And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
Luke 2:52 NIV
If Jesus had to grow, so do we.
Healthy things grow. And when leaders grow, everyone wins.
252 is a development experience designed to help leaders live and lead more like Jesus.
Developing a leadership pipeline within your organization is no small task. And yet healthy leaders live with a deeply held conviction that it is our job and our privilege to help those around us to keep growing.
It’s our honor to partner with like-minded organizations all over the world in this vision.
Thank you for making Jesus’ last command your first priority. Developing Kingdom-minded disciples who serve in every sector of society is what 252 is all about!
Having a leadership pipeline is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.
You might be wondering...
Luke 2:52 “And Jesus grew in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and man.”
Churches, banks, schools, missions organizations; really any organization that is looking for a biblical, practical and transformational leadership development pipeline to help grow their people.
8-12 people.
Two 13-week semesters.
Go to the “Get Started” section at the bottom of this page and make a donation of any size.
You can use the digital PDF version in our resource vault or you can order as many copies as you need on the “Get Started” section. Workbooks will be shipped directly to you.
In the “Get Started” section you can click the box that requests coaching support and one of our team members will quickly get in contact with you to set up a coaching session.
Here’s what we’ve found that works...
Group structure
252 was birthed in a group structure and setting. We believe discussions help with digestion. Some of the greatest discoveries and learning will take place in your conversations. We recommend group sizes of 8-12 people. Each group has a leadership team. That team is made up of a leader and co-leaders who are being apprenticed while they go through the experience to be trained in leading a group in a future semester.
252 Workbooks
To aid in our students not feeling like they are “drinking from the fire hydrant with their hands on fire,” we’ve created a note-taking workbook. The workbooks include an outline of the teaching with fill-in-the-blanks, fill-in-the-blank answers, Scripture memory verses for each week, personal reflection questions, and group questions. You can place an order for your group’s workbooks in the “Get Started” section.
Prayer partners
In week one we have each student pair up with a prayer partner. At the end of each week’s discussion, prayer partners will take 10-minutes or so to pray for each other. We also train our prayer partners to have a meaningful touchpoint during the week between group meetings. A text message, phone call, video chat, meet-up for coffee, or conversation in the church lobby. Prayer partners form deep bonds over the course of the semester and provide a built-in care component to the group experience.
Soul food
Each leadership teaching comes with a Scripture verse to memorize for the next week. We call it our “soul food” verse. At the beginning of each group, before processing the newest teaching, group leaders will have their group speak out or write out and show their prayer partner the verse. This small step models accountability and facilitates spiritual growth for each leader.
Resource Reading
During the experience, 252 leaders read a book together each month.
At the end of the month, participants submit a personal reflection paper to their group leader answering a couple simple questions:
- What percentage of the book did you complete by our deadline?
- What thoughts from the book influenced your thinking about life and leadership?
- What do you feel like Jesus is speaking to you personally from this content?
Books we’ve read with our groups (1 book per month — 3 per semester — 6 total after both semesters)
- The Way of the Shepherd by Dr. Kevin Leman and Bill Pentak
- The Go-giver by Bob Burg
- The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Essentialism by Greg Mckewon
- 21 Laws of Irrefutable Leadership by John Maxwell
- Beyond Talent by John Maxwell
- The Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley
- Leading on Empty by Wayne Cordeir
Live Meetup
Live Meet-up
We’ve found it a powerful experience for all of our groups to come together in week six for a combined teaching. We have a time of worship, testimonies from leaders who have received a promotion or breakthrough from the teaching, a moment for our “soul food” verse check-in, the week six leadership teaching, group discussion with some food, and we close with our prayer partner time. Some organizations have the ability to study each week together in the same setting, which is how our 252 pipeline initially started before we outgrew that model.
Regardless of your structure, week 6, the mid-point in the semester, is a great time to do something fresh, creative, and synergizing for your groups.
The Capstone Experience
We also host a Capstone Experience on week 13 after each semester. This is a time to pull out all the stops.
We host it as a fancy black-tie, memorable event. Organizations can get creative with how they approach the capstone experience.
The goal is to help your students reflect on what they have learned over the semester and speak life into one another. We also collect names of future students that we can personally invite into the experience in the upcoming semester.
We have some exercises to help facilitate these moments that we’d be glad to share with you as you sign-up for our free coaching.
Technically speaking...
Here are the tools that make it all possible…
Slack. We create free slack channels to communicate with our 252 group leaders and within each group. It’s a great tool for getting members to interact, share links, quotes, outside content, and stories each week. You can download Slack to your computer or smartphone device from the App Store.
Coda. We host our teaching links, syllabi, and many other helpful documents for each group leader and 252 student in an app called Coda. It’s free. It’s simple. It works. You can download Slack to your computer or smartphone device from the App Store.
YouTube. We post each teaching to a private YouTube channel for group leaders who want to broadcast the video content on their TV for their group meetings.
252 Podcast Channel. We also know that people like to listen or re-listen to the content on the go. YouTube works well for large group meetings but can be frustrating for people who want to listen to the content while commuting or exercising at the gym. The 252 Podcast Channel (private access) gives each student the ability to listen and re-listen to each week’s content at any time.
HERE'S WHAT YOU GET INSIDE
The Resource Vault
Our resource vault gives you access to two twelve-week semesters worth of biblical leadership teaching videos, facilitator notes for each week, a private YouTube channel, 252 Podcast, and the ability to place an order for leader workbooks.
Semester One
- The Law of the Lid – 5 Levels of Leadership
- Leadership Secrets from the life of Joseph – 4 Core Elements of Leadership Development
- Clarifying Your Call – 4 Phases of Discovering Your Destiny
- Transformational Leadership – 7 Mountains of Kingdom Leaders
- The Anatomy of Apprenticeship – 5 Irreplaceable Steps In Discipleship
- Encouragers & Confronters
- Honor Among the Generations
- The Coaching Mindset
- Creating a Culture of Honor
- The Prodigal God – Sonship: The Basis of Kingdom Leadership
- Cultural Innovation – How To Lead Healthy Change
- Breathing Room and Leveraging Personal Replenishment Cycles
Semester Two
- Making Vision Stick – The Art of Vision Casting
- Sustained Enthusiasm
- Emotionally Healthy Leadership
- The Four Pillars of Drama
- The Ideal Team Player
- Navigating Team Dynamics
- Discovering Your Enneagram Type
- Leaders of 10 – Effective Delegation & Multiplying Teams
- A New Definition of Character
- Eat the Book: A History of the Bible
- Overcoming the 7 Facets of Discouragement
- The Leader’s Prayer Life
Leadership Lesson Preview
To gain access to these resources, continue to the Get Started section below!
Emily's Story
Before 252, Emily questioned her leadership ability. After going through the leadership development journey of 252 she was strengthened, started 2 stores, and now serves as a trainer for dozens of other UPS Stores. She also serves on the national board of advisors.
Get Started
The cost of workbooks are $30/each plus shipping. Include this in the donation space below.
If you have questions before you take your next step, shoot us an email at 252leadershipcoaching@myfreedom.org, and we can set up a time to chat!
Set up a call
Have questions about how it all works? Set up a short inquiry call with a member of our team and we can walk you through any questions you have. Let us know 3 time slots that work to connect.
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