From Dead-End Kid to Multiplying Leader – Jeff Ludington of Generations Church

May 20, 2020

Have you ever been written off? Were you voted most likely NOT to succeed in high school? Well, today’s guest on the Exponential Reproducing Churches Podcast has!

Jeff Ludington was a troubled young man who bounced to five high schools in three years, got involved in drugs, and spent some time in prison. That’s where people thought he’d end up, but what they didn’t expect was for Jeff to find salvation in Christ there.

When others saw a dead end life, God only saw the dead end of his old life. Reaching down to Jeff, and pulling him out of the hole, God gave Jeff a passion for people like him. Most of all, Jeff became a living breathing example of God’s mercy and grace. Today, Jeff is a strong leader in a multiplying church.

Today, Jeff pastors a church in Los Angeles county called Generations, and is a part of Acts29 and the RCA.

Taking a Legacy church in the RCA, Jeff and the elders came to a difficult decision. The best use of the resources the church had acquired over the years was to sell them off and replant. That’s not an easy decision, and people who had sacrificed over the years to make that happen had to be brought along. In today’s podcast we dig down into what it looks like to bring the generations of your church with you.

Generations truly lives up to its name, and Jeff has been instrumental in joining two generations on mission together.

When Generations was only four years old, it planted out again with a team of 30 people. Now, that’s a significant number of people when you’re a small church, but in this podcast, Jeff talks about what he wishes he knew when he started out.

That was the start of something that’s continued to today.

“We began about three years ago birthed out of a replanted old, dying denominational church full of senior citizens,” Jeff says. “We replanted and got it healthy, paid off all debt, trimmed all the staff, and then sold all property netting us about $6 million that we could invest. We began preparing to be a mobile church that was missionally engaged in our city and worked with another planter to launch out of us, which became two planters, then three planters.”

“We have planted three churches in three years. We have sent out MANY more leaders than that. We have probably sent out close to 100 people in three years and have given away close to $1 million in church planting money. We have funded gifts to church planting networks, and to planting groups within denominations. We helped fund and start Gospel Ventures and provided staffing and offices for them.”

In this podcast, you will hear about:

  • How to lead a church through difficult decisions that lead to greater multiplication.
  • Positioning yourself financially to become a multiplication church, and a catalyst to help others become multiplying churches.
  • What to strategically do with $6 million.
  • How you can create a culture of multiplication and not lose sight of everything else.

Find out why Jeff Ludington is truly ministering to multiple generations, to reach multiple generations.

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