Antique House 2019

The struggles of pastors and leaders are only getting more difficult. You either learn from a life of hard knocks, hire a consultant or seek out a mentor or coach ( see https://www.pastoralcareinc.com/statistics/ )

• 80% believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families. Many pastor’s children do not attend church now because of what the church has done to their parents.

• 72% of the pastors report working between 55 to 75 hours per week in a church that has no plans for periodic sabbaticals.

• 54% of pastors find the role of a pastor overwhelming and that seminary did not prepare them for the ministry.

• 90% of pastors feel they are called and in the place where God has called them.

“I help pastors in transition to model the 21st century church by meeting daily”

This is the life impact statement by Pastor Renée of Antique in the Philippines who was here recently for a 14-day MODS conversion course. We’ve set a date of 9 September 2022 for this three-year action plan to come into effect.

Medicine believes there are answers at the back of the text book. Psychology does not. The secular psychologist believes every person starts out as a blank page. The Bible has a different approach – that there are answers at the back of the book and that, the human species is not a blank sheet. We want to prove that there are observable patterns that define all of human behaviour just as the Bible predicts.

The idea is taken from St Luke‘s comment in Acts 2:1 where he says “and suddenly…“ referring to the initial descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

The idea comes to mind that while it was “sudden” for Luke it was not unexpected for the first few disciples (of Jesus) such as Matthew Mark and John who had been walking with him for 1000 days prior.

While the economy and political structures have been completely transforming modern social structures & processes, traditional churches have remained unchanged, stagnant if not, in a state of regression and decline.

The rural churches in the Asian provinces remain in an almost catatonic situation with doctrine, denomination and personality to be at the centre of this declension.

Study the fundamental nature of personhood, relationship and work We will examine various approaches to living well, development of character, value of meaningful work in answer to two of the biggest questions that pastors face, What makes life worth living, and, Why tomorrow will be better than yesterday?

You are wired in a certain way according to the 7 gift-modalities that have been given in creation. The circuitry is a default behaviour that follows a pattern ingrained and unique to your DNA, ie your default natural abilities. Your DNA is what makes you tick and what ticks you off.

Yours is a journey of self-discovery and self-reflection. Self-mastery is hard work. Keep asking of life the big questions. Life unfolds itself like petals in a flower or buds in a fruit tree. The same thing goes for your gift that often lies buried deep within. The real business of today is to unlock talent and release gifting that you may not even realise is there.

A string (of code) doesn’t write itself. Likewise the internet doesn’t produce templates, colours and images of its own accord. There is always an intelligent designer behind the computer “screen presence”.

Likewise, the archetypes of the soul and the modalities we observe in behaviour of individuals and teams are characteristics that extrude from certain Archetypes the Bible teaches as DNA (“default natural abilities”) that are innate in individuals and are entirely predictable.

Every soul is reformed for greatness. You are no exception. The questions you ask will open up new worlds to your understanding including the pressing need for and discipline in the mastery of oneself. It’s all about you but you are not what it’s all about. Race is what you are. Religion, why you care. Nationality is where you live. Language is what you know. Modality is why you matter.

Why do you do what you do? What is the engine that keeps you up late at night or gets you going in the morning? Where is your happy place? What stands between you and your dream church?

As pastors ourselves, we understand the stressors and pains you go through and the need to up your game quickly to seize the opportunities that is set before us.

This is MODS for pastors and church planters, our proprietary model that seeks to describe the traits “common to men” much in the same way that Jordan Peterson outlines the big 5 in his OCEAN psychometric or how corporates use DISC or Meyer’s Briggs in personality analysis, except that it’s totally Bible-based and thus free from the demonic influences that plagued Freud, Jung and most of their 20th century contemporaries.