Equip, Empower, Entrust: Creating a Culture of Multiplication

The goal of leadership development isn't to gather capable people around you. The goal is to develop capable people beyond you. 

Series: Growing Leaders Where You Are 
Speaker: Ryan Lutz 
Episode 3 of 3: Equip, Empower, Entrust
Transcript: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2627823/19500209-equip-empower-entrust-creating-a-culture-of-multiplication/transcript

Welcome to Let's Talk: Life, Leadership & Making Disciples. This podcast is designed as a resource for pastors, church staff, elders, ministry leaders, volunteers, church planters and disciple makers. Every week, we strive to provide valuable insights to train, inform and inspire healthy leaders who will go on to build healthy churches.
Follow our podcast on your favorite platforms: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2627823 

This is the third episode of a three-part series featuring Ryan Lutz, titled Growing Leaders Where You Are. Ryan is the senior pastor of Bethany Missionary Church in Elkhart, Indiana. He also oversees our full-time and part-time residency program here at the North Central Region of the Missionary Church. As the director of our leadership development program, Ryan is passionate about empowering leaders in churches of every size. 

"You don't need a larger church, a bigger budget, or a perfect system to develop leaders. You simply need to believe God has already placed potential leaders around you and take intentional steps to invest in them. Many pastors are praying for leaders while sitting in a room full of future leaders." - Ryan 

Elevate Church Leadership Conference.
November 2, 2026
Nappanee Missionary Church in Nappanee, Indiana
Learn more and sign up at mcncr.org

The Timothy Project (Youth Leadership Conference)
November 14, 2026
St. Mark Missionary Church in Mishawaka, Indiana
Learn more and sign up at mcncr.org

Transcript

Speaker 0:02

Welcome to Let's Talk, a podcast about life, leadership, and making disciples. Let's Talk is brought to you by the North Central Region of the Missionary Church, where we want to empower everyday people to love like Jesus and live like missionaries. To find out more about our events and ministries, go to mcncr.org.

Kevin Moore 0:28

Well, hey, Kevin Moore here, your host right here at the Let's Talk Podcast, where we want to help you live better, lead better, and be more effective at making disciples, both individually as well as corporately. Man, I don't know about you, but I I've really enjoyed this series of podcasts. We're in episode three, the final, the final episode of a podcast series called Growing Leaders Where You Are. And I I've really enjoyed listening to this and starting to apply this in my own local church. And I hope you have as well. Now here's the deal. If you haven't listened to the previous two, go ahead and listen to this one. But then be sure to go back and listen to episode one. Be sure to go back and listen to episode two. In fact, why don't you do something very spiritual? Why don't you share it? Why don't you share this link with your team? Share this link with a fellow leader and help them grow new leaders as well. You see, in in our world today, there's no shortage of there's no shortage of buildings, there's no shortage of money, there's no shortage of people. But you know what there's a shortage of? Leaders. And this is a podcast episode that's going to help you raise up leaders. In fact, the title of it is Equip, Empower, and Entrust. Creating a Culture of Multiplication. So if you want to multiply leaders around you, grab a notebook, grab a pen, and let's get ready to grow.

