Phase One: Pastoral Desire

Phase One fans the flame of men who desire to become a pastor. Churches should identify, recruit, and encourage potential pastors with pastoral gifting to consider pastoral ministry. This phase helps men investigate whether the pastorate is a possible path for them.

Three Basic Goals

1. To build a long-term relationship of trust upon which future mentoring may occur.

2. To encourage a man to consider pastoral ministry.  

3. To disciple a man to develop a vibrant relationship with God.  

 Step-by-Step Process

1. Find someone to mentor for the pastorate.

2. Set up a time to talk with the prospect to see if he would be interested in getting together to talk about life and ministry.

3. Start implementing the practical ideas of mentoring!

Practical Ideas

Sometimes the hardest part of mentoring is just figuring out how to get started. Remembering the three goals of Phase One will help you live it out. These practical ideas will help you accomplish your goals.

Establish a Mentoring Time to Spend Time with the Individual.

Often it is helpful to invite a youth worker along to these meetings to provide more rounded discussion and accountability. These meetings work best in a place where you can have open discussion and should last for about one to one and a half hours. These meetings should contain the following three components:

1. Time to answer the protégé’s questions about life and ministry. Create an atmosphere where it is safe to ask any question about what you did on Sunday or about what is going on in their life. This is a time when the needs and interest of the protégé are truly dictating the conversation.

2. Time to teach one aspect of ministry. Whether it is working on the next step of a sermon, leadership issues, or how to love the unlovable, this is the time to begin forming the philosophy and biblical basis for ministry.

3. Give them a set of resources provided through P2P and go over the value of each resource and how they would use it.

Connect Him to Ministry Opportunities.

Do this in areas of simple service such as setting up for a potluck or teaching junior church or the youth group. During the process, take time to teach him the basics of sermon preparation and help him develop a sermon and have him preach it in a safe context. Help develop his appetite for serving God by getting him involved in ministry! Phase One provides scholarships to get involved in Ironwood’s Leadership Live! program in which high schoolers can come for part of a summer, be trained in servant leadership, and live it out practically by serving in the camp ministry context. 

Give Resources that Can Become the Topics of Your Mentoring.

These resources should cover the following areas: reference tools, personal growth, theology tools, personal relationship with God, remembering tools, preaching/teaching tools, pastoral care, and leadership. If you were to meet eight times over two years, you could easily cover these topics and then give your protégé more resources than what many acquire during four years at Bible college. See the following list for some possible resources.

Resources