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 well to strengthen their leadership capabilities. Conversations with some of the women on the Leadership Acceleration Team (LAT) for Betsy V., a Fellow from Pillar Church-Warehouse campus, revealed various ways growth unfolded for everyone involved.
These LAT members delighted in the way they saw Betsy’s leadership grow as she crafted a project that could bless the Warehouse congregation. “She had to take the lead on [designing] something and talk to multiple people, and then, be the lead person [organizing] it. I think that stretched her,” says Laurel M., Betsy’s mentor.
Leadership requires adaptability, and the team reports that Betsy displayed that skill admirably. They loved watching how Betsy didn’t stubbornly insist on her first project idea. “I think it kind of started out with her idea of a need that she thought was maybe in the church aligning with what she’s good at in her vocation, you know, working with kids,” explains LAT member Julia C. “And then I think it kind of moved more toward, after the research, asking, ‘What does the local congregation at the Warehouse need? What would actually really bless this group?’”
“She had to pivot a couple times to find something that worked, but she kept going with it,” Lauren enthuses. Julia adds: “It impressed me how thoughtful Betsy was about making some of her decisions, taking the time and doing the research she needed, [being open to] changing directions.”
Betsy, a schoolteacher, originally thought her project would focus on organizing a few activity nights for children that would enable their parents to enjoy some date nights. Through interviews she conducted with congregants and staff at the Warehouse, though, Betsy discerned a need for helping congregants build community.
Betsy crafted a project that could grow connections across the congregation. Her LAT members enjoyed watching her grow as she walked through the process of listening, discerning a need, and staying flexible. Meanwhile, serving together grew their friendships with each other.
“Families feel connected with one or two other families,” she explains, “but many would like to get to know others in our church community.” She said her interviews revealed that families “would like occasional, low-pressure family events where they can come and connect with others in a relaxed setting.” So Betsy crafted a project that could grow connections across the congregation: summertime church-wide picnics in the park. The first picnic in late June drew nearly fifty congregants.
“God cares about relationships and community,” Betsy says, “and this project will invite church members and friends to strengthen connections with those they already know and to meet new people as well. Many people are looking to make deeper connections beyond a Sunday morning service, and hopefully this will prompt the start of new connections.” Campus pastor Anna Anderson says the initiative aligns well with Pillar-Warehouse’s commitment to “growing small.” That means maintaining a small and personal feel even as numbers increase.
Getting connected with an LAT provided Betsy a much-desired opportunity to deepen friendships with older women at Pillar-Warehouse. “In my first couple of years out of college, I was hungry for intergenerational mentorship,” she explains. “I prayed that God would show me someone who I could ask to mentor me. I remember when I met [the LAT members] for the first time. These women were all so welcoming, and they checked in on me frequently throughout the year, praying for my project and providing encouragement. It was in March that I realized I had been mentored by not one, but four women from my church for over six months! It was a full circle moment and an answer to a prayer.”
The inVocation program gave the women serving on Betsy’s LAT a chance to grow, too; namely, in deepening their relationships with one another. “Just getting to know Betsy better, and having fellowship with these lovely women, that was the most rewarding aspect of the program,” says Nancy B. “I hadn’t known Julia before, and it was very nice having more interaction with Laurel.”
Serving on Betsy’s LAT also afforded these women the chance to not only pour into a young adult, but to participate meaningfully in strengthening their church. As Lauren described:
The [Fellows program] was a really great way to encourage Betsy and walk with her more one-on-one, and also to get to spend time with Nancy and Julia and think together about the Warehouse as a whole and what the congregation needs. Not to just show up and be like, ‘We want community,’ but to actually be on the ground with that, thinking about that in a real way, knowing that because there’s a project, there’ll be a real outcome. To be a part of [creating] something to serve the church, for me, that was really neat.
All three women appreciated how the inVocation program doesn’t nurture leadership skills in a vacuum but points them toward deploying their gifts and passions towards their own churches. As Nancy B. summed up, “The program is wonderful because there’s nothing out there that’s really training people to use their gifts in this way and giving them all the support around it to do that, to venture out.”
“I’m so encouraged,” Julia adds. “I mean, sitting in those big meetings—with all those young people and their mentors and teams, all the energy in the room—I just had this feeling that it’s probably not every individual project that’s gonna make incredible change for the Church, but it’s those people who have been through a program that taught them how to do it, you know?”