Ryan Lutz 1:58

Well, it's so great to be back with you friends as we're talking about how to develop a culture of leadership development at your church. Growing leaders right where you are. We're talking about believe, identify, multiply. Believe, identify, multiply. Believe, identify, multiply. I believe, friends, that leadership development, that leaders can rise up from your church right here, right now, that right where you are is right where you need to be for God to get you where he wants to get you. I believe that. I think that we can all identify that God's going to open doors. But now what's next? What is next? I was, as I was preparing for this, uh, this, this podcast, I was studying the church at Antioch. And those of you, you guys are all probably Bible scholars, you know about the church at Antioch, first appearing in Acts 11, and you see that the martyrdom of Stephen, believers were scattered from Jerusalem, and some traveled to Antioch and began sharing the gospel. Not only with Jews, but also with Gentiles. Lord blessed their witness, and a thriving church was born, as we see throughout Acts 11. And when the church in Antioch had heard about what God was doing, they sent Barnabas to encourage new believers and all that stuff. And we see, we see what's happening at this church at Antioch. But then you see as leaders are gathered at this church that they're gathered to pray, and there were different leaders within this church, five in particular that are mentioned, but two of those five, Paul and Barnabas, as they're gathered to pray, they realize, I think it's in Acts 13, they realize that God is calling Paul and Barnabas to missionary work. And so rather than holding on to their best leaders, this church prayed, laid hands on them, and sent them out. And those missionary journeys led to planting and strengthening the churches around the Roman world, making Antioch the primary launching point for the spread of the gospel to the Gentile world. Antioch wasn't just a growing church, friends. It was a sending church, known for identifying, developing, and releasing leaders for the sake of God's kingdom. Who did Antioch send? They sent Paul, Barnabas. These missionary journeys were resulted in churches being planted in Cyprus, uh, Lystra, Derby, Philippi, Thessalonica, just to name a few Corinth, Ephesus. Antioch became a launching point for what we call Paul's missionary journeys. As we teach on Sunday morning, so often we're looking at Paul's letters, his epistles. We look through Acts and we see the movement that Paul has across the world. And Antioch, compared to some of the other churches in that time, was known for developing leaders, multicultural ministry. You know how diverse that church was? Mission, sending. They were known for multiplication, friends. And so Antioch's greatest contribution to the kingdom wasn't what happened necessarily inside the walls. What if their greatest contribution to the kingdom was what happened after people left them? And I think that's the heart of leadership development. We often in the church world, we'll often measure success by seeding capacity. But as we look at the church at Antioch, success was actually often measured by sending capacity. Friends, I believe that leadership development is not just a strategy to try to get some things off your plate as a pastor. I believe that leadership development is what we are called to do. I believe that leadership development is going to help us uh accomplish the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that He has commanded. I believe that leadership development is an integral part of the discipleship process. And I believe wholeheartedly, friends, that within your church, within your community, within your reach, there are leaders that are waiting, that are, that are, that might not even know it yet, but God is ready. He is preparing a way. He has planted seeds, and there are leaders that are gonna sprout up from your church that are gonna impact not only your church ministry, not only their family, but the community. And again, we are going to see revival happen throughout our communities in northern Indiana and southern Michigan and beyond. We are going to see leaders rise up, and revival is going to be happening because leaders have been developed and God is moving through leadership development. If you listen to the past couple of episodes, we talked about three main movers for leadership development in your church. Growing leaders right where you are, creating, cultivating a leadership development culture. And that is these three things: believe, identify, multiply. The first episode we talked about belief. We got to believe. Leadership development starts with belief. Belief is not just some Mickey Mouse, you know, wishing upon a star Disney World type stuff. Belief is powerful. Roger Bannister ran under a four-minute mile, right? The woman who was bleeding crawled to grab just the hem of Jesus' garment, and her belief is what healed her. John 3.16, for God's love of the world, that whoever believes in him, Jesus, there's power and belief. Identify, we talked about that. Then we need to go to, we need to believe that God is moving in miraculous ways through our church, that he is raising up leaders from all different generations, all different ages, all different backgrounds. He is raising them up. Then we need to go to him and pray to him. Ask God to open doors, identify the doors that God has opened, and then faithfully and relationally walk through those doors to see God move. But then where do we go from there? Right? We have we we believe that God is developing leaders. We identify that God has pointed out a couple people within our church that have some different leadership capacity potential. We engage in relationship and conversation with them. We hear their story, we talk to them about our vision. Where do we go from here? Because honestly, it's it's almost sometimes it can be like, hey, we're we're running a track meet. We have a baton, we're gonna pass it in the in the relay race. But as soon as they get the baton, there's no lanes or lines or anything. They're just running. How do we put some guardrails up? How do we actually get them to be at their best as we're developing leaders? Because leadership development does not happen in an instant and it happens through relationship, it happens over time. And so today, what we're going to be talking about is creating a culture of multiplication. The goal isn't just to gather capable people around you, the goal is to develop capable people beyond you. And there's three main points that I want us to focus on as we look at multiplying leaders within our church. When we look at, you know, believing that God is providing leaders, identifying, praying and identifying the doors that God has opened, faithfully and relationally walking through those doors to engage in relationship with potential leaders. Where do we go from here? And this is the three main points that we have. We equip, we empower, we entrust. Point number one, we equip, point number two, we empower, point number three, we entrust for creating a culture of leadership development within your church context, no matter how big or small your church is, no matter where your church is located, no matter how many years of experience you have as a pastor. If we are developing leaders, it starts with equipping them, empowering them, and entrusting them. Now, I want to say something really quickly because this episode in particular might look like another giant thing added to your already full plate as a leader or a pastor. But I want to tell you that as a region, at the North Central Region of the Missionary Church, we are so passionate about developing leaders in all types of church contexts that we are investing time, energy, and money into how we can help you develop leaders within your church context. Most of you might have already heard about our full-time residency opportunity that we have here at the region. This is a one to two year commitment where a resident, if typically fresh out of college, someone looking to get into ministry, pursue licensing within the missionary church. They they go through an interview process with the region. They are employed by the region and then placed at a church within our region. And for a year, sometimes two years, they are a full-time employee at a missionary church in the North Central region. And that is an incredible, incredible ministry. What an incredible investment that this region has made in developing leaders. But the reality is full-time residency opportunity is not for everybody, right? The reality is, is we typically only can afford to hire three to four full-time residents as a region. I mean, we're paying them salary, that type of stuff. The reality is that some of you are churches that already have a large enough staff to where if we're looking to place a full-time resident, we want them to get hands-on experience, your church might have too many full slots, might be too large with not enough opportunity for a full-time resident to step in. The reality is that some of you might not be able to financially contribute to hosting a resident at your church, or the reality is that there's only three to four full-time residents most years. I think we have six this year because of Lilly grant. But the reality is, is even with six full-time residents, we're touching a tenth of the churches in our region. And if I believe, and you might believe, that there is leadership development potential in your local church, I think we got to find a way to do that without being limited to just 10% at most of our region. And so as a region, we are developing a bivoc, we have developed, there is active a developed bivocational residency program where you can have leaders within your church be offered all the same training, mentoring, coaching, opportunities that are provided to the full-time residents, but without the cost of being a full-time employee. We have seen bivocational residency lead to some incredible