Most every month, a pastor or seminary student drives down to our church to spend some time talking through training and discipleship, then watching our Training Center. This podcast began because we realized that certain questions were being asked every time we met.

Today, we tackle one of the most popular. In dialog with other pastors, after we’ve described the overall process for training men in the church that we practice, there is a question we hear pretty quickly. “How much is reasonable to expect of Christian men who work and have a family?”

Because every church context is unique, we strive to talk through both our practice and the principles involved.

Key Questions

1:00 What is the baseline character requirements of a man you’re going to train for ministry?
3:50 Would you train a man if there are known marital issues?
7:35 Does the reputation of his children affect his readiness for training?
9:57 Should ministry involvement be a prerequisite to extended ministry training?
12:36 A deep dive on ‘How much workload can a man reasonably handle as part of the training process?’
31:00 What’s the minimum workload? What’s a good starting point?
36:28 What are the liabilities to a monthly meeting for training?
38:37 How do you respond to pastors who say, “I don’t have the time”?
39:55 How should a pastor respond to a man who says, “I don’t have the time”?

01: The Back Story – How Did We Get Trained?

Train the ChurchBy Mueller, Pleasnick, ShailerApr 22, 2019