Training others while running

The year has barely begun, yet each of us at Aquila Initiative already feels the pace. Our churches are navigating change, preparing member meetings, coordinating teams, planning sermon series, and tending to the daily work of prayer, pastoring, and teaching. All this is happening while we also look ahead to what God has placed before Aquila Initiative in the coming year.

This whirlwind has reminded me—again—how deeply we feel the shortage of competent, available leaders even as we work to help others overcome that very challenge.

Across Europe, many churches face the same reality: few emerging leaders are ready to step into roles that support growth or fuel new church plants. Most of us are so busy sustaining existing ministries that the idea of apprenticing a future leader feels out of reach, let alone sending out a planting team. When daily operations and unexpected needs keep us spinning plates, multiplication can feel like a distant dream.

Yet this leadership deficit is precisely why we must keep developing people even while we run.

Raising leaders from within

Churches like mine are choosing a different path—one that doesn’t wait for outside help but commits to raising leaders from within. Even in a transient expat context, our leadership has worked to build a discipleship culture where potential leaders are intentionally brought into hands-on ministry. Their character is shaped, their skills sharpened, and their capacity to shepherd others steadily grows.

This approach has already borne fruit in church plants like IBC Bonn, IGK in Nippes, and now Aachen International Church. But every time we send out a team, we feel the vacuum left behind. The only way forward is to keep apprenticing the next leader, again and again.

Competency-based training has proven essential. It strengthens churches, makes multiplication sustainable, and grounds ministry in real-life preparation rather than theory. A church plant doesn’t begin with a launch service—it begins with leaders in training. And

that means every church, no matter its size, can take meaningful steps toward raising the next generation even amid pressure and limitations.

Churches that embrace apprenticeship today build the foundation for long-term health, resilience, and gospel growth tomorrow.

Aquila Initiative's role

At Aquila Initiative, we see this pattern across our own churches and many others: passion and vision alone do not multiply disciples or churches. God uses the slow, steady, faithful work of disciple-making to raise up God-fearing, competent leaders whom He then sends out.

As we step into a new year full of both challenges and opportunities, let’s make leadership development a priority in our local churches.

If your church is ready to take intentional steps, Aquila Initiative can help you craft a tailored training pathway for emerging leaders. You are not alone in this work. And together we can obey the call to entrust what we have heard to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Churches that embrace apprenticeship today build the foundation for long-term health, resilience, and gospel growth tomorrow.