10/17/2026
ICYMI: (A3) Leadership That Multiplies Under Pressure: What I learned from one remarkable A3 leader serving in a highly restricted setting
Silk and I had the privilege of welcoming a remarkable A3 leader into our home. A few members of our staff and board joined us around the table, and over a lunch Silk had prepared, we spent several hours listening as he walked us through what God has been doing through A3 in one of the most challenging environments in the world.
For security reasons, I cannot name the leader, his country, or many of the people and ministries connected to this story. That caution isn't theoretical: Christian leaders in his setting live with persistent scrutiny, and some have experienced detention and imprisonment. More than one hundred leaders currently connected with the work could face consequences if too much identifying information were shared.
But even with those details withheld, this is a story worth telling — a story of courage, creativity, deep relationships, and extraordinary multiplication.
From a small beginning to a growing family
This leader's connection to A3 goes back further than it might first appear. A3 first launched in his country in 2000, and he came up through its third cohort, one of eight groupsthat graduated over the program's first decade. Around that same season, he also spent several years working directly for our founder before moving on to help lead one of the most influential churches in his nation.
Then, for several years, our international connection to that work went quiet. From the outside, it looked like the door had closed. But the work itself never actually stopped — alumni simply kept reproducing what they had received, entirely on their own, training up at least four more generations of leaders in smaller cities and regions with no outside support and little outside visibility. We tried more than once during those years to formally restart something from our end, and it never quite took. It turned out we didn't need to: the multiplication had already taken on a life of its own. Then, in 2018, the connection reopened, and he was commissioned locally to lead it — one of the program's own graduates entrusted to carry it forward.
What relaunched in 2020 with 18 pastors and a small team has since grown into a community of more than 100 pastoral families, trained across eight successive cohorts of its own, spread over many regions of the country. Eight cohorts the first time, eight since — a kind of full circle neither of us set out to plan. Today he connects several important streams within his country under one roof: leadership development, mission mobilization, church collaboration, and the sending of indigenous missionaries.
A dozen triad leadership teams now hold the network together, and nearly 200 trainers are being equipped to serve others. Each triad splits the weight of leadership three ways — one leader casting vision, one shepherding souls, one minding the practical work of administration — so that no single person is left carrying it alone.
The numbers are impressive, but the real story is the leadership ecosystem developing underneath them. This was never simply a course to complete: leaders walk together, learn in community, care for one another's families, and develop new leaders who go on to invest in still others. What began as a handful of people carrying the work has become a multiplying network with growing local ownership — the kind of multiplication Paul describes in 2 Timothy 2:2, entrusting what we have received to faithful people who will be able to teach others also.
Innovation under pressure
One phrase from the presentation struck me: this has been "a road of innovation under strict regulation." Nearly every year has required the ministry to adapt. When one form of training or gathering became difficult, leaders prayerfully developed another. When outside models no longer fit the changing environment, they contextualized the approach. When large gatherings grew too risky, they built smaller, more relational structures that could keep meeting when bigger rooms could not. As their vision matured, it shifted from merely receiving mission investment to becoming a missionary-sending community itself — and their care shifted too, from forming the pastor's own soul to tending the souls ofhis whole family.
Pressure did not end the work; if anything, it clarified and strengthened it. One of this leader's own mentors — who spent long stretches in detention because of his faith — likesto put it simply: the jail cell is the best monastery a pastor can have. Not resignation, but a conviction forged in confinement, that God can turn even a cell into a place of formation.
This is something I continue to see across A3. The most fruitful leaders are not simply those with the best plans. They are those who remain deeply rooted in Christ, listen carefully to their context, and have the courage to adapt without losing their biblical center. The goal was never innovation for its own sake. It was faithfulness — to Christ, to one another, and to the mission God has entrusted to us.
No one left behind
The network has learned a few lessons along the way, and the deepest one might be the phrase they keep returning to: "No one will be left behind."
That commitment keeps widening who the ministry serves. A dozen pastoral couples at a time are walked through a personality-assessment process, month after month, so that — as Ephesians 4:12 puts it — the body of Christ can be equipped "for works of service." A retreat for pastors' spouses launched just this year. Mentors are being strengthened, teenagers and younger leaders are being drawn in, and whole families are becoming part of the journey. What started as strategies aimed at broad people groups has narrowed, this past year, into something more personal: walking with one person, one family, at a time — including diaspora believers and a second generation shaped by more than one language and culture.
This holistic approach reflects something we cherish at A3: leadership transformation is never only about the leader. Healthy leaders nurture healthy families, teams, churches, and movements — and this leader is trying to practice that at home as much as he preaches it, raising a family of his own alongside everything else he carries.
A kingdom vision larger than one country
The vision guiding this movement is simple but profound: to cultivate mature, kingdom-minded leaders through a transformational, collaborative, and multiplying process. Its values are equally compelling:
* A strategic and global perspective
* Relational and holistic health
* Continuous growth and renewal
* Excellence, teamwork, joy, and a kingdom-first spirit
Those commitments are already carrying the ministry beyond its original setting, toward diaspora communities, neighboring regions, new generations, research, writing, and resources that could strengthen churches more broadly. This leader has his own hope in that vision: to see A3 take root among diaspora communities in the years ahead, carrying what he's built at home to his people wherever they've scattered. What began as leadership formation within one nation is becoming a polycentric network — leaders from different places learning from one another, contributing their gifts, and joining God's mission together.
The privilege of walking alongside
As I listened in our home, I found myself deeply moved — not only by the scope of the work, but by the humility of the man describing it. Before he'd even finished, one of our board members leaned over and said quietly, "That's the definition of a catalytic leader." She wasn't wrong. He carries enormous responsibility, yet his attention kept returning to the team, the families, the mentors, and the leaders being raised up around him.
That is one of the great privileges of A3. We do not arrive as outsiders with all the answers. We come alongside gifted local leaders, create space for deep transformation, and help strengthen the relationships and processes through which they can flourish. In turn, they teach us what courageous, adaptable, Christ-centered leadership looks like.
In a setting where public ministry can carry real risk, God is quietly forming leaders. Pastors are becoming mentors. Participants are becoming trainers. Small groups are becomingnetworks. A ministry once supported from elsewhere is increasingly becoming a sending movement of its own.
In a few days he'll be gone from our city, back to the risks and the responsibilities waiting for him at home. The story cannot yet be told with all its names and places. Someday, perhaps, it can. For now, I simply invite you to pray:
* Pray for the protection of these leaders and their families.
* Pray for those facing detention, surveillance, or other forms of pressure.
* Pray for the pastoral families, trainers, mentors, and emerging leaders.
* Pray that this movement will remain deeply rooted in Christ as it continues to multiply.
* Pray that A3 will serve with wisdom, humility, and courage as we walk alongside them.
God is at work — often quietly, sometimes under extraordinary pressure, but always through faithful people willing to invest their lives in others.
I left our time together grateful, humbled, and full of hope.
I’m also grateful for you. Your prayers and support help sustain and strengthen leaders and networks like these. I thank God for you today!
For more Christ-centered leaders,
Rev. Joseph W. Handley, Jr., Ph.D.
CEO, A3
[email protected]
What I learned from one remarkable A3 leader serving in a highly restricted settingSilk and I had the privilege of welcoming a remarkable A3 leader into our home. A few members of our staff and board joined us around...
