If the church is going to have leaders tomorrow, it’s going to take a new wave of mentoring from existing leadership today. This reality drove organizers of the 2023 Illinois Leadership Summit (ILS) to ask those coming to the annual event, “Which younger leader will you bring with you?”
The evidence that many pastors took that challenge to heart could be seen across the crowd gathered at the IBSA Building in Springfield Jan. 17-18. The two-day event featured 12 breakout sessions led by church pastors and staff, as well as four plenary sessions. This year’s featured speaker was Rodney Harrison, President of Baptist Homes and Healthcare Ministries, and former Dean of Doctoral studies at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Harrison recently led Hannibal LaGrange University through a significant transition that many credited with saving the Missouri Baptist college.
Former IBSA intern Irina Yeakley attends a breakout session alongside Ben Gifford from Transformation Church in Chicago Heights.
Many attenders were there for the first time, thanks to an invitation extended by a mentor. At 19, Irina Yeakley may have been one of the youngest leaders in the room. She was initially invited by IBSA Leadership Development Director Carmen Halsey, and came with several leaders from Tabernacle Church in Decatur. Yeakley says she feels called to the mission field, specifically Eastern Europe.
Yeakley was born in Russia but has lived her entire life in Central Illinois with her adopted family. She has experienced mentoring both at her home church and with Halsey through connections she gained by serving as an IBSA intern last summer. She came with an open heart and a desire to listen and learn.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Yeakly said. “It said leadership, and I know I’ll be doing that (as a missionary). I have been doing it, but I honestly know I need more knowledge and understanding, especially from people with experience and who have seen God work in their lives and other people’s lives around them. So, I just came to grow.”
Contrary to common impressions, rising young leaders from both Millennial and Gen Z desire to learn from older generations. However, according to a 2019 Regent University study, the high value these generations place on relational transparency, compassion, and difference-making means the mentoring relationship may need to look different than in the past. Simply giving them a book to read or placing them on a committee won’t keep them involved. They need more intentionality and availability.
Pastors such as First Baptist O’Fallon’s Doug Munton recognize this. Asked what his church is doing to develop their next leaders, Munton pointed to the importance of engaging young leader through small group accountability.
“The younger generation isn’t just going to go to meetings because you have meetings,” he said during a panel discussion while advocating connecting young people with ministry responsibility and gathering them with purpose.
“We need each other,” Munton said. “The young guys need us, and the old guys need them.”
Munton’s point is well made as the median age for pastors in Illinois has increased from 44 in 1992 to 57 in 2022. Doing the hard work of mentoring the next generation of leaders is essential.
Who’s asking?
Church leadership expert Mac Lake says, “One of the biggest factors in getting new people into leadership is their relationship with the person making the ask.” Mentoring, developing relationships, and intentionally investing in people, makes all the difference.
Josiah Nichols’s path toward leadership looks different than Yeakley’s, but mentorship is also playing an important role.
As a young man he was passionate about the Bible. This passion led him to pursue biblical education. He published a few books on how to read the Bible and apply it to important issues. That same passion eventually led to pastoral leadership at a rural non-denominational church. After two rocky pastorates, Nichols needed a safe place to grow in ministry. That’s when he met pastor Dwight McDaniel of Highland Avenue Baptist Church in Robinson.
McDaniel said to the young man, “Please come here, we’ll take care of you.”
“Here at (Highland Ave.), my family has been loved and nurtured,” Nichols said. “The pastor has taken me under his wing, and I’ve seen his process. This is what I’ve wanted this whole time. And he’s really been a good mentor to me, kind of like a father figure in my life.”
Out of his relationship with McDaniel, Nichols learned about ILS. “It’s been a healing conference, to know that conflict shows up at times in every church… It’s comforting to know that and how to have some pointers on how to deal with that conflict a little bit wiser in the future.”
Mentorship is vital to calling out the next generation of missionaries and pastors, but it’s also an important part of raising up new leaders in every area of church life.
The team from Alpha Church in Bolingbrook, (l-r) Tigelique Woods, Alexander Cooper, Jason Powell, Olajide Odelana, was invited by their pastor, Bruce Kirk.
Pastor Bruce Kirk of Alpha Baptist in Bolingbrook brought four younger leaders with him. Some are long-time volunteer leaders; others are growing disciples with leadership potential.
Kirk said he has recently doubled down on investing in future leaders at Alpha. The pastor said he knows that potential leaders are sometimes identified by their faithfulness, and at other times by their availability.
Multiplying leaders, such as Kirk, seek to invest in both.
Kirk’s team of developing leaders from the Chicago suburbs left with a clear impression to keep the main things central. Alexander Cooper emphasized the necessity to focus on growing in godly character and skills throughout life and letting God determine the leadership role. The Summit “reminded me that leadership is a lifetime thing,” he said.
“It’s not even just being in a position of leadership, but a life thing,” Cooper said.
“Prayer, Bible study, application, fasting,” teacher and trustee Jason Powell identified. “You keep the main things, the main things, you don’t seem to go off track. And unfortunately, I heard it said more than once, people go off track…. So how do you make it 25, 40 years in the faith? Man, you got to keep those things. You got to stay grounded. And so, I was reinspired to stay grounded.”
That challenge issued to those registered for the Summit early on, “Who will you bring with you?” was answered. But it’s about more than bringing someone to a leadership training event. That question needs to be asked every day by every church leader. And applied to the leader’s life.
Or as panelist Paul Cooper, Pastor of Marshall Baptist Church, put it, “You only have one life. Are you going to spend it all investing in yourself or invest it in things that will live on beyond you?”
The ILS is held in rotation with the biennial Midwest Leadership Summit which brings together about 1,000 church leaders from nine midwestern Baptist state conventions for three days of intensive training.
The MLS returns to Springfield in January 2024.