Missional Community: Reports From the Front Lines Part I
Journey Pastoral Coaching is a missional community. No, we are not a community whose members live and work together in the same locale. But we are definitely a community and we definitely work together in a shared mission. We are missional community doing life and ministry together.
Every month at Journey, we ask our members to complete what we call an “Insight Question.” This is an opportunity for Journey members to coach the coach, helping me understand their lives and ministries, the church and culture. These “IQs” are invaluable to me as a pastoral coach, helping me to serve our members effectively.
From time to time, a Journey member will suggest a great IQ subject and we make use of it. We always appreciate the help.
Recently, a Journey member requested permission to post an IQ. This was a first in our seven-year history. Normally, I do not allow this, but given this pastor’s subject, I couldn’t say no.
As requested by our members, their responses are included below without editing.
This is the first of a two-part October series. October is Pastor Appreciation Month, so it seems fitting to celebrate all of the quality ministers who make up this coaching community and make it what it is: the mutual investment ministry that is Journey Pastoral Coaching.
Here’s the question a Journey member asked our coaching community:
“Share a testimony or story of how the Journey community has helped you build strong for a lifetime of healthy and effective ministry.”
1. Several months ago, a fellow Journey member called me on a Sunday morning and prayed with me, before our service started. It blessed me to know that a fellow pastor responded to a prompting from the Holy Spirit—when they, themselves, were very busy preparing for Sunday ministry activities—and reached out, to encourage me.
2. I am convinced that I would not be a pastor today without the ministry of journey. I found P. Baker and his team at just the right time and their support has truly saved my spiritual life and sustained my call. In 2016, after a series of tragic circumstances, I found myself in a dark spiritual place. My marriage was on the rocks, any faith in God was strained, and what little desire that remained to serve the church was diminishing. One night I was on the verge of quitting it all when I saw a post from a friend about his coaching from P. Baker in journey, so I clicked on the link and figured I’d give it a shot. That first phone call was a breath of fresh air, a glimmer of hope, and a lifeline to grasp onto as the waters despair were threatening to pull me down. Now after countless phone calls, endless prayer and 5 years of perseverance my marriage is stronger than ever, my love for God’s people overflows from my life, and my passion for professional ministry is stronger than ever before. God used journey to sustain this millennial through the hard seasons of life and for that ministry I am eternally in debt and grateful.
3. The Journey Pastoral Coach, Pastor Baker, has helped me to move forward in my calling to be a mentor-coach. Through receiving coaching from him, I have experienced its power to help pastors become and stay healthy in ministry. Out of that, the Lord began to stir a similar passion in my heart. I am now pursuing a Master’s degree in Christian leadership with coaching as the main emphasis. I am also coaching others outside of Journey. My dream is to one day walk with students from an initial call to ministry to being credentialed and healthy in ministry. Without Pastor Baker and the Journey community, I don’t know how I would have discovered my love of coaching and God’s call for me to walk with future pastors like Pastor Baker has walked with me.
4. I am blessed to have been part of Journey Pastoral Coaching for over five years. The Journey Coach has walked with me through many different situations and seasons in ministry. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for his guidance and intentional care for me. I’m also thankful for the Journey community. The monthly peer calls and intentional connections with my peers has helped me be a better person and minister.
5. The Journey community helped me stay grounded in my calling and passions during my transition between ministry roles. The encouragement of my peers kept me grounded and focused on what God was teaching me through some very challenging times in my family.
6. Journey has helped me find a group of people who genuinely care about my life in Christ. They want me to succeed, they ask the hard questions, there is real accountability. This was nothing like I had been a part of before. Life for me was “good” before journey, but now that I’m a part of this community I have the need/desire to help others and they have the same desire to help me. It’s a beautiful thing! Over the past 2 years when Staci and I lost 2 children due to miscarriages it was a really trying time emotionally; without journey we would have been a real mess, but you all checked in on us and even bought us gifts. We truly felt the love more than in just words journey is about action!
7. In 2013 I was fresh out of seminary. That winter I hit a deep depression and was often stuck on the couch waiting to go to work only to return to the couch and wait for work again (I lived where I worked, so it was hard not to show up). Not long after, heard of a new ministry my former college professor was starting for people just like me. Journey was just what I needed. I wasn’t alone any more. God’s grace became a reality in the middle of a real community of people just like me. I’m coming to find that all ministers (really all followers of Christ) need someone to walk with them. This is a way of life I won’t be able to give up from now and into eternity.
8. During a time in my life when I felt abandoned by a lot of my ministry colleagues, Journey provided a place for me to be supported and encouraged by people who cared about me. The peer calls I had with several different men encouraged me and helped me to overcome a lot of shame and struggles that I was facing. I’m grateful for the men of Journey who take these relationships seriously and made such a huge difference for me!
9. When I first started Journey I was hoping to launch my own ministry. I expected to get a supportive network and accountability for the ministry out of the membership. I got that and so much more. Conversations with Pastor Baker have revolutionized the way I do ministry. Not because we discuss practical ministry items, though it is an option, but because he challenges me as a person. His focus is on my identity and spiritual formation to develop a healthy foundation for ministry through a healthy relationship with Jesus Christ. It is so nice as a ministry leader to have someone who pours into me for a change. To have a place where I can just be. Thank you, Journey and Pastor Baker, for everything!
10. When I first joined the Journey community, I was lost. I had been serving in full time ministry for 10 years with a strong circle of mentors. Due to unforeseen circumstances, within a year, I completely lost the mentors I had relied on. I struggled for a year to find guidance, security and community. I’m so thankful that God directed me to contact Pastor Baker about Journey. It was evident, within my first few calls, with him and with other Journey members, that I had found a safe place to process the questions, pain, struggles, victories and joys that come when serving in ministry. I firmly believe that Journey helped me continue on in ministry when it would have been easier to quit. The support I found there gave me the strength I needed to keep doing what God has called me to do. I’m forever thankful.
