From 300 to 2,500: Building a Leadership Pipeline That Fuels Growth with Chris Vaught

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Chris Vaught, lead pastor of Connection Point Church (CPC) in Missouri. Under his leadership, CPC has grown from 300 people in 2011 to over 2,500 today across multiple campuses. With a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders, Chris has built a leadership development pipeline and launched the Connection Point Leadership College to multiply impact far beyond the church walls.

Is your church struggling to develop leaders and sustain growth? In this episode, Chris shares how the church equips volunteers, creates leadership pathways, and empowers everyday people to lead with clarity and purpose.

• Raise the bar for volunteers. // At Connection Point, volunteers aren’t just an extra set of hands—they are recognized as unpaid staff. Each role comes with a written job description outlining time commitments, responsibilities, and cultural values. This kind of intentionality elevates ownership, raises expectations, and ultimately increases the sense of purpose among those serving. Volunteers rise to the challenge when treated with dignity and entrusted with meaningful responsibility.
• Find your Timothy. // Each staff member should develop a “Timothy”—a person they’re investing in who could step into their role if needed. This mindset of multiplication ensures continuity and creates a built-in culture of mentorship. By identifying and pouring into potential leaders, churches develop stronger teams and deeper bench strength over time.
• Four-Step Discipleship Path. // Chris and his team designed a clear discipleship and leadership journey: Starting Point (intro to church/DNA), Life Groups (discipleship) or Serve Teams (leadership development), Equip Workshops (10-week leadership training), and the Leadership College (10 month internship program). This structured progression gives people consistent next steps for growth.
• Connection Point Leadership College. // At the top of CPC’s leadership pipeline is its 10-month internship program, designed for both future church leaders and marketplace leaders. Full-time interns spend two days a week in intensive theology and leadership training, alongside hands-on departmental experience. A hybrid model allows working adults to participate online. In partnership with Evangel University, graduates earn 12 college credit hours.
• Marketplace and ministry. // The Leadership College trains vocational leaders, but marketplace discipleship is equally critical. Leadership competencies are meant to extend into schools, businesses, sports teams, and families. This mobilizes the congregation to carry out ministry wherever they live and work, not just inside the church.
• Identify leadership types. // Drawing from Larry Osborne, Chris distinguishes between “big L leaders,” who drive growth and innovation, and “shepherds,” who nurture and care for people. Both are vital to church health. Place leaders strategically based on these traits to maximize impact and sustainability.
• Develop a leadership pathway. // The number one gift to give your Timothy is an investment in them. Sit down with them and talk. Ask how you can pray for them and care for them. Then give a quick update of what is going on and teach them some leadership competency. Help them build confidence in their leadership and celebrate with them.

To learn more about Connection Point Church and their Leadership College, visit yourcpc.church

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s conversation. I know I say that lots, but I really mean it today. We’re talking about an area that I think, frankly, lots of our churches should be leaning in on and learning more about and asking the question, how can we improve this area? Excited to have Dr. Chris Vaught with us. We got a doctor on the episode today.

Rich Birch — He’s the lead pastor of Connection Point Church. This is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And if I’m counting correctly, Currently two campuses in Missouri. They have a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders and they’ve developed the Connection Point Leadership College. Super excited to have you on the show today, Chris. Thanks for being here.

Chris Vaught — Hey, I’m excited, Rich. So excited to be here and get to share a little bit about what God’s doing with us. And of course, we’re constantly learning from you and all the other great hosts or leaders you have on your podcast with you and just excited and humbled to be to be able to share a little bit of our story. So thanks.

