How The Worship Center Equips Leaders With TrainedUp

It’s no secret that the church exists to make disciples.

Unfortunately, for a lot of churches, we’re so busy at doing ministry that we don’t have time to focus on relationally raising up disciples.

That was the case for Jacin Humprey, the Pastor of Ministry at The Worship Center, a church of about 2500 people in Alabama.

For years, he’s been passionate about creating the processes needed to move people from being members to leaders in the church. In the past that took the shape of 2 hour meetings every Saturday for months or full day intensives. Neither were that effective.

At the end of 2016, Jacin and the team at The Worship Center decided to start using TrainedUp to move that training online. Now, Jason and his team are able to equip their leaders for ministry in a way that is both effective and convenient.

So, who are these leaders that they’re training via TrainedUp?

They’re potential deacons who, after completing the training, will perform weddings, funerals, and provide spiritual care. That’s incredible!

Online training isn’t just for the low hanging fruit like greeters and ushers. It can be an effective tool to train all levels of volunteers and leaders in your church.

When I asked Jacin what has changed since they started using TrainedUp, he had this to say:

“We’ve been able to create a process that allows us to truly see where people are at. Our entire leadership academy has been moved online and that has freed me up to spend more time meeting the individual needs of my leaders instead of just teaching them classes. We’ve also been able to focus more on creating community when we do meet together in person.”

Did you catch that? Now that they have moved the bulk of their training online, they now have more time to connect relationally and meet with potential leaders in a one-on-one setting.

I love that.

People can only get so much out of lecture style teaching, but when we are freed up to pour into them as individuals, that is when we are able to see life change begin to happen. Not only that, but it also allows us to meet the needs of the individual instead saying the exact same thing to every person in our classroom setting.

Jacin was also a huge fan of the ability to easily ask questions inside of TrainedUp. They use that as a test to ensure that their leaders truly comprehend the material.

This allows them to easily see who is and isn’t ready to move forward as a leader.

After we had finished our interview, Jacin had this final thought that he wanted to share:

“When I first heard that TrainedUp was producing videos, I was mowing my lawn and listening to the Carey Neiuwhof podcast. I literally stopped the mower and started applauding. I work with a lot of churches that have fewer than 500 people and I always hear how hard it is to do training. When you’re a smaller church, your resources are limited and it’s hard to focus on doing things with excellence outside of the Sunday morning gathering. What you guys are doing is making it much easier from smaller churches to do training without the need for a huge time or financial commitment.”

So, what’s next for The Worship Center?

Jacin and his team are starting to work on a plan to use TrainedUp in other areas of their church. They will begin to roll out some volunteer training later this year, but they have even bigger plans.

While their physical campus sees about 2500 visitors each week, they have over 5000 people who watch online! They’re now dreaming of ways to make their growth track material available for their online campus through TrainedUp.

One of the reasons I love getting to connect with leaders like Jacin is that they are afraid to do things differently and help me to think of new ways that TrainedUp can help leaders make disciples.

Learn more about how TrainedUp can help your church at TrainedUp.Church