The Urgent Need for a Pastoral Leadership Pipeline in the Church

In this powerful and heartfelt message, Mike Glenn, President of the Engage Church Network and former Senior Pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church, shares his vision for equipping the next generation of church leaders. After 32 years in the pulpit, Mike now devotes his time to preparing pastors instead of repairing pastors — and it all starts here in Middle Tennessee.

• Transcript

  Mike Glenn: Good morning. My name is Mike Glenn, and I am the president of The Engaged Church Network. And you're wondering, what is The Engaged Church Network? Well, I'm about to tell you that in a few minutes. I- I pastored here at Brentwood for 32 years, and stepped down last October. And we were over here visiting the other day, and somebody said, "Man, everybody still likes you over here."

  And I said, "That means you left at the right moment." You know? Uh, you know, it's like somebody going, "Man, you, you, you could have preached all day." Do you know how long, how small that line is between you can preach all day and when is he ever gonna shut up? That is a really, really... So it's the same kind of thing when you step down, uh, from, uh, being the lead pastor here.

  I, uh, I loved every minute of it, and, uh, and Jay Strother is now the pastor here, and he's trying to repair the damage I did. [00:01:00] And you'll get to hear from Jay a little later, uh, this afternoon. Um, as our church started other campuses, and we ended up with nine other campuses, uh, I started spending most of my time with the pastors of those campuses, and we planned our services together and we did the coaching together and all of that.

  And I found out that's where I had my most fun, and the thing that I loved doing best was working with younger pastors. And so as I stepped out, uh, we made the decision that we would step into The Engaged Church Network, which is gonna be working with pastors and churches throughout the Middle Tennessee area.

  Now,

  everybody kept telling me we need to go nationwide on this thing. I don't wanna spend my life in an airport. I don't wanna be waiting on whether or not Southwest is gonna take off or Delta's gonna land. I don't want any of [00:02:00] that stress. Uh, and there's enough happening in the Middle Tennessee area from the Kentucky line to the Alabama line, from, say, Dickson in the west to Lebanon in the east.

  There's enough happening, uh, in that Middle Tennessee area to keep us busy for, for several lifetimes. The other thing is I work with a pastor, and if I call him on the phone and say, "How you doing?" And he says, "Fine," and I know he's lying, I can be in his office in about an hour, okay? 'Cause w- I wanna spend a lot more time preparing pastors rather than repairing pastors.

  Okay? Uh, now how do we wanna do that? One, uh, we wanna focus on Middle Tennessee. Why? Because there are millions of people moving here from all over the nation. Uh, they are from Massachusetts, they are from [00:03:00] Illinois, they are from California, they are from Colorado. Now, if you... I've been Southern Baptist all my life.

  What have I just named for you? Now, if you're old school, if you know who Andy is and you know who Lottie is, what have I-- I've just named pioneer areas. Remember that term? Pioneer areas, which means we didn't have a lot of Baptists in those areas. Okay? So those people are moving here to Middle Tennessee.

  They're moving here because of the weather. They're moving here because of taxes. They're moving here because they can afford more house. They're moving here for education. They're moving here for career. What are they not moving here for? Church. Church. They aren't looking for a church. Now, when I grew up, we were told the first thing you do is you go, as you move into a new community, is you find your church and you get connected.

  They aren't coming. One of the first things, one of the mental mindsets that we have to make is to [00:04:00] understand that we are now missionaries in Middle Tennessee. You're no longer the chaplain of the status quo. You are a missionary in your own community. More people in your own neighborhood do not know Jesus Christ than do, and that's walking distance of your own house.

  Now, how do we wanna do that? We want to identify, and we want to train, and we want to prepare and mentor pastors. Okay? Now, I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, my church called me. I had significant leaders of my church telling me, "Pay attention to your life, Mike. Pay attention to your life.

  God has something for you. Pay attention to your life." One of the things that we have to do now as pastors is start praying [00:05:00] that God will send laborers to the harvest, and part of that process is gonna be you going to a young person in your congregation and saying, "Pay attention to your life." We want to disciple that young man.

  We want to prepare those young people for the ministry, and we want to be their air cover and ministry.

  Most graduates of seminary will not be, 50% will not be in ministry five years from the time they graduate. Do you know that? The reason is they don't have any air cover. They don't have a church that's sponsoring them. They don't have a pastor who's mentoring. They're a pastor. One of our campus pastors came to me one time, said, "Well, they're mad because we moved the American flag off the stage."[00:06:00] 

  I said, "Okay." So I happened to be in another meeting when a couple of those leaders from that particular campus were there, and came over to me and said, "You know, we're really upset about moving the flag, and, and we've told our pastor about it, and he said it was your decision." And I said, "Is it your decision?"