Rich Birch — Well, yeah, I’m, I’m excited to have you and to have, you know, I really do think this is going to be an area. I know a lot of us are wrestling with how do we do this well? How do we develop leaders? And, but, but kind of, you know, tell us a bit of the story, kind of set the table for us. Tell us about Connection and you know, what, you know, if what, if we were to come this weekend, what would we experience? Give us a kind of a flavor of the church. Talk us through that a little bit.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so Connection Point Church, we’re located in Jackson, Missouri. We’re about two hours south of St. Louis, down toward the Boot Hill, is what the area calls it, right. Just outside of Cape Girardeau. So there’s, between Cape Girardeau and Jackson, total driving distance around the church, you know, 20 minutes. We’ll probably lean in to around 70,000 people. Jackson itself is a small town of 15,000.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — But it’s ah it’s very it’s it’s a very fast growing area as far as young families moving in. The school systems are excellent. Sports teams, Southeast Missouri University is over in Cape Girardeau. And so um so there’s a lot of energy in the area.

Chris Vaught — And so for CPC, we’ve actually kind of designed all our ministries to fit the mode of this area. I’m a firm believer we should bloom where we’re planted, right? And so how can we get into this community? And over over the ah the past 14 years, that’s been our goal.

Chris Vaught — We came here in 2011 and church was running about 300 the time. We had a traditional service and a contemporary service and was just trying the church was just trying to feel that piece out and what that looked like and how to get into the community.

Chris Vaught — And God just began to put the pieces together in 2012. We we changed our name to Connection Point because we wanted the people in the community to know what our church was about. I mean, there’s churches, you know, on every corner in our area. And so what set this church apart? What is our niche? And we wanted it to be about connections.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Number one, a connected relationship with Christ. And then, relationships with people. So ah throughout the past 14 years, that’s become our emphasis, right? Getting out in the community, making those connections, and then making sure that the relationship with Christ is real and personal, not just religion.

Chris Vaught — We’re a very religious area. So we wanted really to build off of the relationship aspect. So from that, okay, so by 2019, we had bought 28 acres across town, built a new campus, and we moved into this campus with about 800 people in 2019.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Absolutely.

Chris Vaught — So we we made a lot of transitions from 2011 to 2019, and we’d grown from 300 to about 800. Of course, we all know what happened with 2020 and and covid. That all came four months after we built this brand new campus.

Rich Birch — Oh no. Perfect timing. Perfect timing.

Chris Vaught — I was literally teaching the membership class. We call it Starting Point…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — …to get new people connected to the church, when the phone call came into the church…

Rich Birch — Yes.

Chris Vaught — …that the government, the governing leaders of Missouri was asking the churches to stop meeting in public because of COVID.

Rich Birch — Wow. Right.

Chris Vaught — And I was teaching the membership class when that night, when that came in. I mean, I was teaching and my staff was in the back waving me down, said, hey, we just got a message.

Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.

Chris Vaught — I was like, are you kidding me?

Rich Birch — Wow. You’re giving me a little PTSD here. That’s those are those are dark days, man. That was, you know, hard to look back on.

Chris Vaught — They were, man. But you know what? Our income jumped 18% over the four months that we were shut down because our our people just built this building.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — They were scared we were going to lose it.

Rich Birch — Right. Wow. They leaned in nothing like adverse advert. Uh, can’t say that word adverity to draw people in. That’s amazing.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, they they jumped in, man. That was incredible. Came back. We came back actually, I think Father’s Day weekend or right after Father’s Day that June to back in-person services. When we came back, we came back with 600 people.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.

Chris Vaught — So building back on that foundation of 600, what God did next was absolutely phenomenal to us. So from 2021, we’d gotten back up to 1100. From 2022 to 2024, we doubled in size.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And today, if you came here this weekend, there’ll be there’ll be a little over 2500 people on the campus.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Praise God.

Chris Vaught — And three services, and then we have about 30 miles away, 10 months ago, we launched our first multisite campus.

Chris Vaught — And I have to tell you, Rich, about this campus. It’s 30 miles away.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — It’s in the second poorest county of our state.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Chris Vaught — It’s in a town of 1,700 people, a county of 10,000 people. And God has blessed that little campus

Rich Birch — Wow.
 

Chris Vaught — And it’s been the largest church in the county since day one.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And they’re running about 350 in a town of 1700.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s incredible.

