Is Training Necessary for Christian Ministry? Part 2
Continuing…. I would like to use my own example to suggest how training works with ministry.
My wife was born in the Philippines but had moved to the US after college. We met there and had three children… but after 9 years of marriage we began to be convinced that God was calling us to serve as missionaries. I was a mechanical engineer. Celia was a nurse. As such we had no formal training to be missionaries… but the skills of engineering and nursing may be useful. We prayed about it, did research, got involved with ministry opportunities, I joined a mission team to Brazil. After a couple of years of prayer we became convinced that God wanted us to serve as missionaries.
The problem was that we barely understood what missionaries do. We have led Bible Studies, We have taught in Sunday School. We have done evangelism and discipleship, but we knew that being missionaries involved a lot more than that. So when we believed that God was leading us to Baguio City, Philippines, we applied to a seminary there to be students. I was 38 years old, and my wife was older than I was. Maybe you think that this is old to go to seminary, but we needed to learn to use the tools of ministry. The day after we were accepted into the seminary, I quit my job as an engineer, and we started our preparation to move to the Philippines.
So we were going to be students in a seminary, but we also knew that the best training brings together learning with the mind, with learning through experience. We thought that perhaps we could do work in medical missions. Celia was a nurse. As an engineer I was trained in organizing projects. This might be good. We can use our past training. However, we really did not know how to do an actual medical mission. Well, we were in Baguio City, Philippines for four days. On that 4th day, we met a pastor of a church and a missionary tied to that church. They did medical missions. We recognized this as God’s working. We joined the medical mission team. At first we joined as regular workers. Our job was to learn how to do medical missions. Over time we learned how to find locations for medical mission. We learned how to evaluate if a potential site is good for medical missions or bad. We learned who to contact in the community for partnership. We learned how to order medicines and how much of each medicine to bring with us. We learned how to put together a team of trained and untrained volunteers for the medical mission trips. We learned how to set up stations at the medical mission point so that people could enter, be served, and leave. We learned how to partner with local churches in a way that people who responded positively to God’s love in word and deed can be incorporated into the church and Bible studies. There was so much we needed to learn. And we did, after a couple of years, Celia and I became team leaders for medical missions. We did this for several years. At the same time we were taking classes at seminary on the Bible, theology, music, missions, pastoral care, Christian education, church history, ministerial leadership— tools we would need for a broad range of possible ministries.
As we were doing medical missions we started wondering what else we could do to help communities. We started wondering whether we can help in community development. The problem was that we had no training in this. So we looked for trainers. We learned of a group that trains people in the Philippines in community development. We joined a training. We also found a husband and wife who do community development in and around Baguio and began partnering with them in community developmetn projects. We slowly learned how to meet economic needs and social needs in addition to spiritual and physical needs.
After seminary, Celia and I looked at where we were and what God wanted us to focus on. I believed that my primary ministry was to be teaching. Celia believed her primary ministry was pastoral counseling. For me to be a teacher, I need more time as a student. Also to be recognized as a competent teacher, I would also need to have a higher degree, so I went back to seminary to earn my doctorate at age 46. My area of specialty would be missions. Celia, to be trained in pastoral counseling, started to take Clinical Pastoral Education. This is for pastoral counseling and clinical chaplaincy.
So 2009 happened and two huge storms hit the Northern Philippines. We began doing medical missions work in areas where there was great distruction. We knew how to do medical missions. We also started to look into how we could meet other needs, such as community development. But we also saw that people were troubled in their hearts and in their minds. Celia was trained in pastoral counseling, but we also believed we needed additional training in disaster response. Therefore, we invited a chaplain to come to the Philippines to help out with disaster response counseling, but also to train us and our team to be more effective in responding to disasters— in counseling and other ways.
As this ministry grew, we founded a new group. Bukal Life Care and Counseling Center. We do pastoral counseling, disaster response counseling, and we train people to be pastoral counselors and chaplains.
Since then, we slowly stopped doing medical missions and community development. Those are important ministries, but they also take up a LOT of time and energy . We realized that God wanted us to be more focused on leader development.
Today, most of our minisrty work is in training— training in missions, training in pastoral counseling, and so forth.
So did we stop learning? Did we stop being trained? Of course not. A minister must also continue to be a learner. In 2012 and in 2021, we received formal training in Missionary member care, to help us minister more effectively to missionaries. We received coaching in how to set up an accreditation and certification organization for pastoral counseling and clinical chaplaincy. I have taken academic courses in recent years. We both have taught at seminars, and have attended seminars as learners.
What does this all mean?
1. God made us for ministry. So God uses the skills, talents, and trainings we have received before we ever follow Christ in ministry.
2. God guides us in terms of where we are to go and what we are to do. He gives us giftings and passions that empower us to serve in a certain place doing a certain type of minsitry.
Our past skills, gifts, and trarinings are important. God’s calling and gifting is also vital. But God has created us to grow. Jesus
LUKE 2:52 says that from age 12 to 30, Jesus grew in Wisdom, and Stature, and Favor with God and Man. Working backwards, Jesus grew in favor with man. He learned grrowing in socially… gaining in social skills to relate to others more effectively. It says He grew in favor with God. We don’t really know all of what that means. Perhaps it means He leaned to live His life and ministry more reliant on the Father and the Spirit. It says He grew in Stature. He grew up physically from a child to a grown man. It says He grew in Wisdom. He learned things, but not just learrned it, but began to understand how to use that learning in the right, wise, way. If Jesus needed to learn and to grow in all four of those ways, how much more do we need to learn and grow in all of those ways.
3. God gives us opportunities to learn. This learning may be formal, non-formal, or informal. This training is from people who have the knowledge, skills, and experience and are willing and able to pass it on to us… like Moses training Joshua, Elijah training Elisha, like Barnabas training Paul, and like Jesus training the Twelve.
4. Ministry is a life-long process of learning. Sometimes the learning is to enter a new area of ministry. Sometimes it is to stay in the same ministry but to do that ministry better. Often is learning is two-way. I learn from others, and others learn from me.
A wise and faithful minister of Christ is also a faithful learner.
