The Great Commission Fellowship
The medical community figured this out long ago. Why hasn’t the church?
Imagine placing your body in the hands of a doctor who KNOWS a ton about it, but hasn’t developed the SKILL to rightly diagnose and prescribe what’s happening to it.
This is precisely why newly graduated M.D.’s spend three to five years in residency before moving into the field on their own.
Now let’s turn to the church.
The pastor you hired is theologically trained to KNOW God’s Word, but shepherding and leading a congregation requires additional SKILLS that can’t be developed in a seminary classroom. For instance, has he:
- Run an elder meeting?
- Led a group of people through conflict or change?
- Developed spiritual and missional leaders?
- Become skilled at visitation or connecting the message to your heart?
Like M.D.’s coming out of school and going into residency, the knowledge he acquired has to be combined with skills in order for him to become effective.
We as a church have largely neglected this truth. No longer.
It’s time to take a different approach and take a page from the medical community.
Introducing The Great Commission Fellowship
Like a medical residency, The Fellowship is a three-year transformational process that turns his seminary knowledge into effective pastoral skill.
It is designed for first-time solo or senior pastors who have either recently graduated from seminary or served in a staff pastoral role.
During our time working with him, we will deeply support him as he develops his pastoral and leadership skills. He will become a Great Commission pastor who will be able to:
- Understand your community and interpret it through a gospel lens.
- Work with the four types of people during change.
- Set objectives and establish accountability.
- Develop listening and basic counseling skills.
- Connect the sermon or lesson to the mind, heart, and will.
- Help your people share the gospel.
- Encourage the heart to get extraordinary results.
- Help families establish habits that honor Christ.
- Have a healthy devotional life for himself.
Let’s not mistake developing skill for acquiring knowledge either.
There is a class in seminary known as “Suicide Greek.” Typically taken the summer before a student starts seminary, it’s designed to move through 14 weeks of Greek Grammar in eight weeks. It’s intense. If the student misses two days of class, he has to drop it.
That’s acquiring knowledge, but it takes a while of working with Greek under guided supervision to become highly skilled at applying the Greek to his preaching and teaching.
The same is true when becoming a pastor to lead a congregation. He needs time to develop his skill.
He needs a process and a methodology that both of you can trust to develop that skill.
So, do you?
Our proven processes have been tested for 25 years. When pastors follow them, they develop the skills to become highly-effective pastors.
We will spend the time and work together with you to effectively focus your pastor on developing those skills so he can makes disciples who make disciples while establishing a healthy and vibrant church.
Interested in learning more?
Drop us your name and email below.
Let’s spend some time together to see if The Fellowship is right for you. If it is, we will get you on the right path. If it’s not, no sweat because it’s not for everyone.
People perform better with a coach by their side.
Consider football players. They have a position coach, a head coach, and a strength and conditioning coach. At higher levels, they have nutritionists, chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapists, and personal coaches. These coaches and staff are hired to help the player perform better.
The same is true for pastors.
Did you know church planters who have coaches:
- Increase their effectiveness by 300%
- Increase the number of baptisms by 150%
- Increase attendance by 100%
77% of church planters that struggle receive less than one-week of training.
If this is true for new churches, why wouldn’t be true for established churches?
According to Barna:
50% of pastors felt that their theological education DID NOT adequately prepared them for ministry.
Look at your return on investment.
Over a three-year period, your church will pour hundreds of thousands of dollars to sustain its ministry.
What is it getting in return?
A coach working alongside your pastor will increase his skill level in 50 to 70 ministry skills. As a result, your church will become healthier and be able to minister to more people in better ways. Healthy churches grow spiritually, numerically, and financially as God sees fit.
Healthy churches multiply.
Contact us to learn more about how we can partner to set your pastor up for success.
Your Pastor will develop about 75 foundational skills over 36 months under guided supervision while ministering in your church. These skills are guided by the virtue of love and are broken into three areas under the Priest, Prophet, and King model.
- The Priest has a close relationship with God, cares for and loves God’s people. The focus is on relationships, discipleship, and spiritual practices.
- The Prophet studies Scripture and culture, applies the gospel to his setting, then clearly communicates it.
- The King leads the congregation and administers its goals.
These functions embody the responsibilities of a pastor to shepherd God’s people.
Your Pastor will develop three new skills per month while honing the skills from prior months. For example, in the first month you will develop the skills to:
- Cultivate strong relationships with your leaders.
- Learn about the neighborhood and the surrounding community.
- Become highly-skilled on how to manage your ministry time.
He will be placed in a cohort so that you may learn and sharpen one another. The cohorts will be meet monthly over Zoom for up to 90 minutes. The cohorts meet 10 months of the year. We break in December and July.
In addition, he will meet with your advisor/coach one-on-one once or twice a month to help you refine your skills for your local church and community setting. You will also have unlimited access to your advisor when questions arise.
Short answer: Minimal.
The Fellowship’s emphasis is creating a new mindset and habits while you are ministering to your congregation.
For instance, your Pastor will develop your time management skills. We will introduce several tools to him so that he can better plan your time, then deeply support him to become a master of his time.
Same as true with sermon prep. He will use some of our tools to think through the passage and how you are going to present it. We will be a sounding board and give him timely feedback as you work through the process of putting it together. He will think about the material in a different way, but not he may not necessarily spend more time preparing it.
Though we refer to two books and a lot tools during the Fellowship, the amount of time he spends reading will be minimal.
When pricing The Great Commission Fellowship, we took the following five factors into consideration:
- His energy: The cost of having his responsibilities drain him because his is not quite sure how to handle certain situations.
- His time: The cost of not knowing how to fix the problem, but trying multiple times.
- Your church’s identity: The cost of not being known in your community as you would like it to be.
- His health: The physical toll of trying to figure it out on his own will impact his health and relationships.
- Your church’s finances: The cost of trying to develop the skill on his own can stunt the numerical and financial growth of the church.
The investment is $400 a month for 36 months.
It is covered by the church for their edification and his continued education. This will accelerate his learning curve and get his ministry off to a quicker start with better results.
We have a rolling monthly enrollment except December and July.