Chris Vaught — So we have this motto.

Rich Birch — Praise God.

Chris Vaught — We want see God do something only he can get the credit for.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — And to be honest, right now, that’s that’s what you that’s what we’re seeing. But that’s the atmosphere you feel if you were to come on the campus this weekend. There’s just that anticipation.

Rich Birch — Wow. Well, that’s incredible to hear. And, you know, it’s, it does seem like that kind of post COVID. I know it’s like, I don’t know at what point we’re going to stop saying that kind of thing, but like, it’s a big deal obviously. And, and it’s like an inflection point we all went through. And it does seem like post COVID there was like, they at one point they were talking about the K recovery that there was like, some churches have come out not doing well. They’re struggling. And there are churches like Connection Point that are accelerating.

Rich Birch — And in like an odd sort of way, we look back and are like thankful for that time. We say something happened there that focused us. And we came back with, you know, even more, you know, drive and and all of that, which is amazing to hear. But I can imagine in the midst of all that kind of getting to where we’re we’re talking about today, talk, you know, developing leaders, trying to scale up. Every church has a problem finding leaders. How do i get people to actually take the ministry and run with it?

Rich Birch — You’ve made some changes on this front that, you know, have really helped, I think, accelerate some of this growth. But why don’t you talk us through when what’s that look like for you in the last couple of years?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so coming in right just before COVID, we knew as we were growing, we just could sense, you know, hey, this is picking up. God’s given some good opportunities. We have to spread this out. we’re We’re in Southeast Missouri.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — This is not a hotbed for people who don’t move here to take on a position. We started thinking through and looking at the New Testament, too. You can only hire out so much, right? Because even though our church has grown fast, budget always comes up last. So you have to look at other avenues other than just, oh, I’ll hire another position. So we started looking in the congregation. We began to develop our own leadership pathway or pipeline to develop, not only volunteers, but our future staff.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — We knew we grew really fast, we need to hire from within, but we still couldn’t hire every position.

Rich Birch — Yep. Right.

Chris Vaught — So we started looking at our volunteers as almost as non-paid staff positions. And so creating an atmosphere of expectation of roles and responsibilities, and also the value of what they’re doing.

Rich Birch — So true.

Chris Vaught — That the kingdom is dependent upon all of us using our gifts and talents. And so we started this pathway. And at first it was simply a challenge to every staff member. You go find your Timothy, you go find one other person that you can invest yourself into—a volunteer—so that if on Saturday night, and here was kind of the criteria for us, if on Saturday night, something were to happen and you catch ah COVID, okay, we’re at that time period or the flu, could this ministry run the next day because of the person you have personally equipped to hold the ministry?

Rich Birch — I love that clarity. Yeah, that’s so good.

Chris Vaught — And we began putting those little pieces says together.

Rich Birch — I love that. So sorry. That’s right. Sorry, you go ahead. I cut you off there. That’s so good.

Chris Vaught — No, no, no. I was just saying that’s this so’s what we began. We began this pipeline, and that’s that was really the basic level at first. Every staff member finding that one Timothy, if you will, if you want to use that terminology, that could run that ministry if you were out.

Rich Birch — I love there’s a lot of clarity there. I love that. Even just the practicality of like, hey, on Saturday night, somebody calls. Who can take this? Who can take your piece? I think that’s that’s so good. Break up a mindset for us. You talk about kind of, you know, use the phrase non-paid staff members. You’re setting a high bar for volunteers, like a high, high calling.

Rich Birch — I think there’s a lot of staff in our churches who are like, oh, like I can’t ask that of a volunteer. I can’t that they’re not, they’re like paid to do other things. And like, man, they either, they are not good enough is the mindset problem. There’s no way they could do it. Or that’s way too much for me to put on them. Break that mindset up for me.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, because we’ve tackled that mindset over and over and over again. Bob Russell, who who I consider to be a mentor in my life, he challenged me years ago, early on in this process. When you’re hiring staff, he would tell his staff at Southeast, if I hire you to to develop and to coach others to do, if I catch you doing, you’re fired, right? I mean, it was that kind of mindset.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Chris Vaught — And getting that across, first of all, to your staff. That it doesn’t have to be 100% of your ability. That our ministry, according to Ephesians 4, is to raise up the congregation to go do the ministry.

