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.
MDiv.’s, like you, are 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, have you run an elder meeting? Led a group of people through conflict or change? Developed a missional mindset and practice among leaders? Become skilled at visitation or connecting your message to the heart?
Like M.D.’s coming out of school and going into residency, the knowledge you acquired has to be combined with skills in order for you 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 your 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 together in your cohort or one-on-one, we will deeply support you as you develop your pastoral and leadership skill. You 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.
- And much more …
Let’s not mistake developing skill for acquiring knowledge either.
Remember suicide Greek?
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 your preaching and teaching.
The same is true when becoming a pastor to lead a congregation. You need time to develop your skill.
You need a process and a methodology you can trust to develop that skill.
So, do you?
We will spend the time and work together to effectively focus you on developing those skills so that you become a pastor who 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.
You will develop about 75 foundational skills over 36 months under guided supervision while ministering in your local 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.
You 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.
You 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, you will meet with your advisor 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, you will develop your time management skills. We will introduce several tools to you so that you can better plan your time, then deeply support you to become a master of your time.
Same as true with sermon prep. You 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 you timely feedback as you work through the process of putting it together. You will think about the material in a different way, but not you 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 you spend reading will be minimal.
When pricing The Great Commission Fellowship, we took the following six factors into consideration:
- Your energy: The cost of having your job drain you because you are not quite sure how to handle certain situations.
- Your 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.
- Your health: The physical toll of trying to figure it out on your own will impact your health and your relationships.
- Your church’s finances: The cost of you trying to develop the skill on your own can stunt the numerical and financial growth of the church.
- The freedom that comes from figuring it out.
The investment is $400 a month for 36 months.
It is covered by your church for their edification and your continued education. This will accelerate your learning curve and get your ministry off to a quicker start with better results.
We have a rolling monthly enrollment except December and July.
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.
Consider personal trainers. Just going to the gym and randomly working out will get random results. But a personal trainer will help you get your desired outcome by putting together a plan and holding you accountable to it.
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.
50% of pastors felt that their theological education DID NOT adequately prepared them for ministry.
If this is true for new churches, why wouldn’t be true for established churches?
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.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It’s inevitable. A church within your denomination needs help. Oftentimes, by the time they call you, it’s too late. Relationships are frayed. Trust is broken. Rash or unwise decisions were made. The inability to navigate conflict or adapt to change leads to a stalemate. They can’t grow and they have tried everything. The staff is frustrated, and so are the Elders.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get on the front end of this, rather than the back end? To be proactive, rather than reactive?
In our years of working with churches, we have found that for most of these cases it comes down to a lack of training on the front end. According to Barna, did you know that 50% of pastors DO NOT feel that their theological education prepared them for the rigors of ministry?
Is there any wonder that your churches struggle?
The Fellowship trains pastors on the front end of their ministry as lead pastors. They spend three years turning their knowledge into about 70 skills. Many of those skills address the issues listed.
As a result, there will be fewer calls to you. Your churches will be healthier and will grow spiritually, numerically, and financially as God sees fit.
Contact us to learn more about how we can partner to reduce the number of struggling churches in your tribe.
