The Master Plan of Evangelism

As well as getting practical experience during my internship, I'm also trying to form a philosphy of ministry from which to operate out of. To that end, I've been on a steady diet of books since I've been here. The first book was The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert E. Coleman. The premise of the book is that God's design of evangelism involves both ministering to the broader public as well as multiplying yourself through mentoring a few. Coleman goes through the mentoring process Jesus undertook with his Twelve as a model of teaching, equipping and releasing for us to follow.

What was my major take-away from this book? The disciples, in addition to receiving teaching from Jesus, worked WITH Jesus, side-by-side. They were doing more than just meeting for coffee every week and getting advice about their lives (although I'm sure they did plenty of that). But they also rolled up their sleeves and as Jesus was multiplying the fish and the loaves, they were busy handing it out to the multitudes. Seeing a mentor in action, in his work and ministry, and seeing their response to different situations in a variety of contexts, is worth a million coffee appointments.

The importance of mentoring was already laid in my foundation. Now, I'm building on top of that the importance of actually working together. I know, not very profound. But I'm hard-headed and it takes a while for me to really 'get' things. In hindsight, I can see that working itself out with my mentoring relationships in my past and present. I never really carried any of my mentors' bags, so to speak. Mostly because I had that pesky guitar to lug around. But there was incredible value in those times on the road with Ben on the way to a ministry thing, or planning a missions trip with Bob, or playing guitar with Will, or riding along to run errands with Rich. And yes, of course, in having a great cup of coffee with Pastor Jim (mostly because coffee's a shared passion--and because he has an awesome counseling gift that I aspire to have). Most of these times were irregular, and even infrequent, mostly because these guys are all over the map (I mean that in a literal sense). But I learned a lot just being around them in a shared working context, in addition to hearing them speak.

So here is the real implication of this recent 'revelation'. I believe in structured mentoring programs and if I'm ever involved with one in the future, it might look something like this: people are paired up based on similar ministries, gifts, callings or vocations. And then, in addition to being required to meet regularly, they are also required to work together in some capacity. Okay, again, not really a third heaven-type revelation. It's a small ingredient in a very big pie. But what excites me are the ramafications of successfully executing this one little piece a million times over in every mentoring relationship in the Kingdom. What if there was a spokesman that traveled around the world to impart this one miniscule truth, but did it effectively? Would it be worth it if he taught nothing else but gave his entire life to push this one idea? Of course, this type of mentoring is already happening, but what if we could implement it in a very systematic way so that people didn't have to figure it out on their own, and we didn't have to struggle so much to actually do it? Again, welcome to my crazy, idealistic, church-planting mind.