Chris Vaught — And now let’s paint a bigger picture of why that’s important. If we have a church of 150 and you’ve got two staff members, you’ve actually got 150 priests of God.

Rich Birch —Right. Yeah, I love it.

Chris Vaught — A royal priesthood. You can do more if they all do 30% of what you can do, spread out over the multitudes, then you can give all week long. And guess what? You don’t have to ruin your marriage or your health in the process. We spread this out.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Chris Vaught — It’s tackling that perfect mindset. The other issues we had to tackle, and you mentioned it, is this, well, I don’t want to ask them to do this. People will rise up to the level of expectation.

Rich Birch — So true.

Chris Vaught — So what we began doing was, is we actually created job descriptions for every volunteer row. And in that job description, it may say, this will require you on a weekly basis, X amount of time. Here’s how you prepare. Here’s who you report to. Here’s what’s expected. And here are the values we want you to conduct yourself with. People respond well to that.

Rich Birch — 100%.

Chris Vaught — People need clarity. People need to know, okay, if I’m gonna serve on the usher team or the parking team or the worship team, here is the level of expectation. They know whether or not they can get into it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — It clears up a lot of miscommunication. It makes people feel valued and you can do it in the right way with positivity and motivation.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love the clarity of job descriptions, getting it all written down. I think is is incredible. So, you know, what that it started with this simple idea, a simple idea, hard to execute. I feel like, hey, you find a Timothy, Ephesians 4. But it’s more robust today. When you say pipeline, give me like a simple definition of that. How do you explain that to like somebody who maybe is struggling with it? Maybe a staff member, elder, leader type person. When you say, you know, leadership pipeline, what does that mean? What’s that mental model for you?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, for us, we tell them we’re putting them on a pathway.

Rich Birch — Okay. Love it.

Chris Vaught — You’re here, but we want to put you on a pathway to help mature you and grow you and develop you and your skills that God has already given you, because that’s where you’re going to find fulfillment.

Chris Vaught — That’s where you’re going to find the energy and the motivation to go long term. But this is this is a process of development.

Chris Vaught — ah You know, we come to faith in Christ and we often talk about our salvation like it’s a done deal at one moment, one little prayer, one baptism, you know, now it’s done.

Chris Vaught — Yes, we may be instantly brought into the family of God, but there’s a whole life of sanctification and discipleship and development.

Rich Birch — That’s so true.

Chris Vaught — And so painted is a picture of this exciting pathway that we’re going to be on. And these are just this is a part of your path. We call it the discipleship path. And we kind of just draw it out for our people. We show them, hey, we’re getting ready to take you on a journey. And it’s a lifelong journey.

Chris Vaught — We got I got the concept from the Jewish concept of a disciple to a rabbi called a Talmud.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — And one of the cool definitions that learned years ago on what is a Talmud, one of the definitions is a Talmud is the shadow of their rabbi.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — In the in the Middle East, they would actually say a disciple knew they had arrived when they were mistaken for their rabbi out in the community.

Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. That’s so good.

Chris Vaught — So think about we are to become like Christ. We should be mistaken for his character, his heart, his attitude, right? But in a much smaller sense, part of that process comes into how we operate in and through the church, how we use our gift sets. The church’s responsibility is to help put them on a path…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — …to begin to develop what that shadow looks like.

Rich Birch — How do you, so I love that. It’s a very vivid metaphor. What does that look like practically going from metaphor to like, okay, that sounds like the kind of thing I want to be a part of. I want to be a shadow. I want to I want to you know grow. How are you structuring that and and doing that at scale? I think it makes sense in the kind of rabbi, you know, a follower kind of thing. But you know, you’re you’re talking about, you guys have grown by hundreds, thousands of people in the last few years. How have you been able to, to make those two things work? A relational, you know, discipleship experience that is, that is deep, but it has some sort of structure to it. What’s that look like?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so so the structure is going to be as people are coming into church, are new here, are next steps, so we’re always pushing them to that very first next step, which for us is Starting Point.

