Jason* was told by his senior pastor to start a university ministry for Cantonese-speakers.
Jason left the pastor's office in a fog. He knew he was supposed to start something, but what was the next step?
Fortunately Eric*, one of our coaches, is a part of that ministerial team. They got talking about what the senior pastor wanted and Eric began asking Jason questions:
- Which Cantonese-speaking students are already in our church? What are their needs?
- If you only had students for two years what would you teach them?
- How will you meet new students at the university?
- Will you have social events? What types?
- How are going to evangelise people?
When they got to the last question Jason said he was going to use Evangelism Explosion(EE) to train his people how to share their faith.
Eric then asked:
- Does that teach them how to start a spiritual conversation?
- Will your people need to learn apologetics? Is that in EE?
- What about sharing their testimony -- the story of how they came to faith. Is that in EE?
Eric modeled how a coach asks probing questions. We don't demand that you follow a given approach to ministry. We listen and help you select a strategy and approach that will work in your situation.
During the interaction Jason began to see that ministry is not about programs. We encourage you to focus on what people need to learn and then select and modify programs to meet those needs.
Do you need a coach to ask you questions which will sharpen your vision?