Discernment and Mapping Pt 2 w/ Hector and Juan Carlos Barrero

Discernment and Mapping Pt 2 w/ Hector and Juan Carlos Barrero

Welcome to the GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

Cara: Hello friends and welcome to today’s episode of GC Podcast. This podcast is devoted to exploring best ministry practices in the context of Grace Communion International churches.

I’m your host Cara Garrity. And today we are going to continue our mini episodes for this quarter focused on process and practices of discernment, strategic planning, and ministry action plans [MAPs]. Let’s welcome back Pastor Hector and Juanka who are joining us to share their experiences with the ministry action plans and their planning in the local context of their church, Comunión de Gracia Internacional Bogotá.

Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us again today.

Hector: Thank you, Cara, for inviting us.

[00:01:06] Cara: Absolutely. We appreciated all the wonderful insights you shared with us last month about your team based processes of planning and putting together your ministry action plans.

Today, I wanted to focus more specifically on putting those action plans into action. Sometimes we plan and then it stops at the planning. But with the ministry action plans, we really want to move into action and true participation in the ministry that God’s up to in our very midst.

And I want to start with this question. What steps does your team take to actually put your ministry action plan into action?

[00:01:53] Juanka: Yes, Cara. The first step will be defining our goals as a team. Defining those goals is a process that takes every member to take some time during the week. For example, on Saturdays, we are meeting every single Saturday. The first Saturday of each month, we are gathering with all the ministry leaders. And we are just going step-by-step, taking our time with a lot of patience and analyzing, for example, the calendar in which we have all the information and analyzing what is next and the steps that we need to work on.

For example, the priorities that we have and also the deadlines that we have for events. Most of the time we talk about what’s happening during the week, what’s happening, for example, on Sundays, who is in charge of what.

The steps that we take are basically to gather each Saturday, gathering sometimes on Zoom and having clear our goals and specific events that we have, and the person responsible for that.

It is not always perfect, of course. People change, for example, locations and they get pregnant. The families get bigger. And because of that, sometimes the dynamic is challenging, but nonetheless it’s flowing, and it is very positive.

Basically, the steps are just to make time to have meetings virtually or face-to-face. Obviously, we like more meetings that are face-to-face because we can have a chocolate with bread, that we call here in Colombia como chocolate y pan. And so that’s something that we love to do. And so, when we do that, we can make things happen and we talk about the events, all the plans.

[00:04:29] Cara: Yeah. Actually, consistently meeting together as a team and then referencing the ministry action plan that you’ve put together as you meet and having those check-ins. That seems very practical and a basic way to really make sure you’re getting into action. It’s good.

[00:04:49] Hector: I could say, for example, in the Faith Avenue we decided to study, We Believe. Each class is planned with who is going to teach it in the group of the Faith Avenue. We are preparing the leaders first. We want them to know our doctrine, what we believe. Also, that’s the first step because now we are preparing them to be teachers.

So, we ha