Rich Birch — Okay, yep.

Chris Vaught — There they’re learning the DNA and we actually talk this language to them at that introductory night of us explaining, here’s who we are at CPC, here’s our DNA. And we give them that next step. What does that look like?

Chris Vaught — For one, it’s maybe just joining a serve team. Now, not everybody’s ready to join something on a Sunday, but that’s a starting point. And we begin to teach these leadership competencies and explain to them, hey, there’s a path that we want to put you on.

Chris Vaught — Then included with that serve team is something we call Equip Workshops.

Rich Birch — Okay.

Chris Vaught — These are about 10 week workshops. We do two to three times a year where people we market it to the congregation, to our serve teams. They sign up. We’re going to teach you about your circle of influence. How Replicate gave us this concept, um Replicate Ministries, and it’s helping them find their kingdom circle, right?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Because everyone has a circle of in influence. And what does that look like as you use your gift sets to serve?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so our goal of then is to not only get involved in Sunday Sunday morning or so or weekly serving opportunities here, we want it to stretch beyond. If we’re going to reach our community, I need them and taking the same competencies onto their job.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — I need them to take the same competencies to the traveling sports teams, right, wherever they’re living their life out. Then the next step we introduce them to is our leadership college, Connection Point Leadership College, CPLC. And that’s a 10-month internship program where it is it is straight on leadership, skill, competencies. We tell them, we’re going to teach you as if you’re going into vocational ministry. But we invite people who don’t feel a call to vocational ministry because we tell them, we need disciples living out their gift sets in the secular world, not just inside the church.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so there’s two ways of coming into that college, which is one step of it. There is the on-campus intern, where you’re actually taking classes and practical ministry, shadowing, being involved in the ministries here on campus.

Chris Vaught — But then we have a hybrid edition, which is online. And that’s for those who have to work a full-time job, can’t come on the campus, and maybe they’re wanting to learn the biblical leadership competencies, and apply them to the secular world.

Rich Birch — That’s fascinating. I want to come back to the leadership college in a minute. I want to put a bookmark in that, but taking a step back to the serve team and Equip Workshops, talk to me about, like, I think some churches would come to the moment of, like, when they’re trying to get people in connection and connected and into some sort of discipleship relationship, and they would actually push more towards groups, you know, rather than teams.

Rich Birch — Now, I’m not trying to I’m not trying to pick a fight here. Obviously, we want people to do both, but talk to me about that decision around, hey, we’re going to kind of go the team’s route and then add Equip. Because I think it’s a really interesting model of like, then add these workshops, which kind of drives some of that depth discipleship stuff to people who are serving, I’m assuming, but talk us through that.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, so just for clarification, we do we do do life groups as well. But if it’s more for leadership development, we push them toward the serving.

Rich Birch — Yep, that makes sense. Yep, that makes sense.

Chris Vaught — Kind of like two different pockets, if you will.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — And some are going to switch over to both.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — Some will start and serve and eventually lead into a life group.

Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.

Chris Vaught — Others may start a life group and come over to a serve team. Life groups are going to be a lot more discipleship based while serve teams is discipleship with an emphasis on leadership competencies. Just because the faster we grow, the more we have to make sure we’re developing leaders not just attenders if you will.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — And discipleship carrying on that serving aspect. So if you looked at if if I drew my pathway out for you on this journey of course you go to Starting Point the next one is either join a life group or a serve team.

Rich Birch — Yeah, OK. Yep.

Chris Vaught — But then if you go into the serve team we’re going to really push you to these kingdom circles and circles of influence and then to the leadership college, if that makes sense.

