Serving Like Jesus

Ministry Skills

In the ‘Serving Like Jesus’ strand of the program, the main focus is the development of ministry skills across four core areas of training:

  • Evangelism and World Mission
  • Teaching the Bible
  • Training others in Ministry
  • Leadership

Development in these areas is seen as fundamental to development for gospel ministry. The goal here isn’t so much to do with specialisation as development of these ministry skills.

Each term one of the four areas needs to come to the fore in terms of essential reading.  It is vital that goals are still set in the “Being Like Jesus and “Thinking Like Jesus” areas each term.  The order in which the essential reading is done in the four areas needs to be determined according to the particular church context, and the goals set by the trainer and trainee.

The key idea here is progress: that the trainee is developing their ministry skills, especially in the four areas, term by term across the two years of the program.  Fundamental to such progress, will be the transition of the trainee into a trainer role.  A basic pattern in each of the four areas might be for the trainee to repeat their year one learning process (as trainee) with another person (now as trainer) – learning through teaching others.

The basic pattern in each area is:

  • start with working through the relevant Ministry Paper;
  • set goals for that area across the year, including the best timing for completing the essential reading;
  • refine goals each term.