Got Training? September 26, 2007

Got Training?

Do you ever wonder why raising support looks like an impossible task, even after the two days of “training” you got in mission candidate school? Maybe you have spent hundreds of dollars on fees and travel to a weekend workshop, but you still freeze up at the point of picking up the phone and making an appointment.

The reason could be that you were given inspiration, information and strategy, but you were not trained.

The KCT definition of training is the same definition that applies to learning to swim, playing a musical instrument or to flying an airplane. This kind of training can’t be accomplished through lectures, reading books or listening to inspirational speakers. You learn to swim by getting in the pool; music by picking up the instrument, flying by belting into the flight simulator and committing to practice, practice, practice until the skill becomes second nature. Quick and successful partnership development only happens as a result of practicing the ministry skills that Jesus modeled for us until they become second nature.

You are trained when partnership development is no longer about your need for money, but about the need of the church and of individual believers to be connected with the blessing, the joy and the rewards of a primary purpose for their redemption: being the expression of Christ to the nations.

You are trained when you have complete confidence that your story and your vision will inspire others to enthusiastically join you in prayer and financial partnership.

You are trained when you have no fear of picking up the phone and making an appointment.

Training at that level cannot be accomplished in a few hours or a couple of days. We are told it takes 21 days to establish a habit. KCT could easily compress the 18 hours of online training into three days or a week, but that could not produce a joy-filled performance of the partnership development ministry.

Instead, we do the online training for an hour and a half a day, four days a week for three weeks. All you will learn in the way of “content” happens in the first week, and accounts for only about 15% of your ultimate success. What assures success is what you do in the final two weeks and between sessions. You will be given assignments and required to practice the relational and communication skills that Jesus modeled until you fully achieve the confidence that this is true spiritual ministry and not mercenary manipulation.

– Jerry Long, September, 2007