  I said, "Yes, it's my decision." He did it because I told him to. Well, why? Because we're here to proclaim the gospel. Jesus did not leave us a flag, He left us a cross. Amen, brother. It's not rally around the flag, boys. It's pick up your cross and follow me. Anything that distracts from that message gets off the stage.

  O, air cover. Okay? We're gonna have to be air cover for each other. Now, how do we want to do that? One, we want to work with churches in transition. Guess what? All of us are churches in transition. [00:07:00] Okay? Nature has a word for things that, that aren't, that aren't changing anymore. You know what that word is?

  Dead. Dead. Dead. I pastored five or six churches at the same address. Jay is now pastoring the seventh or eighth, however you wanna count it, enter- uh, uh, uh, embodiment of church at the same address. Okay, we wanna work with churches that are planting churches. Now, let's talk about planting. The traditional plant has been we grab a young person driving through a neighborhood, throw him out of a car, and say, "Go plant a church."

  80% of those churches fail. Okay? Now, let's, let's imagine a bi- uh, a meeting with my business leaders when I was pastor at Brentwood Baptist [00:08:00] Church. Let's say I'm sitting with the, the table o- of, of some of our supporters, and I say, "Listen, I wanna go plant a church. I'd like for you guys to help me, and I have about a 80...

  uh, uh, a 20% chance of pulling this thing off." One, that's a short meeting. Two, I never get another one. Now, let me tell you the damage we've done. We lose that planter, and you know 'em. We lose that planter's family.

  We lose the pioneers who went with that planter. Now, they may go back to church, but you know them. They sit on the back row of the church, and they're not ever gonna do anything else for Jesus. The damage is untold. We can do better. And the way it's gonna work is we have lots of churches that are being overwhelmed by the growth, and that church is [00:09:00] gonna have to...

  Church can happen in that facility, but it's gonna have to be a new expression of church, and that's what we wanna work with, churches in transition, churches in planning. We wanna do that through coaching, we wanna do that through consulting, and we wanna do that through the Leadership Institute. You're here because we are brokenhearted that we don't have a leadership pipeline going of churches in Middle Tennessee, and that's one of the things we're trying to get started.

  You have to understand, half of your job as a pastor is identifying, training, and mentoring the next generation of pastors. Half of your job. Paul sends out Timothy. Paul sends out Titus. [00:10:00] He writes them letters. "I'm sending you to Ephesus. I'm sending you to Crete." What are those letters about? You would think they'd be about evangelism.

  They're not. Those letters are about leadership.

  "Here's what I'm looking for in you. Here are the people you identify to carry on the ministry." You and I have to understand that our biggest role, half of our job now, preaching the gospel, sure, but then identifying and training. Now, now, what's, what's the problem with that? One, we always look for somebody that is impressive to the world.

  Okay? Uh, uh, how long have you guys been following American politics? That doesn't work. [00:11:00] The problem is we always choose Saul, right, when God has chosen David. So the first thing you gotta do is spend a lot of time in prayer to identify the person that God has already identified, and then start pouring your life into that person.

  We wanna do it through coaching, uh, consulting. We wanna help you as a church understand how the transition, uh, the neighborhood has transitioned around you to giving you new opportunities and new chances for ministry. We wanna do it through the development of the Leadership Institute. We want to have young, uh, pastors who are coming to be trained, and we wanna staple them to a pastor We want to work with people like Southeastern.

  They're here, and they have a ministry training center here now. You can get your theological education. But you know like I do, I graduated with a great seminary education. I was ready to talk about Bultmann, Kumon, all that. They never came up. What I didn't know [00:12:00] how to do was balance the church budget.

  What I didn't know how to do was manage a staff.

  We want you stapled to a successful pastor. You can learn those necessary skills. Now, why are we going to do this?

  Um, I grieve because I'm 67 years old.

  And the reason I grieve that I'm 67 years old is that if there's any time to preach the gospel in the United States of America, it is now. Every question our culture is asking is a Jesus question. Who am I? That's a Jesus question. [00:13:00] The world says you can be. Jesus says you are.

  Why am I here? What's my purpose? That's a Jesus question. If there's ever a time to be preaching the gospel, it is now. And I want to work with you as much as I can to help you find that joy of preaching the gospel in a world that is desperate, desperate to have it. So once again, my name is Mike Glenn.

  I'm the president of the Engaged Church Network. I am grateful, grateful that you were 

  [00:14:00] here.