One on One with Pastors

Our calling to this ministry is born out of a desire to come alongside pastors and help them equip their leaders and congregations for missions — locally, nationally, and around the world (Acts 1:8). So, the very first thing we offer is our time. We want to meet formally with a pastor, although casually, to help him unplug and work on his dream for reaching the lost and mobilizing believers. We do this with a simple Q & A document that we have developed, and that we will complete and deliver back to the pastor after our initial time together.

• This meeting will take an hour or two typically
• We don’t request anything for our time for this initial step
• We will leave this meeting by defining some “next steps” whether we are asked to become further involved or not.

Crystalize the Vision

Missions can be a lot like eating right: we all think we know what we are supposed to do, but the everyday busyness of life seems to get in the way. Our goal with this step is to look to the Lord’s Word and help a pastor simplify the vision, using an Acts 1:8 approach.

Develop a Timeline

One of the hardest things about pastoring, in general, is the constant tension of wanting our congregations to live out the Christian life of evangelism and discipleship simply as part of their everyday lives. We pray that evangelism and discipleship are not “programs” of the church but evidence of who we really are in Christ. To that end, we have found that developing long-term missions partnerships and doing short-term mission trips and local service projects can inspire believers, which infects other believers until it infects the whole church. Along those lines, what we find most often is a pastor agrees wholeheartedly with the direction but does not know how to find the bridge from where he is to where he wants to be. We pray that through our simple, strategic planning steps, pastors will begin to see the bridge and be able to put some realistic time frame goals (even if in pencil) on a calendar.

• getting the vision to the leaders
• getting the vision from the leaders to the whole church
• implementing the vision
• maintaining and growing the ministry

Identify a Team

Years ago, we encountered a pastor with a simple formula for evaluating a new ministry within the church. He required three things, 1) a need, 2) a defined, Biblical basis, and 3) the people needed to make it happen. Every pastor is in a different place. Some have paid staff; some have part-time staff; some have volunteers; others are working almost solo. We get it. That is why a big part of strategic planning is helping pastors consider people power. A lot can happen even with a few people. Our hope is that we can help pastor identify the right people and the right structure for an initial team.

• do I have at least one leader (besides me) who will serve in missions with me?
• do I have more than one? How many?
• how will we structure things from the beginning? How might that structure evolve or change in the future?

Consider Next Steps

Surely, you have heard the old cliche, “how do you eat an elephant?” Right. Our approach to missions is a funnel. Mission – vision -> goals -> projects -> to-dos. We have a simple tool to help a pastor scratch out some ideas that lead ultimately to the most important, and very next step that should be taken.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this page. I hope we can talk on the phone or in person soon. – Boe | (813) 501-2221 | email