!” I’ve been there, too, but Jesus taught us to pray to the Lord of the harvest for more workers. He has always answered that prayer in my life. It may take time, but don’t stop asking.
Step #3: SHAPE Potential Leaders
Once we’ve chosen potential leaders, we need to develop them intentionally. Someone once told me these nine words, and they changed my ministry life forever: “You don’t find great leaders; you build great leaders.” After hearing that, God woke something up inside of me, and I was determined to build great leaders, too!
At Mountainside, this first looked like individual mentoring. We had weekly staff meetings at my house at night, and we spent hours together where I could personally invest in each of them. As our staff team grew, though, we realized we needed more structure. We are still refining this process, but here’s what shaping leaders looks like at our church right now:
- Encouraging Bible college (The PAOC has incredible Bible colleges that offer part-time, online courses).
- Recommending leadership books and podcasts.
- Using various online video teaching tools.
- Leadership retreats.
- Mentoring meetings.
- The best teacher of all: experience.
Step #4: SEND Them Out to Lead
Developing leaders doesn’t just mean training them; it means releasing and trusting them, too. To be honest, this is difficult to do at first. You’ll cringe as they do things differently than you would. You’ll think, “I could do that much better,” and you probably could. But if we want our church to grow, we must let go.
I get why this is challenging to do sometimes; we enjoy what we do! But leadership in God’s kingdom is not just about having fun; it’s about serving. So, for example, the next time you’re making a preaching schedule, don’t hog the pulpit. Someone once gave you a shot to preach, so go and do that for someone else.
Practical Next Steps
I am convinced that there are more than enough people whom God has called to lead in our churches. They’re already there; we just need to discover and empower them.
Here are some practical next steps that we could start doing today:
- Develop your own leadership pipeline. (It’s okay to start small, just do something.)
- Make a list of people who might have a leadership calling in your church. (Remember, leadership isn’t always full time or paid.)
- If you feel like you have no one, show God that you’re faithful with what He’s already given you. Choose the person with the most potential to invest in, even if they’re not the ideal leader.
- Be okay with slow growth. Developing leaders can be frustrating. It’s messy, and it takes time. But it’s one of the most important things we can do for the future of the church in Canada.
If we’re committed to this, we’ll eventually have an overflow of new leaders for our own churches, the churches around us, and even for new church plants all across Canada.
By the way, remember my friend Aiden from earlier—that random, unchurched skatepark teenager? He eventually went through our leadership pipeline and is now one of our youth pastors. God is good.
Michael Bronson is a church planter and lead pastor of Mountainside Church, a church plant with two locations in the Hamilton area in Ontario. He also serves on the lead team of the New Churches Network, the church planting ministry of the Western Ontario District of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
This article appeared in the July/August/September 2025 issue of testimony/Enrich, a quarterly publication of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. © 2025 The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Photos © istockphoto.com.