The Left Should Adopt Evangelical Megachurches' Systematic Leader-Development Model to Fix Its Retention Problem
Source: Eric Blanc. "Evangelicals’ 10 Lessons in Leader Development for the Left." October 22, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
Big evangelical churches keep people and turn them into leaders on purpose, using small groups, clear steps up in commitment, and big asks. The Left loses most of the people it recruits and has no similar system. The author argues the Left should copy these methods to build lasting organizations.
Conclusion
To overcome its weakness in retaining members and developing them into organizers and recruiters, the Left should adopt the systematic leader-development model exemplified by Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, including small groups, a visible ladder of commitment, ideology taught through organizing, and big commitment asks.
Premises
- Evangelical megachurches grew and resisted the decline of membership organizations by systematically turning newcomers into members, members into leaders, and leaders into recruiters, not merely by attracting crowds.
- The Left is weakest at this: it loses most people it recruits and develops only a fraction into organizers who recruit others (e.g., about two-thirds of DSA members who joined after 2016 left within five years, and almost half of former members left after one year).
- Survey data show a stark recruitment gap: 82 percent of megachurch attendees first heard of their church through personal invitation versus 21 percent of DSA members, indicating leftist reliance on media rather than relational networks.
- Saddleback's model is a self-reinforcing cycle in which belonging fosters commitment, commitment opens the door to training, training and responsibility develop leaders, and leaders bring in new people. Its specific practices (weekly small groups, a ladder of commitment with classes and covenants, ideology deepened through participation, big asks paired with manageable steps) support this cycle.
- Most Left organizations lack equivalents: they have few small groups outside union organizing committees, a ladder that collapses into mass events plus a burnt-out cadre, and rarely ask members for substantial commitments.
- In an era when community rarely arises organically from daily life, a systematic model of community-building and leadership development is indispensable.
Assumptions
- Organizational techniques that work for evangelical churches are transferable to socialist and progressive organizations despite differences in purpose, ideology, and the need for internal democracy.
- Megachurch growth and retention are caused substantially by these systematic practices rather than by religious belief, culture, or other factors.
- Retention and leader development, not just recruitment, are the key bottlenecks limiting the Left's growth.
- Low retention among Left members is due to organizational structure rather than political conditions or the nature of the people drawn to the Left.
- Self-reported survey and membership figures are comparable and reliable across churches and DSA.
- Democratic accountability and Left values can be maintained while adopting a hierarchical, covenant-based ladder.