11. Since attending Journey Retreat in 2021, all the women who attended have had an active text and video messaging thread going. This has been a constant source of communication for us, keeping us connected for life and ministry updates and as an avenue to continue building strong relationships with one another. My parents recently went through a divorce and so much about our family dynamics have changed. I shared about this at Journey Retreat and have continued to stay connected with one of the other women who has had a similar experience. It’s been so good to have an ally, someone who understands how I’m feeling as a daughter yet also seeks to respond in love. Processing this life change with her has been so encouraging!
12. I grew up in a good home but my Dad is old school, in that there is no reason to compliment or encourage someone to often. Of course, I love my parents but as an adult I didn’t understand the value I have to offer people by using my talents and abilities to work hard and serve people. Journey Pastoral Coaching has helped me to understand a right value of who I am in Christ, and given me the ability to confidently but also humbly: work, love, minister and be what and who God has called me to be in whatever I’m doing.
13. The ministry of Journey helped me immensely during a dark time in my life. I had just been let go of a position under unjust circumstances and the community of Journey surrounded me and gave me life and purpose when I felt like I was alone. Journey has been an amazing blessing to me.
14. The Journey brotherhood that I have right now is hard to put into words. They were with me and my wife through both of our miscarriages and loss, so on a personal scale that means everything. They were also with me through the struggles I had with my pastors for the first couple years of my ministry at my church, so in that regard there with me on a spiritual level. Then my own personal struggles, Doubts and thoughts, emotionally they are also there. I don’t want this to sound too broad but truly without these guys I don’t know how easily I would still be in ministry. These guys are truly family that would bend over backwards for me and mine!
15. When I started in Journey a few years ago we were coming out of a very difficult season and getting ready to head into a new challenging season. What I didn’t know is how Journey and Pastor Baker would help me to process what I had gone through and prepare for what I would face. We had been put through the wringer in a since with a ministry situation and were honestly just tired. Pastor Baker helped me process this, refocus on my family and renew a desire for ministry. The season that we were headed deep into was raising kids. The fatherly insight we drew from Pastor has helped us through those challenges and to become better parents and spouses to one another. I’m deeply thankful for the ministry and sacrifice of Journey and Pastor Baker. I wouldn’t be the husband, father and minister I am today without it.
16. At Journey, I am able to share pain and conflict and situations and get different perspectives, and encouragement from others in the same area of life. I’m also able to share when others are going through something I have gone through in the past. I love that Pastor Baker also doesn’t tell me what to do, but he helps me navigate the best decision for me and my ministry. Most of all, I am appreciative that Journey focuses on my personal health instead of just my vocation.
17. Pastor Baker, Tricia, and Journey have helped me step into the reality of mentorship, spiritual sonship, and Christian community. The quality of grace I have received from Pastor Baker time and time again has made me who I am today. I am growing in lovedness, growing in grace. Now I can pass on to others the same wisdom and grace I’ve been receiving.
18. During my time in Journey I’ve experienced both wonderful and discouraging days in ministry. Anyone who has pastored knows that emotional stamina is one of the most necessary skills. Journey has provided me a place to turn for stability. It helps keep you humble when things are going well and encouraged when they are not. I can’t imagine ministry without relationships and support like that. It’s not just helpful it’s essential.
19. Giving and Receiving When I stepped into Journey, I was in a new and healthy season of ministry. After a month of being a part of this family, I wondered what I was gaining and why did I join. Since, I’ve had countless opportunities to encourage my Journey family, to give to them. And sure enough, they have had countless opportunities to give to me, my life, my ministry, my family. Journey Pastoral Coaching has become a part of my everyday life and I wouldn’t leave it for anything!
FINAL WORD
Journey members are on the front lines of ministry across the country, from Massachusetts to Oregon, Michigan to Florida. They are striving to bring to their local ministries what we share in Journey: missional community – a mutual investment ministry where every member is valued, a coaching community where every member invests in others and allows them to invest in him or her. Their Journey experiences are not only transforming their lives, but their marriages and ministries. The key is not Journey. The key is Jesus Christ and doing life and ministry as He did it on the earth: in missional community.
As Gordon MacDonald has written, “With a world of millions to reach, Jesus budgeted the majority of his time to be with just twelve simple men.” Jesus relied not on programs, and technique, but mentorship-coaching and relationships in accomplishing his mission. It was an approach he talked and walked on earth. It was an approach the twelve disciples continued to talk and walk after Jesus’ ascension. It is an approach being rediscovered by the church in the 21st century.
In two weeks, we will present the second half of this report from the front lines of missional community in the hopes that these articles will either challenge you to begin your own effort to establish a missional community (local or otherwise) or encourage you if you are walking alone. If you are in vocational ministry, we would also encourage you to find a pastoral coach and/or mentor. We would encourage you as well to find peers with whom you can share the journey in ministry. As you read above, peer coaches are a treasure beyond gold.
Finally, please consider partnering in prayer and finances with Journey as we continue this vital ministry to young ministers. There is so much more we could do with your support. You can click on the Donate icon below or email us at journeypastoralcoaching@gmail.com Thank you.
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Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.
We are able to do so thanks to the faithful and generous support of individuals and churches like yours who want to see young leaders not only enter the ministry, but remain in the ministry.
Now, more than ever, we need your help.
If you or your church would like to help Millennial ministers across the US and overseas build strong for a lifetime in ministry, please click here to support Journey monthly or with your one-time gift. Thank you.
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