ministry opportunities, and we're trying to expand that as much as much as possible. In fact, we've kind of shifted a little bit more from hey, this is the residency program to this is more of a leadership development network because we are more than just a full-time residency program that can touch about 10% of the churches in our region a year. We want to be a network of leaders constantly being developed. We have a monthly newsletter that we send out to residents, to the resident senior pastors, to bivocational residents with resources, with with a whole write-up. We have a 12-month curriculum that we walk through with different basics of what it looks like to be in ministry, everything ranging from preaching and teaching to developing discipleship strategy to having healthy spiritual rhythms as a leader or a pastor in the church. And so the first point of this of multiplying is to equip them. And what I want to tell you right here and right now, that if you have gone through the work of believing that God is wanting to develop leaders within your church, of praying and identifying and engaging with the leaders that God has given to you, but it looks like this is where the road might end because you just don't have enough time. Let me help you. Help me help you, right? What I want to offer to you is as we're still kind of rolling out what this leadership development network, what this bivocational residency could look like. I want to offer you an opportunity to be a part of the very early stages of what that can look like. Bivocational residency, leadership development network, a monthly newsletter, uh, Zoom meetup trainings, in-person trainings, different retreats and events that we might be going to, book studies that we might walk through. I want to invite you to partake in that. In fact, we are so passionate about developing leaders within our region at churches of all size and in all different demographics that we legitimately are working on developing a residency in a box for you to have, a take and bake residency, right? We want to give you all the resources, all the all the material, all the trainings, all the curriculum. In fact, as we're working on developing this media room, we want to, we want to develop digital trainings for you to just have. So whether you want a one-on-one disciple or leadership development, if you if you want to run the class, teach the class yourself, we will give you the outlines and the materials that we are walking through. Or whether you don't have time to do that at this moment, we will we will have digital training videos available for you. And so if you are interested in trying to develop leaders within your church context, but you just don't have the time, space, energy, whatever it might be, or you're just looking for a partner in leadership development, why don't you just shoot me an email, Ryan at BethanyMissionary.com. Shoot me an email, Ryan at BethanyMissionary.com. If you have my contact info, shoot me a text, whatever it might be, reach out on social media, Ryan at BethanyMissionary.com. And let's connect. Let's figure out how we can make leadership development happen in your local church context. The region has, we have tools, we have mentoring, we have systems, we have a pathway that can help a church of any size develop leaders. You don't have to create this all by yourself. Let us help you. Help us help you. We got to equip. We've got to equip because teaching transfers information, equipping develops leaders. You don't have to invent the pathway. You simply have to invite people onto it. And every church can be a leadership development church, especially if we partner together. So the first point of this multiplication is we need to learn to equip. And so if you're looking for ways, the best practices to equip leaders within your local church context, one, it happens relationally, but two, you don't have to recreate, reinvent the wheel. You don't have to do it all by yourself. We don't need the credit either. We can give you this take and bake leadership residency program and you can take it and you can run with it. But we just want to be here to help serve you the best that we can. Help you equip leaders that are already in your church, that you are already praying over, that you are already given opportunities to. That brings me to my second point. So we start with the quip. Second is empower. This is one of the most uh vital qualifications for being a host church of our full-time residency. It's giving leaders meaningful opportunities, giving them real hands-on experience, letting them teach or lead the meetings, letting them teach in different areas, letting them own a ministry area, letting them make different decisions. People grow oftentimes through responsibility. People don't become leaders just by watching leaders. And it's hard to develop leaders while you're holding on to every decision. Responsibility is the classroom where leadership matures. And honestly, friends, leadership isn't learned from the sidelines. Sometimes you got to throw them out on the field. And so you empower them. Especially if you're already partnering with them to equip them with different resources, different training materials, different information that you might be able to give them. You're equipping them with the things that they need to do the ministry that God has called them to. So you equip them and then you empower them. And it might not be as good as it might have been if you were to do it. But can I tell you something? It might be better. But ultimately it is because you're not only achieving a goal, but you're also developing a leader. So give them meaningful opportunities. People grow through responsibility. You want to learn how to multiply in your church, very practical level. You equip them, you empower them. And the point number three is you entrust them. Another way to say this is you release them. Now, this is scary. Because so oftentimes we're thinking about, you know, well, this is this is a great leader. They're really good at doing what I want them to do. They're really good at doing this, that, and the other. But sometimes we need to release them to do the ministry that God is calling them to. And that doesn't necessarily mean sending them to go plant a new church. Sometimes that means releasing them to do the ministry at the church that they're at. Sometimes that means releasing them to lead in the way that God has called them to lead. It's often the hardest hardest step. It's releasing the ownership that we think we have. It's giving away ministry, it's celebrating the multiplication that is happening. And then it's praying and sending people when God is calling them elsewhere. I'm just thinking of myself at the church at Antioch, you got Paul, what a writer, what a communicator, a leader within the the realm that he was in before he met Jesus, and then a leader after he meets Jesus as well. And he ends up in Antioch, right? Man, what a home run for them. But then God calls Paul and Barnabas to the mission field. And yet, what does it say? They prayed, they laid hands, and they blessed and they sent them. We need to learn to entrust people with the mission that God has called them to. If you never let go, it'll be hard for them to grow. Your success isn't measured by how indispensable you become, right? Healthy leaders eventually send. Leadership development isn't complete until someone else is leading. The goal isn't to build your ministry, friends, it's to build God's kingdom. We're not talking about building castles. We're talking about working for his kingdom, serving his kingdom. Friends, I think as I as I talked about earlier, as I'm pulling up my notes in the Church of Antioch, we can often measure the success of a ministry or of a church or of a leadership by the seeding capacity. But what would happen if we started measuring success by the sending capacity? What if we started measuring the success of our church by how many leaders we were raising up within our church context? And again, we're not just talking about sending to plant new churches, although that's great. We're talking about sending people to go lead their families. We're talking about sending people to go lead in their workspaces. We're talking about sending people to go lead within the communities. I've talked about this multiple times throughout these past few podcasts. I believe that revival is coming, friends. And I believe that we're going to be able to have a front seat to watch God move in miraculous ways. And I believe wholeheartedly that one of the ways that God is going to bring revival to our community is through developing leaders. Not just leaders to lead churches, not just leaders to lead ministries, but leaders to lead our community. And I believe that leadership development can happen in your church, right where you are. Right where you are is right where you need to be for God to get you where he wants to get you. But it starts with believing and then it goes to identifying where he's leading you to go. And then it's about multiplying. Friends, I hope this podcast was helpful. Again, I really want to encourage you, please, even if you're it's not it's not uh a requirement that you have to shoot me an email or sign up for this Leadership Development Network. But if you're interested in learning at all more about some of the resources that we are currently offering or going to offer here in the near future, please, please, please shoot me an email, Ryan at BethanyMissionary.com. Ryan at Bethany Missionary.com. Let's have a conversation. Let's talk about what it could look like to have a leadership development pipeline happening within your church community. Let's figure out what it could look like to have a resident at your church. Let's figure out what it could look like to develop leaders within your church context. Please shoot me a message. Let's connect and let's keep developing leaders until the day Jesus returns. Friends, I hope you have a great week this week. Stay tuned for the rest of these episodes.

