Synod School class looks at developing church leaders like Paul did — from within

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STORM LAKE, Iowa — The Rev. Dr. Paul Snyder, who pastors an ELCA church and a PC(USA) church in the  Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys, offered up a fascinating week-long course at Synod School last week he called “Leadership Development NOT Leadership Acquisition.”

Snyder presented this overview of the course: “The current church struggles to find inquirers and candidates [for ministry], ruling elders, deacons, Sunday school teachers and volunteers to help with many activities. Many of our models of leadership are taken from the business and education worlds. But the early church had a very effective way to develop leaders that we can reclaim.”

Snyder’s doctoral work looked at leadership development and collaborative ministry, “two things the early church did well,” he said. The predominant pattern of leadership development in the early church was discipleship or mentorship, viewing leadership as something to pass on to others, said Snyder, who chairs the Presbytery of Minnesota Valleys’ Innovative Ministries Task Force. That group “explores innovative and outside-the-box methods of providing ministry within the presbytery,” which includes many rural congregations, Snyder said.

“What if the goal was, I’m going to be a leader for a while, and then I’m going to teach someone how to succeed me?” he said.

For the class held at Buena Vista University, Snyder drew from two sources: his own 2023 doctoral thesis while studying at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, “Reclaiming the Early Church as a Leadership Model of Mentorship and Collaborative Ministry,” and the book “The Leadership Baton: An Intentional Strategy for Developing Leaders in Your Church.”

“Today’s church has relied on academic institutions to provide leaders from outside the community as opposed to identifying leaders from within it,” Snyder said. The authors of “The Leadership Baton” say “the local church is by design the most effective incubator of spiritual leaders on the planet,” Snyder noted. If every PC(USA) congregation provided just one potential pastoral leader to the wider church, “there would not be a shortage of pastors,” he said. Local churches “need to reclaim the training of new leaders as a core value of congregational life and mission. This has been at the heart of the church from its inception.”

Jesus mentored his disciples, and Paul “developed leaders in each community he served and encouraged his co-workers to do the same,” Snyder noted. “The Leadership Baton” relies on 2 Timothy 2:2, traditionally ascribed to Paul but probably written by one of the apostle’s students: “and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well.”

“Membership and collaboration functioned in tandem,” Snyder said of the early church. Even Paul was mentored, initially by Barnabas. Priscilla, as described in Acts 18 and elsewhere, is often mentioned before her husband, Aquilla. “Women played an important role in Paul’s ministry,” Snyder said.

In at least seven of his epistles, Paul wrote alongside one of his co-workers. “Paul got to know co-workers on a personal level,” Snyder said. “He spent time with them, building relationships.” In one letter, Philemon, Paul writes to a slave owner, urging him to accept Onesimus as a brother in Christ.

A vocation and a ministry

“All Christians have a vocation and ministry,” Snyder said. The distance learning offered by seminaries “has made it possible for many people to attend seminary who were once tied to a specific location,” but those students are usually “less open to a national search” because they’re hoping to learn enough to serve the church they currently attend, where their family is often rooted.

“Distance education inadvertently enables candidates to remain connected to an area,” Snyder said, “making ministry less about journey and more about growth in one place.”

“Mentorship coupled with theological education is powerful,” he said, adding that presbyteries “can use less traditional ways to provide leadership for small faith communities that can’t afford a seminary-trained pastor. Equipping commissioned pastors or commissioned ruling elders also helps presbyteries fill leadership gaps.”

Congregational leaders, especially those who are ruling elders and deacons, “must remember they are called to be spiritual leaders within the church, not just those who make the business decisions” and care for people in need, Snyder said. “It is vitally important to find regular team-building activities that work for the session or board of deacons, such as a retreat.”

Under the model Snyder proposes, leaders are asked to find somebody they can help mentor. “Just as important as running a good race,” he said, “is passing the baton to others.” That model can work for up-and-coming deacons, the clerk of session, church treasurer, or Sunday school teacher.

In the initial stage, the mentor “acts as a talent scout. That can take time and encouragement,” Snyder said. “They don’t have to have every skill and gift necessary to immediately fill the leadership role, but instead be somebody who might be willing to be mentored.” The other factor is whether there is “a good fit” between the mentor and mentee, he said.

Character is an important part of leadership, and character development is an important aspect of mentoring, he said.

In turn, the mentor serves as first a teacher, then as a coach. By the final stage, the mentor “acts as a team player and is a strong advocate and spiritual friend to the one now vested in leadership.”

At that point, the mentor is free to return to the initial phase, searching for the next potential leader to mentor.

“Churches can become incubators of leadership as then reclaim the model of the early church” as affirmed in Eph. 4:11-16, Snyder said.

“The heart of this is love,” he said. “It’s not a business model. It’s investing in a person one-on-one.”

Possible polity and policy changes needed to implement the model include:

• The flexibility to allow commissioned leaders “to serve in one’s congregation if there is a good fit and the situation is right for both the candidate and the congregation,” Snyder said.
• Flexibility for church nominating committees to “allow leaders to mentor new leaders to pass the baton of leadership.”
• “Always giving room for the Spirit to lead in unexpected ways and have the flexibility to follow the Spirit’s lead, even when exceptions need to be made.”