Field Ministry Academy

Last week I was with a group of about 12 thirty-something senior pastors and Daniel Brown (my pastor and father-in-law) and Marty Jenkins (one of four regional supervisors in our national Foursquare movement). These two men spent the week training, encouraging, and investing in us. Here are a few of the primary takeaways for me:

1. Ministry is best done in the context of relationships. What made this week so powerful for each of us young guys was the opportunity that Daniel and Marty made for us to develop friendships with one another. Without these two older, wiser men pulling us younger ones together, I don't think I would ever have met these guys. It was a huge investment on their part -- an investment that none of us are able to make on our own. They used their authority and credibility to do something for us that we could never do for ourselves. The implications for how to think about my church are huge. Too often, leaders (like me) tend to make themselves the center of attention instead of using their position to build a culture that promotes people ministering to each other.
2. The Coastlands is a place to be loved, mended, trained, and then sent. During this week, the Lord helped me raise my expectations for our church family. It's not that I had consciously backed away from our "sending" philosophy, but I think with the wild adventure of transition that we've experienced in the last couple years, it has been on the back-burner, so to speak. I felt the Lord encouraging me not to be satisfied if our church only produces enough leaders to sustain its own existence. I'm excited to see how the Lord will lead us back into this core component of our identity.
3. I felt a fresh release to simply "be myself." Pastors are just like anybody else. When we get into a room with our peers, we're tempted to silently size each other up, play the comparison game, etc. There were a couple turning points in the course of the week where we each had to make a conscious decision as to whether we would be honest & vulnerable, or whether we would try to keep up a facade. As we each let go of our defenses, the spiritual life that began to flow among us was palpable. That whole "iron sharpening iron" thing really started to work... and today I feel freed to a deeper level from my desire to pick that facade back up.
   

Many thanks to Daniel, Marty, and my new young pastor-friends around the country for a fantastic week.