Rich Birch — That makes total sense. Yep. That makes total sense. Well, let’s talk about the leadership college. Like give me a bit more kind of framework for what that looks like. Is it literally like full-time internship, 10 months, 40 hours a week? Talk us through that.

Chris Vaught — Yeah. So um first of all, we don’t make it easy to attend our leadership college.

Rich Birch — I love it. We’re not going to make it easy. We’re not putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. Love it.

Chris Vaught — We didn’t. And we say it up front.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — So if you go into this, you’re going into it with intentionality.

Chris Vaught — One of the things I teach from day one is I can teach you competencies. I can’t teach you initiative. And so from the get go, this has got to be something you’re after, you’re coming after, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Because this is the highest level of our training. So it is a full time intern is 10 months. You’re serving every weekend. You for the first six weeks of the internship, you get to go through a discovery phase where we’ll put you in every ministry department for a certain amount of time, let you get exposure. We believe you need exposure. After that, you got to pick a direction, right?

Chris Vaught — And so from then on, you’re here every Tuesday and Wednesday all day.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — And that those are very in-depth biblical, theological, as well as practical leadership courses. Every morning up until lunchtime in the afternoons, you’re in the department in which you’ve chosen. That’s the avenue that I’m feeling led toward. And you’re going to be working under the leadership of that department. You’re going to learn the skills of that department. You’re going to go to their meetings, their departmental meetings. You’re going involved in activities. And that’s probably where you’re going to serve on the weekends.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Or through the midweek, depending on what it is.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — So now one of the beautiful things we partner with Evangel University outside of Spring… or in Springfield, Missouri.

Rich Birch — Yep.

They actually looked at our program and said, anyone that wants to come to school here or take online classes, if they go through that leadership program, we’ll give them 12 credit hours of of college.

Rich Birch — Oh, wow.

Chris Vaught — So there’s a bit there for the ones who are looking for more formal education. And we have students who will do that. We have many that just want the leadership competencies here.

Chris Vaught — Some of them are going into vocational ministry and others, as I said, they’re they’re wanting to take it into the secular world. And part of our goal throughout the year is we tell them, we’re not here to convince you what your calling is. We’re here to equip you for whatever God calls you to do.

Rich Birch — Wow. Give me a profile of the a kind of person or a couple, maybe there’s a couple different profiles of people that take that step into the the leadership college. Like is, is that, yeah, like give me a sense of some of the characters that you find in that, ah in that experience, if you know what I mean.

Chris Vaught — You know, this is year number four for us.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — And it’s so interesting that it’s grown every year.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — Oh, and by the way, one thing I left out, I told you we don’t make it easy.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — They pay us $500 to join.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Cover the cost. Or not really.

Chris Vaught — So they don’t get paid for this internship and they get all that back and resources.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Vaught — It’s just a commitment, right?

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Vaught — But last year, it was primarily high school graduates or college age kids that were in our internship program. And we don’t know what the Holy Spirit’s doing.

Chris Vaught — This year, we doubled enrollment. And half of the group, more than half of the group are non-traditional. They’re like, we have a husband and a wife who are both working side jobs on Mondays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, so they can do the internship together because they’re both seeking what God’s will is for them. So they’re taking a financial hit. And they’ve got children. I mean, they’re having to get childcare so they can be here all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Chris Vaught — We’ve got others that are in their mid thirties up into their forties coming to the school. So we’re really watching God do something pretty unique because the the idea, this concept of growing and stretching…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Chris Vaught — …is now reaching beyond just the college age. and we’re And we’re getting into really all age groups. The oldest intern right now that we’ve had was in 56.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, it’s incredible.

Chris Vaught — And he was so phenomenal, we hired him on staff after he graduated.

Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, and we’ve seen this in other, you know, echoes of this in other prevailing churches like Connection Point where um there’s like a high bar and there’s like, and we’re really calling people to say, hey, why don’t you come join the mission? And people respond to that. And, you know, the ripple out impact of that is huge. It’s almost like, you know, there are churches that are struggling and they’re just trying to like, well, we’re just going to make it as easy as we possibly can.

