Church Planting Lessons from the Marines (Part 3 of 3)

Training

For the Marines, training is one of their highest values. They recognize that, as the training goes, so goes their performance. For the Marines, the purpose of all training is to help Marines achieve success in combat. Training is not something that is delegated. Every officer is personally responsible for the training of those under his command. In the Marines, training is continuous. To quote the Warfighting Manual, “You are either in contact, moving to contact, or training.” And again, “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”

All Marines are trained in basic combat skills. This is true for every file clerk, every cook, every medic, every lawyer. Everyone in the U.S. Marine Corps is trained in basic combat skills. This has tremendous implications for us. Every business services manager, every English teacher, every short-term volunteer, everyone who is involved with the target people group should be trained in basic evangelism and discipleship and church-planting skills.

For the Marines...everyone is in training, period. From the loftiest general to the lowest enlisted man, everyone is in training. The Strategy Coordinator must be a continuous learner as well. It is a guarantee of failure if the SC ever stops learning and growing. A strategy coordinator is responsible for training those with whom he or she works, or for seeing that they get trained. Modeling and mentoring are therefore essential skills.

For the Marines, training is challenging and focuses on a central task. They don’t spend time training people for peripheral tasks or in peripheral issues...

Marines make extensive use of sea stories--that is, of actual combat stories that are instructive for communicating ethos, tactics, principles, or philosophies. In telling these stories they communicate more than facts; they communicate an attitude...Debriefing is especially important for an SC. Debriefing experiences with personnel increases the value to that person by crystallizing and cementing lessons learned and also helps to make those lessons and insights available to those who are doing the debriefing and, hopefully, to others. Debriefing is a valuable tool which should never be neglected.

In Rad Zdero's Nexus: The World House Church Movement Reader we are quoted on p. 371 as saying, "The missionary task is to equip others. The job of missionaries is primarily one of praying, modeling, teaching, training, and mentoring. Ephesians 4:11-12."

Our greatest contribution as missionaries is primarily in the area of training. Yes, we are all called to go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. However, if we invest the largest portion of our time in praying, modeling, teaching, training, and mentoring others to do these tasks, the making of disciples and churches planted will produce a crop, "...some 100, some 60, and some 30 times what was sown."

I am convinced that the true role of those of us called "missionaries" is to be about the training and mobilizing of the saints. If we would understand our role as being primarily a trainer, we would hasten the day when "...the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea."

--Source, "What We Can Learn From the U.S. Marines" by Curtis Sergeant