I really like Jason’s post on vision and division. It is such a blessing to work with this team of people who are committed Christians serving the Lord Jesus Christ in unity. What an honor!
Here’s what we are called to do by our Lord right now and our vision for the future:
NOW -
Our Board is building the infrastructure of this ministry. What a talented team God has put together!
Our biblical counselors are serving those souls who are crying out for hope and help.
Our staff is teaching and equipping lay persons to do the hard work of discipleship through biblical counseling.
FUTURE -
Here’s our vision for this ministry. You will have to dream with me for a minute:
We desire to DAILY counsel out of ONE centrally-located church in Birmingham. We would counsel DAILY at that location to serve the church as both an inreach ministry and the surrounding community as an outreach ministry.
We would hire a few qualified, gifted staff members – male and female. They would operate out of our home church location and counsel at least 3-4 days per week with at least one day per week of travel -training in teams. Our staff would stay small – likely 6-8 people.
Next, we would send teams of 2 counselors plus 1 support staff person (total of 3) out to area churches every day to set up counseling ministries in local churches. A different team each day would counsel, TEACH, and equip lay persons in those churches to have a biblical discipleship and counseling ministry emphasizing our unique, team approach. We would be “on location” at each church one day per week. (NOTE: We already have 3 potential churches for this FALL so the need is great! Pray that we can serve them this Fall.)
Jesus said in Matthew 9:37-38: “Then He said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” – The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (electronic ed.). Good News Publishers: Wheaton.
Then, we would work at developing more biblical counseling resources in multi-media forms to be used nationwide. There are many areas that biblical counseling has yet to address adequately and we would team to write and record materials for this purpose so that others could use these resources to help counselees, too. We want to be a replicating ministry that trains LEADERS and LAY PERSONS to do the work of discipleship in the area of biblical counseling.
Finally, we would strive to be the leading biblical counseling center for equipping, teaching, ministering, and discipleship in the Southeast. We would strive to have a global impact by sending teachers out to train pastors in biblical counseling in areas all over the world like Kenya, Tanzania, Japan, China, Bahamas, and Spain to name a few areas that we already have relationships established and who want us to teach their pastors. We are a “glocal” ministry meaning we reach local churches globally.
The vision is simple. The design is simple. The recipe for success is obedience to Christ. We must be obedient to Christ and strive to keep this ministry directed toward glorifying Him alone.
-Mark (thankful for what God has and will provide us to accomplish His will in His ministry of TIL)
