Episode 383 – Why Your Leadership Pipeline Is Failing | David Ashcraft | Global Leadership Network

77% of pastors say their number one need is more leaders. But the most common strategy for solving it, the leadership pipeline, has never actually worked. David Ashcraft knows this firsthand: he grew LCBC Church from a 200-person plant in Pennsylvania to 25 locations and 28,000 weekend attendees, developing 275 of his 300 staff members from within the congregation. His secret wasn’t a pipeline. It was a culture.

Now serving with the Global Leadership Network, home of the Global Leadership Summit, which reaches roughly 400,000 leaders annually across 1,120 sites worldwide, David brings hard-won clarity to the questions every pastor and entrepreneur is asking: How do you actually develop leaders? How do you know when your bench is deep enough to scale? And how do you measure what matters without becoming a box-checker?

Justin and David also unpack the broader faith-work movement, the evolution from the 1980s financial stewardship conversation through today’s marketplace integration, and why the Global Leadership Summit may be your church’s best tool to identify, develop, and deploy the leaders already sitting in your pews.

00:00 The leadership myth that’s failing churches everywhere

01:51 LCBC’s origin: Friendliness as a Kingdom strategy in the Northeast

03:17 Growing from 200 to 28,000: How LCBC learned from businesses

06:46 The leadership pipeline: Why it’s a myth

09:20 What business leaders in your church really want

12:48 The leadership development culture: What actually works

14:47 Just-in-time training: The military model applied to the church

16:40 Measuring your bench: When are you ready to launch a campus?

18:53 History of the faith-work movement: From Burkett to GLN

23:25 Inside the Global Leadership Summit: Jim Collins, Andy Stanley & more

25:24 The church as a first step: How GLN breaks down walls

28:26 Business leaders need more than parking vests—how to truly engage them

31:58 New voices in leadership: Julio and the Houston restaurant model

35:18 Who is GLN for? Partners, attendees, and the church-business bridge

38:32 Going together: Why collective summit attendance accelerates culture

39:08 The future: Ministry happens everywhere, not just on Sunday

41:15 Data-informed but Spirit-led: The tension every leader must hold

46:11 Measure the fruit, not just the process

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Faith Driven Entrepreneur is an educational platform hosted by Faith Driven Movements, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire, educate, and mobilize people to use their time, talents and other resources in the marketplace. Faith Driven Movements brings together leaders from around the world that seek to make a financial, social, environmental and spiritual impact through their business ventures. The website is intended to be an opportunity to exchange ideas for educational purposes. Faith Driven Movements is not responsible for the opinions, advice, statements, materials, presentations, data, images, videos, documentation and other information (collectively, the “Materials”) expressed or otherwise shared by guest contributors (including without limitation podcast guests, conference speakers, guest writers, participating companies and investment professionals). The Materials are for informational purposes only, and the statements, views and opinions expressed at any presentation or in any Materials are those solely of the presenter and not of Faith Driven Movements. Hosts and Guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. Further, Faith Driven Movements does not endorse or recommend any presenter, promoter, investment advisor, strategy, company or any views mentioned at any conference or in the Materials. Under no circumstances will Faith Driven Movements (or their respective trustees, directors, officers, employees, or agents) be liable for the accuracy, quality or reliability of any of the presentations or Materials, any defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of presenters, or any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising from any presentations or Materials. By visiting the site you agree to comply with the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct.