A session of Ministerial Boot Camp was recently held in the Los Angeles Area. It networked more than 15 experienced pastors with Adventist university students in a mentoring-field school experience. The concept, influenced by a business model, was proposed by Diane Kiemeney, owner of a successful transcription business. " [This kind of] networking is important in my business," she said, "so why not in ministry, too, with ministerial students drawing on the strengths and experience of senior pastors?"
Key elements and goals
Key elements needed for Ministerial Boot Camp to work, according to Gerard Kiemeney (director of the LA metro region in the Southern California Conference, and coordinator of the program) are a corps of motivated, experienced pastors, who, along with enthusiastic ministerial students are willing to drive to urban-area churches for weekly meetings, and who are interested in effective pastoral interning.
Basic Boot Camp goals are: "Enhancing Adventist ministry in the region, and providing avenues through which uninvolved lay people can turn their passion into a ministry for Jesus."
Ripple effects
The Boot Camp concept has spillover potential for other pastors in the region. Currently, one or two Los Angeles metro ministerial colleagues are "Boot Camping" each other, sharing strengths as colleagues, and consulting with one another on better ways of doing ministry.
Another exciting aspect of Boot Camp is its potential for discovering expertise in laity and networking them in training other lay people. One of the recent lay training events, sponsored by Southern California Conference's Los Angeles metro and African-American regions, solicited information about lay people with skills they want to share. This information will be used by the region to initiate lay networking.
With this in mind, Ministerial Boot Camp will operate year round, with a curriculum that includes skills-based workshops conducted by trained laity. A Web site will facilitate networking; it will enable churches in search of particular skills to find lay-resource contacts for the churches.
What some Boot Camp pastors discovered
Joseph Charles, a PUC senior, learned about the Boot Camp opportunity through a Pacific Union Summer InMinistry internship at South Bay church. When he checked the descriptions of the program's different stages, "I could see that they would be so beneficial for my professional growth. I felt that being exposed to ministerial development through in-the-field mentoring would be a great blessing."
By summer's end, Joseph found that having the opportunity to meet with different pastors with expertise in their various topic areas had not only been excellent training, but had also provided the added benefit of knowing he could access the teaching pastors as resources later on.
La Sierra student Steve Toscano came to Boot Camp, "not quite sure what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised. Rather than nonstop theory, the stages were very practical. The pastors broke things down so we could see how to use, replicate, and adapt ideas."
Boot Campers appreciated the various topics covered in the initial program, including Pastor Jim Park's instruction on discipling, which involved a Discipleship Walk in the Angeles Forest.
Others found visitation insights shared by Temple City Pastor Benjamin Del Pozo espe-daily helpful. "From the visitation training, we learned about types of questions to ask, and the need to focus and listen. The pastor also suggested practical books to give to particular families being visited," says Toscano. (Boot Camp topics and pas tors will vary in coming sessions. For a complete list of the opening session's pastor-mentors and topics, visit scc.adventist.org/articles).
Other Boot Campers were drawn to the cell church or family-group ministry station. They said such things as, "I feel the approach is more personal with the members and more effective in reaching out, and reaching in. I liked the part-theory, part-practical instruction, which cleared up a lot of questions for me."
Stacey Gurgel was interested in the Boot Camp program as soon as she heard about it. "I had been wanting to do inner-city work for a couple of years, so an LA-based program was appealing. I want to be involved with youth ministry particularly to gang members and runaway teens and my dream is to build a big city center to help young people."
As summer approached at the end of her first year at La Sierra University, Stacey signed up for an internship as a youth pastor at the Glendora church. One day Dr. Bailey Gillespie, La Sierra's liaison with the Boot Camp program, spotted her working at her campus landscaping job and asked her if she would be interested in the Boot Camp program.
"When he said it had to do with Los Angeles and ministry, that's all that mattered to me," she recalls. "I said yes, right away. And I just learned so much in the Boot Camp stations. I hope I can go through another one."
In the meantime, Stacey will be continuing at the Glendora church, with youth ministry one Sabbath each month, putting boot camp youth-ministry principles into practice.
Quite another emphasis is represented by the focus of Stefan Wilson. He is a 2002 La Sierra University graduate whose dream is "to [work with] a group of young individuals and see how they benefit from the Christian lifestyle. I'd like to see [my ministry] benefit society the way Dr. Harry Miller did as a missionary in China decades ago, with his invention of a soy-milk machine."
Says Stefan, "I didn't know the churches had the resources we encountered. At first, I would look at a church and think, There's nothing going on here/ but it started with a boom and never let up. I want to use what I learned; it has been exciting."
Following Boot Camp, Stefan assisted in the Voice to the World LA evangelistic series featuring Voice of Prophecy speaker Lonnie Melashenko and sponsored by Southern California Conference's African-American region.
Gerard Kiemeney's reaction to the initial summer session has been upbeat. "I am really happy with the pastors. They were all there, and prepared. Because they are not experienced, some Boot Camp stages did not seem practical to them at first, but they learned otherwise."
