The Leaders Collective experience was far more impactful than spending 4 years in seminary. We’ve all attended conferences, regional lunches, and consortiums that have failed to give us any long lasting impact. However, Leaders Collective was unlike any pastoral experience of my life. By spending a year+ with a cohort of pastors, these men quickly become friends and an indispensable brotherhood to transverse the throes of ministry.
The constant pull to be someone other than yourself can sometimes be paralyzing. Through Leaders Collective’s church planter cohort, I found confidence and contentment in my identity, as well as trust that I have been gifted by God with what it takes to lead Restoration.
It is good to have people speak honestly into your life about areas where you need to grow. I find few people are willing to speak the truth to me. Having men around me who will is invaluable. It is [also] good to be able to laugh. My cohort was not together long before laughing began…and that is good medicine.
My Leaders Collective cohort was a blessing to me and my ministry. The camaraderie and support was more than I expected.
No one accidentally becomes a great leader. Which is a bummer because I always wished I would wake up one day magically transformed into one. Additionally, our teaching institutions generally do a poor job training and equipping people to lead well. It wasn’t until my time in my Leaders Collective cohort that I realized my potential for leadership growth. Through the materials and monthly immersive training times all the people I team with in ministry began to see significant improvements in my leadership. I owe it all to God’s transformative work in and through this training cohort.
The time I have spent with the Leaders Collective has solidified my health as a pastor, which I believe is a huge need within pastors today. Taking back the resources and information I received from the lead pastor cohort to our own church leadership, we have started pouring into other pastors of new church plants, helped launch other churches, encouraged pastors of established church plants, and started meeting with a group of potential elders within our own church body.
This has been the most significant leadership development experience that I’ve had in twenty years as a pastor. God has used Elliot Grudem and the other pastors in my cohort to speak into my life and change the direction of my pastoral career.
…I’m thankful for the way the Leaders Collective allows me to learn from men in other networks doing the same gospel mission.
Leaders Collective has literally been the best, most challenging, most fruitful training I’ve ever done. Through the immersive experiences with experts and relationships with peers, it’s teaching me to operate from places I never have before, helping me know where my time and effort should be spent, and making me a better disciple, husband, dad, and leader.
I found that my participation in the Leaders Collective lead pastor cohort was immensely helpful in giving me a Biblical, devotional, and emotional tool box to let God’s grace undergird me in this man-impossible calling. But, perhaps the greatest avenue of grace through the collective were the friendships and partnerships formed among the cohort pastors, men gripping that grace with me and reminding me to grip it ever harder.
The Leaders Collective has been invaluable for me as I have prepared to plant. It has helped me gain a better understanding of who I am as a leader and has helped me lead from the fullness of who God has made me to be. Elliot has stretched me to places of discomfort in order to help me grow and he has pastored me along the way. Participating in the Leaders Collective has prepared me to thrive in ministry for the long haul.
Being a part of the Leaders Collective has been such a transformative experience in my life. It has literally engaged and stirred spaces within my heart and leadership that I didn’t know needed attention. I have tremendously grown to see how blessed it is to be a part of a community of men who “get you.” That doesn’t happen over night but takes place over time as men share their lives together.
No book, seminar or conference has helped me to adapt as a leader more than the Leaders Collective. Elliot Grudem and the other pastors in my cohort have become an invaluable source of wisdom, encouragement and brotherhood in this process.
My marriage, family, and ministry have been exceptionally enriched through the training I have received in the Leaders Collective. Elliot’s insights into the challenges pastors face have been invaluable, the discussions with seasoned leaders provided a wealth of wisdom and discernment for navigating those challenges, and the friendships forged with fellow pastors has given me relationships to persevere in ministry.
Life in vocational ministry is full of land mines. Isolation. Pride. Resentment. Lukewarmness. Pretending. Frustration. Burnout. Comparison. Sadly, pastors continue to step on these mines, leaving wreckage throughout their family and church family. By God’s grace, it doesn’t have to be that way. And I would commend this cohort as a grace from God to keep you from these ministry mines.
