“Many young pastors not only need encouragement and support, but also a learning community in which we can learn from more experienced leaders and from one another,” said Matt Hedrick, senior pastor at Bethany Church in Bloomington. “The unique thing about young pastors is that we are generally aware of how clueless we are and how much we need the input and strength of others.”

This idea led Hedrick, who became senior pastor three years ago at age 29, to found a network of contacts to offer support for younger pastors. The U40 Network focuses on sharing resources, advice and fellowship with senior pastors under 40 in the metro area. It is an organization that Hedrick, network facilitator of the group, felt strongly about creating.

“My role is not to really give leadership but to simply make it easy for these young senior pastors to get together,” Hedrick said. “I’ve worked very closely with Carl Nelson of the Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals, who has worked hard to see the idea of the U40 Network get translated into reality.”

Nelson and GMAE became involved to aid in the network’s establishment.

“GMAE began participating in the last year, as is consistent with our mission to connect evangelicals together ‘to do together what we cannot do alone,’” Nelson said. “It’s an emerging fellowship, [and] there is promise.”

At the network’s preliminary meeting last November, about a dozen young pastors met to discuss issues and exchange ideas over lunch. While the event ran smoothly, the possibilities U40 may hold became most evident after the lunch meeting itself had ended.

“The highlight of this gathering for me was the dynamic of what happened as four or five of us stayed behind after the lunch to talk about our churches,” Hedrick said. “I took detailed notes as these other pastors shared from their experiences—the successes and the failures. As I drove home, I thought, ‘That was a perfect picture of what the U40 could be.’”

On Feb. 20, young senior pastors will have the opportunity to set up further connections, listen to presenter Leith Anderson, pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and share resources.

Nelson said this focus on young church leaders may help the Christian community gain skills needed to propel the church further into the 21st century.

“We recognize that we need some new paradigms in the church of the future. We need some creativity,” Nelson said. “A fellowship of young emergent leaders could accomplish this [and] help each other develop new models, new ways of doing church to reach new generations of people.”

Along with sharing resources and fellowship with fellow young senior pastors, Hedrick said he hopes the U40 Network can one day change ministry on a larger scale in the Twin Cities.

“We are going to need strong pastors and strong churches that are committed to working together,” Hedrick said. “It is my hope and prayer that the U40 Network will help in some small way to accomplish that.”


For more information on the U40 Network and the Feb. 20 meeting, visit www.u40network.org.