Kevin Moore 22:29

Well, hey, thanks so much for listening to the podcast today. I have no doubt that you are walking away with a notebook full of tools that you can actually use. So here's what I want to encourage you to do: two things. Number one, I want to encourage you to apply what you've heard. It's one thing to hear it, it's another thing to do it. Go out and do what Ryan's been talking to you about. And then secondly, I want to encourage you to share it. Don't be a stingy leader. Share this. Share this with your team. Share this with your church. Share this with other leaders that you know because there's no shortage of buildings, there's no shortage of money, there's no shortage of people, but what there is a shortage of is leaders. And this podcast series is going to help you find, engage, and raise up new leaders. So I really hope that you'll apply this and you'll also share it. I also, before I let you go, I really hope that you'll go to MCNCR and you will register for both the Elevate Church Leadership Conference with Carrie Newhoff, but also your youth directors, your youth pastors, their student leaders, your volunteer leaders, register them for the Timothy Project conference that's coming up on Saturday, November 14th. You can find out more information and register your team. The rates are unbelievably affordable because we want there to be no excuse for you and your team to join us. Go to mcncr.org. Hey, it's always great to speak with you. Can't wait to talk with you next time.

Speaker 23:58

Thanks for joining us for Let's Talk. If you have any questions, topics you want us to discuss, or a story you want to share, email us at info at mcncr.org.