The next generation of lay leaders is sitting in your pews right now
They need someone to believe that before they do.
inVocation Fellows gives your congregation a structure for doing exactly that — forming young adults in faith and leadership, rooted in the congregation they already belong to.
Four commitments. One year. Lasting impact.
Partnering with inVocation is a commitment — and a worthwhile one. Here’s what it involves:
Refer a Fellow
Identify a young adult from your congregation — someone you believe in — and refer them to the program for a year of spiritual formation, discernment, and leadership development. They stay in your church. They grow deeper in it.
Identify a Mentor
Each Fellow is paired with a listening companion from your own congregation — a mature disciple who meets with them monthly, asks good questions, and walks alongside them through the year. This person doesn’t need credentials. They need faith, wisdom, and a willingness to show up.
Form a Leadership Acceleration Team (LAT)
A small group of lay leaders from your congregation who support the Fellow as they design and implement a church-based ministry project. The LAT meets periodically throughout the year —and members consistently report that the experience renews their own sense of purpose and calling.
Attend Two LAT Gatherings Per Year
Church leaders and LAT members join the broader inVocation community twice during the program year — once in the fall to launch, once in the spring to celebrate. These gatherings connect your congregation with partner churches across the region.
This isn't just good for your Fellow. It's good for your whole church.
Mentors: It's not about credentials. It's about character.
The best mentors in inVocation aren’t the most polished or the most experienced. They’re walking through life with the Good Shepherd—navigating their own faith, their own questions, and their own sense of calling — and willing to accompany a young adult as they follow Jesus.
Authentic Faith: Not a perfect track record, but a genuine, living relationship with Jesus and the honesty to talk about it.
Wisdom From the Road: Often, the lessons you’ve learned from your work, your family life, or your seasons of doubt and answered prayer are just what a Fellow in their twenties needs to hear.
Consistency: Showing up monthly, asking good questions, and being someone a Fellow can actually count on.
Curiosity: The best mentor relationships are mutual. Mentors who come in genuinely wanting to learn from their Fellow — not just pour into them — are the ones who report the richest experiences.
What Mentors are Saying
“Talking with somebody who is newer in their faith just kind of reignites something in yourself as well.”
— Maddie S., Mentor, The Local
“It’s been really enjoyable to see his growth — just how he continues to open up and strive to have a close relationship with God, and actually acting on that.”
— Chad B., Mentor, Faith Reformed Zeeland
“I’d rather engage with young people directly than hear people talk about ‘the younger generation’ and what they think they’re like.”
— Dr. Carol R., Mentor, Tabernacle Community Church
What is a Leadership Acceleration Team (LAT)?
A team, not a committee
Every Fellow in the program works with a Leadership Acceleration Team: a small group of lay leaders from their own congregation who help them listen to the church’s story, discern a project, and bring it to life.
LAT members don’t manage the Fellow — they champion them. They ask good questions, open doors, share wisdom, and show up for the Fellow’s project as invested partners.
Over the course of the school year, LAT members meet with their Fellow (and the Fellow’s mentor) 3-4 times to support the project discernment process. This includes two special gatherings where teams from all the inVocation churches come together. Though their time commitment is small, LAT members can have a big influence on “their” young adult as they share their gifts, networks, and institutional knowledge to help the Fellow’s project succeed.
What we consistently hear from LAT members is that they didn’t expect to get as much out of it as they did. Helping a young adult find their footing in the congregation has a way of reminding older adults why they love their church.
Click here to read about the impact LATs make.
Stories From inVocation Partner Churches
How an LAT at Pillar-Warehouse Grew Community in Multiple Ways “Growing” is a good verb to characterize much of what unfolds during a year in the inVocation Fellows & Congregations Program. Young adults are encouraged and equipped to grow in their relationships with one another, God, and their local congregation—as
Connecting Over Football…And Life Transitions Mentor Tommy D. Is Investing in the Next Generation As a former offensive lineman at Northwestern University, playing in the Big Ten conference, Tommy D. from Tabernacle Community Church was a great fit for serving as a mentor to 2025-26 Fellow Gabe B. Gabe also
Given the numerous media reports in recent years on declining church attendance, it’s easy to feel discouraged about the future of the Church. But many of the adult volunteers in the inVocation Fellows & Congregations Program have a more optimistic perspective. “I feel that the Church is in good hands,”
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone What Meg Draisma’s story teaches us about teams, trust, and doing hard things When Meg Draisma walked into the inVocation Fellows program, she carried a vision. She’d been turning over an idea for a young adults conference at Ridge Point Church — a
Gaining Clarity Eden H. (Fellows 2025-26) says that she came into the program wanting to quit her job. But she was struggling a great deal over that. She explains that she’d read the book, Do Hard Things, as a teenager. “And it was just pivotal in my high school brain,”
Being Authentic For Chris V. (Fellows 2025-26), learning a new song from singer/songwriter Wendell Kimbrough was a highlight of the program’s kick-off retreat in August. “I loved how honest and transparent Wendell was,” says Chris. “He talked about how we get to be honest with the Lord. He wrote a
Ready to bring inVocation to your congregation?
Partnering churches come from across the theological spectrum — RCA, CRC, PCA, Lutheran, non-denominational, Catholic, Wesleyan, and Episcopal traditions are all represented. What unites them is a conviction that their young adults belong in the church, and a willingness to invest in making that real.