Elliot is a pastor to pastors. He has led the men in my cohort and I towards the kind of deepening love and dependence on Jesus that comes with being honest in weakness before him… Other leaders in my church have seen the role that the Leaders Collective has played in my growth as a leader, and are grateful we decided to invest in it.
It is difficult in a few short sentences to quantify the impact of my time in the Leaders Collective church planter cohort. Rarely are things like self-care and emotional health on the radar of a church planter until it is too late. My time not only led me to experience and understand the importance of those things, but equipped me with the tools needed to cultivate flourishing in my soul, my family, and my church. As we move into year three of planting, we can confidently say that in all our preparation to plant nothing has been more valuable than my time here.
Leaders Collective has been one of the most transformational experiences of my life and a certain gift from God. It has impacted every facet of my life for good, both personally and professionally, and given me a tight band of true friends that will last for life. I am thankful beyond words.
I simply cannot overstate the impact Leaders Collective has had on my personal health and competence and confidence as a leader. I came into this experience skeptical and exhausted, having bought into and then having been let down by leadership training that would over-promise and under-deliver. My experience with Elliot has been the opposite. I can actually envision myself not only finishing my race in ministry but thriving in the process.
The lead pastor cohort is worth twice the amount of time and money that will be invested in it … but it’s not a selfish move by any means. In fact, I believe one of the best things any lead pastor can do for their wife, elders, and church members is lead them to clearly understand (and champion) why their Pastor needs the care and relationships that a Leaders Collective cohort provides.
When I came to the Leaders Collective I knew that I would enjoy a well-curated spiritual experience with Elliot and gain some good friends along the way. I knew this would be beneficial. But almost immediately, I knew that God gave me a holy gift that far exceeded those expectations. The care and spiritual nourishment I have received has been nothing short of life-changing and, no embellishment, possibly ministry-saving. Additionally, I had no idea how deeply I would be known and loved by a group of men who quickly emerged as my dearest friends. I can’t say that this is automatic or guaranteed to happen to you if you participate in the Leaders Collective, but I can confidently say that if you come with an open heart, beautiful things are bound to happen in your life, as well. I enthusiastically endorse the Leaders Collective.
The Leaders Collective has been life, marriage and ministry saving. As a pastor, it’s easy to pose and posture and create an island that you feel like you need to live on by yourself. These two years have been like learning to make friends and experiencing the actual ministry I would love to see in our church. I feel more encouraged, more equipped, more loved, more whole and less alone in ministry. Way too often, pastors get training on how to “do” ministry. It is rare to find help on how to “be” a pastor who is human and who leads his church to Jesus because of his own need for Jesus. Leaders Collective has provided me tools and friendships to help pastor the Bride well, in hope and humility, for a long time.
My experience with the Leaders Collective has not only impacted my ministry as a pastor of a local church, but my marriage, my relationship with my kids, and how I view and approach friendship. The heart of Leaders Collective is to keep pastors in ministry for the long haul and that’s exactly what they are doing.
My experience with Leaders Collective was an integral part of God meeting me at a crucial time in ministry, helping me navigate the challenges of my situation, and giving me tools and encouragement for the next season of serving in the church. It was worth every bit of time, effort, and investment that my church put into this for me.
The Leaders Collective was a life-changing experience for me. The combination of God’s timing, Elliot’s leadership, and deep friendships has changed me as a man, husband, pastor, and leader.
The Leaders Collective develops cohorts of peers in ministry for the purpose of not only increasing self-awareness and leadership skills – critical to pastors and planters – but also spiritual depth and friendship. If the former are necessary, the latter are what makes the necessary things worth doing. They’re why we’re in ministry in the first place. With extraordinary clarity and excellence, the Leaders Collective equips men to grow together in the simple, profound joys of life and ministry with Jesus.