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Documentation · Ministries and placement

Apprentices

Name who is learning each role from the person who holds it, such as a co-leader who will take a group over or start the next one. See which leaders have nobody learning from them, and count the groups and teams that multiplied.

For: LeaderPastorAdminOwner

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An apprentice is someone learning a specific role from the person who holds it. A co-leader who will take a group over or start the next one is the most common example. Someone learning to lead a serving team alongside its lead is another.

An apprentice is not the same as discipling. Walking with someone is about their whole life with God, and it lives in Walking with and Generations. An apprentice is about one role.

Holding it now, with each leader’s apprentice or No apprentice beside them.
Holding it now, with each leader’s apprentice or No apprentice beside them.

Naming an apprentice

Open a role from Roles and go to Holding it now. Next to each person who holds the role:

  • + Apprentice opens a search. Type a name and pick the person. They are now learning the role from that leader.
  • A leader with nobody learning from them shows No apprentice.
  • A leader can have more than one apprentice. Use + again to add another.

Anyone on your team who can see the role can name an apprentice. A leader sees only the roles opened to leaders. Someone under 18 can't be named. Neither can the leader themselves.

Which leaders have nobody yet

On Roles, each role's row says how many of its leaders have no apprentice, for example 3 leaders with no apprentice. The link opens the role's Holding it now, where each of those leaders is marked.

When the learning ends

The ⋯ next to an apprentice says how it ended:

  • Started a new one: they lead a new group or team of their own. This is what the Overview counts as multiplied.
  • Took it over: they lead the group or team they learned in, and the person who led it stepped down.
  • Stepped back: they are no longer learning it.

When a pastor marks Started a new one or Took it over, the apprentice is added as someone who holds the role. Taking it over also ends the leader's hand-entered row. A leader's word is kept too, but who holds a role stays with pastors and with Planning Center.

GiftWell also notices on its own. When an apprentice comes to hold the role, by hand or from Planning Center, the learning ends: Started a new one if their leader still holds it, Took it over if not. Planning Center often lists a co-leader as a leader of the same group. That still counts as learning. It becomes Started a new one once Planning Center shows them leading a group their leader doesn't lead.

If a leader steps down while someone is still learning from them, the apprentice stays on the role's page under Learning it, their leader has stepped down, so nobody is lost.

Multiplied on the Overview

The Overview's Multiplied vital sign counts the groups and teams an apprentice started in the last 12 months, across the roles you can see. Its link says how many leaders have no apprentice yet and opens Roles. The reading shows up once a role you can see has someone holding it.

For your AI

get-role lists each apprentice, who they are learning from, and the leaders with no apprentice. list-roles counts them for each role.

What stays private

  • Apprentices are for your team only, like everything on Roles. A member never sees them, and nothing about them is written to Planning Center.
  • GiftWell sends nothing to anyone when you name an apprentice or say how it ended.
  • There is no score on anyone. Multiplied counts groups and teams, not people, and nobody is ranked by how many they trained.

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