What Pastors Don’t Tell You About Running a Church

There are a lot of people who think they have a call of God on their life, and there’s no way to test that call without going to Bible college or seminary. What happens if at the end of that time frame if you discover you’re not really called to be a pastor or a church planter or a staff person? You’re really called to be a Christian businessperson. You just spent thousands of dollars and you’ve incurred a tremendous amount of debt. All of this came together as we thought through this apprenticeship program. … Even if your church is 70 people, you can run an apprentice program with one person, and you could actually raise up a church planter or a pastor, and that’s not something that smaller churches ever even think about that they can participate in.

Johnson: What are the specifics of the program setup?

Justice: The way I have set up the apprenticeship program is it’s a two-year program, but I said, “I’m going to give you an exit ramp and an entry ramp every four months.” … Every four months, when it’s time to rotate the apprenticeships, people could begin the apprenticeship, and they could go to the next one. For example, there was a lady who was having a baby, and she said, “I’m going to take this next rotation off and once my child is old enough, I’m going to come back in when I have some more time to do that.” It’s extremely flexible in four-month increments. This is the lay-driven version of the apprenticeship. When I’m working with a seminary, and they’re getting credit for an internship or summer learning, then I will condense it. The way the apprenticeship is set up is that for a person who is a layperson and who’s trying to test this out, it’s about a 4- to 8-hour commitment (per week). … When I get a full-time intern over a shorter period of time, I’m able to have him or her work on multiple systems simultaneously, whereas the average apprentice would only work on one system at a time.

Johnson: What do you foresee for the future of the program?

Justice: One of the visions God has given me is to raise up 200 pastors, church planters and full-time ministry workers from right now until I turn 70, and that’s 19 years. … This apprenticeship program gives me a structured way to do that and a very doable way to do it because it engages people in what we’re doing anyway in the life of the church. We’re just intentionally making space for people who feel as though God’s got a call on their life to come alongside. When they get through, if they feel like they need to go on and get further education and get that piece, that’s great. If they already have that piece and this gives them the practical training, that’s great too.

One of the other things that’s been nice about this is that all pastors deal with people who say, “I feel like I have a call of God on my life” … and when they’ve gone through this apprenticeship, they actually discover, “You know what? I’m really not called to full-time ministry as I thought I was.” But it settles in their heart this question that’s been out there: Am I called to full-time ministry? Am I not called to full-time ministry? And sometimes getting the answer now helps you to get on with the rest of your life and be fully engaged at the level God’s called you to be fully engaged in.

My connecting pastor came through the apprenticeship program. So for churches that want to hire internally, this is a great program and a great structure to transition people, for example, from a business position into a church position.

Johnson: Where have you seen this program used?

Justice: I have taught this and have seen it used in other countries as well. I’ve seen it used in India; I’ve taught it in Kenya. It’s not anything that’s proprietary to the Vineyard or to me. It’s something that we share and talk about. It’s wide open for other people to be a part of, but it’s just important to us that we’re training people. 

Elgie “Bubba” Justice has led the Inverness Vineyard Church in Birmingham, Alabama, since 1994. He planted the church out of the Birmingham Vineyard, where he served in a variety of roles as a volunteer pastor. He has been married to Melany Justice since 1987 and has two adult daughters who both work in Christian ministry. Bubba has a degree in accounting from University of Alabama Birmingham and a masters in Biblical studies from Birmingham Theological Seminary.