JEFFERSON CITY – Rick Hedger, MBC Multiplying Churches director, has a passion for pastors mentoring younger pastors. It shows in his enthusiasm as he talks about a new program being established where older, more experienced pastors are given opportunities to mentor younger and less experienced men in order to send them out to serve as pastors and ministers.
Randy Conn, one of the pastors involved in the program said he has mentored three youth pastors in the past several years and all of them have gone on in ministry to become pastors. He is currently engaged with his current youth pastor, Brady Perkins. They plan to meet for a year studying the book “Practically Trained Pastors” by Brian Croft and James Carroll.
Conn, pastor of First Baptist Church, Delta, said the mentoring is going well. He said he is 62 years old this year and he wants to help younger men rise up to take his place someday. He said, “I believe every pastor and every person who holds a position in a church should be looking for someone to take their place.”
Larry Gibson, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church, Kirksville, said, “Mentoring is the best way to develop a leader and to pass on experiences and things you have learned to others. There is a satisfaction to investing yourself in other people for the Kingdom of God.”
Gibson is participating in the project and has five younger ministers meeting with him for mentoring sessions. Many of them are starting to go out and preach in smaller, rural churches near the Kirksville area.
Hedger and his associate, Brian Grout, who holds the title Multiplying Churches field missionary, are managing these partnerships to provide mentoring. They have a stipend to offer to a Missouri Baptist pastor who will commit to be a mentor to another man with the hope of developing them into a minister in the future. They refer to this man as the “mentee.”
They call this “Pastoral Mentoring Initiative,” and they offer $2,400 to the church of the mentoring pastor. Hedger said this can be used in many ways – to purchase books, conference materials and videos, to pay for restaurant meals as mentoring sessions occur or to provide automobile mileage for the mentor or the mentee.
An initial request must be made with the name and contact information of the mentor, the church and the name and contact information of the mentee. When the mentoring arrangement is confirmed by MBC staff, the church will receive and distribute the funds for the project. Contact Hedger by e-mail at rhedger@mobaptist.org to start the process. He said there are funds allocated for 50 mentor-mentee relationships and 42 have been requested to date. They hope to repeat the program next year also.
Grout said they want the mentors to do three things: 1) identify future ministers, 2) equip them for ministry and 3) mobilize them to serve in MBC churches. He said there is a shortage of pastors available to serve churches, and he and Hedger hope this will help those whom God is calling to be able to respond and serve.
Hedger said his own father-in-law took him under his wing when he was young. He would say “Come go with me” as he visited and ministered in the Jefferson County churches where he served a number of churches. “Menk’ Ferguson taught me a lot. He allowed me to take risks and do ministry tasks as a young man,” Hedger said.
Conn added, “Some churches struggle because of lack of leadership.” The MBC Multiplying Churches group hopes to help with that issue as more young men are mentored to be future pastors and ministers.