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Introduce Paul-Timothy Leader Training
Principles 1. Keep Jesus as your master trainer. 2. Make each new church’s foundation its obedience to the Lord Jesus. 3. Harmonize training with other activities. 4. Let every believer participate actively. 5. Let your flock apply at once what it learns. 6. Take time to listen to each new leader. 7. Choose studies that fit current needs of each flock. 8. Arrange for trainees to train newer leaders (2 Timothy 2:2). 9. Let every church start daughter churches. 10. Seek to imitate the “2 Timothy 2:2” chain.
Paul-Timothy enables new shepherds to follow the nine New Testament guidelines listed below. These guidelines have proven to be effective for multiplying healthy congregations and shepherds in many countries.
1. Keep Jesus as your master trainer. Train shepherds and other leaders in the same way that Jesus and His Apostles did, helping them to multiply new congregations and new leaders, rapidly. This requires that all shepherds train newer shepherds, for training remains one of your biblical duties, and Paul-Timothy provides you with tools with which to do so. 2. Make each new church’s foundation its obedience to the Lord Jesus. First, establish the foundation for new churches that Jesus and His apostles required. That is, teach them to obey Jesus’ commandments before and above all else (Matthew 7:24-12, 28:18-20). Start immediately to practice the activities that the New Testament requires of every church. Jesus commanded many things, and his commandments can be summed up in the seven basic activities that the first church in Jerusalem obeyed at once (Acts 2:37-47). Paul-Timothy studies 47, 48 and 49 for New Shepherds and for Children teach these commandments. 3. Harmonize training with other activities. Combine evangelism, leader training, shepherding, and church planting in one curriculum. Let love and the power of the Holy Spirit harmonize those activities, as 1 Corinthians chapter 12 requires of every Body of believers. 4. Let every believer participate actively. Provide for all the believers, including children, to take part in worship and in Christian activities during the week, as Scripture requires. Each Paul-Timothy study for New Shepherds come with a matching Children’s study for the same week. Children’s studies help teachers prepare children to act out for the adults a Bible story about the same topic that the adults learn. A church is not ‘planted’ until it is obeying Jesus’ commands and the activities that His apostles required of churches. 5. Let your flock apply at once what it learns. Each Paul-Timothy study for New Shepherds assigns three activities:
6. Take time to listen to each new leader. Wise trainers have ‘ears to hear’ each new shepherd. They detect what his new flock still lacks, and then they help each shepherd to lay plans to meet an urgent need of each flock. Paul-Timothy shepherd’s study has two sections:
7. Choose studies that fit current needs of each flock. Paul-Timothy offers study options that deal at once with current needs. (See the Paul-Timothy Users’ Menu). Paul-Timothy allows a new shepherd to choose each week a study that deals with something that his flock still lacks. Jesus and His apostles trained new leaders in this way, responding to needs that they observed. Trainers should listen to each new shepherd report on what his flock is doing or lacks, and then consult the Users’ Menu to choose a study that corresponds to the need. Each new church, like a newborn baby, has urgent needs. That is why the Paul left Titus in Crete (Titus 1:5). 8. Arrange for trainees to train newer leaders (2 Timothy 2:2). You can do this in different ways. One way is to provide time for it during regular, regional training sessions. If you meet, say, with thirty new shepherds, you may lack time to listen to each one and give to each one the attention that he and his flock need. Thus, for part of the time, do what Jethro told Moses to do. Let helpers sit with small groups and listen to each person. Let them consult the Paul-Timothy Users’ Menu to provide a study that fits the needs of each one’s flock. Another way is to let any shepherd visit a few newer shepherds whose flocks meet nearby, and do the same with them. Continue this practice for as many weeks as trainees need such intensive care. 9. Let every church start daughter churches. You can easily start daughter churches, and granddaughter churches, to several generations, in your area, training their novice leaders on the job. Do so in the way that Paul did so. Let new believers go witness for Jesus to friends or relatives in other neighborhoods and villages. A shepherding elder or other leader from the mother church should visit new congregations and cells and train novice leaders. They should do so as many times as needed. These trainees should begin at once to do the same for newer flocks and newer leaders. 10. Seek to imitate the “2 Timothy 2:2” chain, which had four links. (1) The Antioch church sent Paul and Barnabas to start new churches. (2) Paul left Timothy in Ephesus and told him to pass on what he had learned to faithful men. (3) Thus Timothy trained Epaphras who was from Colossae. (4) Epaphras also trained novice leaders in Hierapolis and elsewhere. This chain eventually yielded hundreds of new churches.
Read more here about getting started with Paul-Timothy studies: #3 “11 guidelines for those who coach shepherds” #4 “15 guidelines for shepherds being trained.”
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