Rich Birch — And there’s something about that that actually repels people, ironically. Or maybe maybe attracts the right people or the wrong people, you know. And this idea of like, hey, we’re going to do something big for you. Like, it’s a lot of work what you’re talking about, pulling that internship together. But it also it’s ah it’s requires a lot from people. That’s ah you know that’s that’s incredible.

Rich Birch — How do you identify like and call out…I get that it’s like, you know, people have to make that choice, but what are, what are, what are you doing? What’s your team doing to identify leaders to kind of help them take steps next in their, you know, in their leadership development, or is it mostly just kind of driven by them? They’re raising their hand.

Chris Vaught — No, I mean, actually you apply for it. You have to go through an interview process.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — And and once we interview you then we kind of help navigate. Yeah, we believe you have the commitment level. You have the spiritual maturity for what you’re about to come into. You know we’re looking at your personality skills. You’re, you know, doing an assessment. And just to make sure, because it is a a commitment, right? And you don’t want to start, not finish. And and we will make sure you got the character for this.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Chris Vaught — Because when you come into a leadership school like this, everyone know, you know, everyone knows that’s one of our interns.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

Chris Vaught — The your personal disciplines, your character, competencies has to be at a certain level. So we even start there with an interview process. Then beyond that, once you’re in the system, and we learned this from Larry Osborne, there are two primary sides of leadership in every person, right? You’re either going either going to be that what he calls a big L leader, that one that lead the charge, and you know they’re going to drive a ministry or an avenue. Or you’ve got the shepherd.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — And both are needed in the church. And one’s not better than the other, right?

Chris Vaught — Your big L leader, they’re the ones that make things grow. There are two criterias to look for for that big L leader. One, can they make things grow? Everything they touch takes off.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — You know, they’re able to grow it. The second piece is, well, I love how Larry Osborne says, it says it’s the Tom Sawyer effect. And you know the story of Tom Sawyer. Can they can they make people paint the fence for them and thank them for it when they’re done?

Rich Birch — I love that. That’s great.

Chris Vaught — Can they motivate the people around them? Well, if they are, and we recognize that kind of skill, that then gives us direction on how to craft their experience.

Rich Birch — Right.

Chris Vaught — Where we want to emphasize them to be able really maximize those skills to be a big L leader. They’re going to lead a ministry. They may be potential future staff. They may go in a secular world, but they could really make an impact. They’re an entrepreneur, right?

Chris Vaught — The shepherd, if we see that they have the caring gifts, that they’re not the big old leader. They need a system. They need the structure. They’re not going to create themselves, but everybody wants to be around them. They have a heart. They have a care. They’re loving. They’re prayerful. They’re very spiritually deep. That helps us be able to craft their experience in the leadership college.

Chris Vaught — Because again, it’s not about us getting them to do something. It’s them to learn the competencies to be the best of what God has called them to be.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Chris Vaught — And so we kind of kind of keep our eye on that and watch those metrics. Some of that comes through how they respond in classes. It’s how they serve on the weekends. It’s just what a lot of observation pieces as they go through the process.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. So kind of related issue, but more, maybe less of the this the art part part of it, more the science. When you think of metrics or mile markers around this whole area, what are some of the the numbers that kind of come to the fore? Things that you think about like, oh, we got to make sure we’re hitting this. If it’s, this feels, or I know this is healthy when that’s happening. Do you have kind of metrics that you think about on this front?

Chris Vaught — Mainly for us, it’s as as far as any kind of metrics is we’re watching as if the people are taking ownership and are they self-recruiting others, right?

Rich Birch — Sure. Okay.

Chris Vaught — If I have a ministry that’s self-recruiting, constantly growing, like for us, ever since COVID, our media outreach department exploded. We went from an average of 800 unique views on the weekend to now over 6,000 on the weekend.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Wow. Yep.

