Coordinate Training to Keep Churches Multiplying

Yes, new pastoral trainers, you are free to initiate and coordinate training chains, not simply to keep up with church proliferation but to impel it.

Yes, Lord Jesus, we will keep sowing where the seed multiplies 30, 60 and 100 fold. We pledge not to let any church of our trainees become the final “dead end” link that terminates the chain reaction.

Let coordinators oversee regional pastoral training and church multiplication.

Authorize them to provide guidance and materials, keep records of progress, initiate and extend training “chains” and commission new trainers.

Coordinators assist leaders in continually evaluating outcomes and in adjusting strategy plans. Good coaches and coordinators are able to discuss what is happening in the ministries of local leaders, and help them to see areas where they can work to improve outcomes.

Keep training large numbers of new leaders.

a) Keep commissioning new pastoral trainers and regional coordinators.

b) Provide inexpensive training materials such as are provided freely on
http://www.paul-timothy.net/.

c) Keep accurate records of who is training whom, and of the progress of their flocks in establishing vital ministries.

d) Provide a training menu that lists vital church activities and corresponding studies. Such menus enable leaders to begin mentoring in a relevant way. Mentors listen to a trainee report on a church’s needs, progress and problems; they then find studies in the menu that fit that church’s next step.

e) Keep reorganizing mentoring chains to assure rapid communication, establishing new regional centers with new coordinators. 

 Resources For While You …

Coordinate work in your area:

Duties of regional church coordinators

Initiate mentoring chains. Mimic Moses. Relive the historical origin of biblical mentoring, shepherding elders and multi-level coordination, and have a good laugh while acting it out:

Jethro advises Moses to initiate mentoring

Look for a menu of vital church activities and of corresponding studies. Your People of Yes coach can recommend a menu and training program that fits your needs. Several good menus are available; you can download one freely on www.Paul-Timothy.net.

Write what will be translated into another language or dialect. Guidelines:

Writing for translation

Monitor progress in mobilizing workers. Check to see how well you are engaging workers to do essential ministries:

Key persons that God gives to churches

Urging artistic types to multiply churches or cells. This provocative bit of teasing can prod folk who respond to truth presented in a poem:

Ode to spontaneous church multiplication, a poem

Common Traps To Avoid

Let institutional educators, who are eager to fill their academies, train your leaders.

Adopt training materials simply because they are free or already available.

Make sure materials are geared to the type of groups that you are multiplying, and that these do not lead to institutional churches.

Assume that merely teaching or preaching is leading.

A coordinator at a regional level must be a strong leader who achieves concrete results. Good teachers can be bad coordinators. Teaching may be edifying and interesting, but unless it equips believers for ministry, it is not leading. Some pastors are good teachers but are not shepherds, and they do not know the difference. Such a teacher must work closely with an action-oriented leader.

Allow friction between mentors for new churches, and institutional educators.

Avoid friction by recognizing the validity of both types of training, the circumstances that favor each, and where each one fits. In new movements, academic training cannot supply enough leaders, and graduates often lead churches into an institutional mold patterned after their school.