MINISTERIAL
Ministering to Mid-America's Pastors Steve Nazario
By Maurice R. Valentine II Maurice R. Valentine II, Adela Martinez
Implied within the great commission to take the good news of Jesus’ salvation to everyone, everywhere, is the need to organize His church in a way that is strategic both in charter and execution to meet the demands of a job that is worldwide in scope. For this reason, the Mid-America Union Conference (MAUC) Ministerial Department has been devoted to providing mission– oriented leadership to conference executive committees, institutional boards, and through one-on-one coaching and assessment with individual pastors and churches to help each hone and advance God-sized plans. Over the past quinquennium this has been accomplished in part through developing collaborative relationships with our conference level ministerial directors for whom we have sponsored periodic events to team-build, share knowledge, and establish goals to 14 March/April 2011
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Mid-America Outlook
meet the needs of our pastors, pastoral families and church leaders both personally and professionally. To assist the local conference in this grand task we have provided per request, custom resources specifically attuned to their needs. A series
called Ministry Models for the New Millennium, covering advanced strategic planning, discipleship, coaching, evangelism and marital enrichment along with other tools such as church assessment and new cities demographic strategy, has been developed and presented to workers and executive committees. Because helping pastors reach their full potential for Jesus is our primary reason for existence, the Ministerial Department is determined to meet the needs of pastors in ways that are meaningful to them. This has been accomplished through establishing inter-conference focus groups and virtual teams comprised of pastors, pastoral wives and church leaders through which we have heard their dreams, challenges and heartaches. Further input has been sought through conference training sessions, webinars, meetings and interviews. Each forum has aided MAUC Ministerial in leading an effort to strive for comprehensive benchmarks of support and excellence. Helping God’s leaders reach new levels of growth and attainment requires continual training and development, but challenging them to put that training to use is advanced, in part, by providing regional goals. Years of national evangelistic series led to a deficiency in the knowledge and skill-sets necessary to conduct evangelistic meetings. In alignment with the MAUC theme of Selfless Service and the division theme of Year of Evangelism, at our last pastors’ convention we brought in evangelistic practitioners who were meeting with success. They came from across the country to enhance pastoral competencies in mission. After this training event pastors answered the call and conducted, in some instances, their first evangelistic endeavors. Many were