Chris Vaught — So all of sudden we’re like, okay, we’ve really got to keep our eye on the digital marketing media aspect of our church, right? So we judge health by it. How big has that volunteer base grown? Are they replicating, right? I think right now we have 50 volunteers in that ministry.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Chris Vaught — Where they, with a full-time staff of three people, four people, four people. And so, you know, I can’t hire 50 people, but I got to have that kind of a base.

Rich Birch — Right. No.

Chris Vaught — Our kids ministry, you know, our church age dropped dramatically after COVID. It’s all these young families. So our kids numbers are through the roof. So can we, so what’s our volunteer ratio look like there? And are they replicating? Some of the metrics we look at is the volunteer ministry large enough that people can serve one and sit and worship in another.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — If the same volunteers are working every single weekend and they have no time to come and get fed themselves.

Rich Birch — That’s a problem.

Chris Vaught — And and even the ministry department leads, if they can never break away and come into a worship service and get fed themselves, that ministry is not healthy.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Vaught — They need more volunteers and the department heads need to be able to train their team lead who’s underneath them well enough to run a ministry for one service once a month to come into a worship service and get fed themselves. You know that’s just an example.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So good. Well, this is a great conversation. There’s a ton we could talk about here, but just as we’re we’re wrapping up, if you were to coach, a maybe there’s a leader that’s listening in today and they’re like, gosh, like I know we’re at the place where we got to take that first step. We got to take the, hey, who’s your Timothy?

Rich Birch — What would be some some advice you’d love to give? Maybe it’s like a pothole to avoid or like, here’s something, you know, that kind of early advice I would give you to to get as you’re getting the ball rolling on, you know, on trying to develop a leadership pathway.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, straight up early on, whoever your staff is or your key volunteer leaders are, when they find that Timothy, tell them the number one gift they can give that person is time investment.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — Sit down with them, spend some time with them, and then lead into a competency. And it could be 15 minutes. We do this with our volunteer bases on the weekends. So they gather together for a huddle 15 minutes before their serving opportunity actually begins. And there’s only three pieces that you have to talk about there. One is caring for them. Hey, how can I pray for you? How can I care for you? Because remember, volunteers, it’s not just a job, though you give them responsibility to job, but you’re also a congregation. You’ve got pastoral care. Hey, how can I pray for you?

Chris Vaught — Then a quick update of here’s some things going on. Just keep communication going. Here’s what we need to know for the day. But that third piece that I’m so big on, and you can do this sitting around coffee. It doesn’t have to be a Sunday morning huddle. It could be as you’re building the program. Just but then teach them some leadership competency.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — You don’t have to preach a sermon. It’s just bring that little competency to help them develop and build some confidence. So if you came to one of our huddles like this weekend for 15 minutes, they’re going check up on you. They’re going to share a win. Hey, here’s what God’s doing. Celebrate with them. They’re going to give them a quick little update.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And then they’re going to share something like, hey, this weekend, our whole theme is we want to create hospitality. So whatever we do today, let’s just all be hospitable.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Chris Vaught — And they’ll talk just quick minute about that, right? So as you’re building your teams, as you’re building your pipeline, that’s really all you’re going to want to replicate. Then however large you get, you just keep adding layers to it. But it’s really the same simple structure.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s so clear. This has been great conversation, Chris. I really, really appreciate it. I feel like there’s a bunch more, even just there around huddles, we could jump in on maybe a future podcast. We’ll have you back on or your team back on to talk through ah that piece of the puzzle. Because I think there’s even that alone. I think that’s the thing so many of us, we’ve got to do a better job on or just got to do a better job on.

Rich Birch — Well, Chris, I really appreciate you being here today. As we land the plane, if people want to get in touch with you or get in touch with the church, kind of track with your story, where do we want to send them online?

Chris Vaught — Yeah, you want to send them to yourcpc.church. You can send a message to us just simply by email and info@yourcpc.church. course, you can catch us with that same handle on any social media site, and you can send some direct messages straight our way.

Rich Birch — Love it. It’s great. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today, sir.

Chris Vaught — Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much for the honor.