Arnis Bušs has felt the pain ministry leaders face and has navigated the challenges that inevitably arise. He longs for more people in his community to be connected to Jesus.

After years of ministry, Arnis and his wife Ginta participated in PLI training. 

“The big shock for me at PLI was realizing that teaching and leadership went hand in hand with theology,” Arnis explained. 

He’d been in ministry for over 15 years. He’d served at both the parish level and national level in the Latvian Lutheran Church. Arnis knew his theology and had encountered numerous conferences on leadership. But through PLI, he began to see how what he had learned and experienced fit together.

“It was like a puzzle. Little pieces finally clicked into place for me—something from the Bible, something from global leadership, things I’d learned, read or experienced somewhere—it all came together.”

The question, “What kind of leader am I?” from the first year of training challenged Arnis. As he applied PLI principles to his own life and leadership, he realized he needed to surround himself with others who would share his vision and work alongside him for the mission of God.

“I really latched onto PLI because of this idea I learned—really only from PLI—that you should go together with your wife and your kids. You can’t put on an act anymore when your wife and kids are right there next to you,” Arnis reflected. 

And with a sly grin he added, “You’ve got to be as authentic as possible, so you don’t end up looking like a fool—like some idiot—in your wife’s and kids’ eyes.”

Arnis takes the biblical leadership principles he learned to heart. “The first and most important thing I use [from PLI training] is identifying leaders and multiplying them.” In fact, Arnis and Ginta have gone on to help train ministry leaders in Latvia three or four times over.

Now Arnis is taking PLI training to a new level by training lay leaders in the congregation he serves. “I need people who share the vision, who are beside me. If only the pastor gets trained, it’s not enough,” Arnis shared. 

He sees his investment in local leaders as the next logical step. “If there are people [in your church] who share the mission and vision [of God], then you have people beside you with a similar motivation.” 

How does Arnis know who to invest in? “Invite the one who is open to you—who would be an extension of your hands. That is one principle from PLI I regularly use, and it really works.”

Arnis is a smart man. He’s studied theology, gone to leadership conferences, read and learned a lot. But somehow all of those things were still scattered pieces. Through PLI, he began to see how they fit together into a clearer way of leading.

That clarity has reshaped how Arnis and Ginta lead. They are identifying and bringing other leaders alongside them so that they won’t have to carry the vision alone anymore.