Practical Training for Pastors

by Jeff Finley

While studying to become a pastor, Ryan Stoops often asked longtime pastors for guidance about what he should be learning.

“Everyone would say, ‘Get some business classes. Our typical, traditional theology programs don’t offer that,’” said Stoops, now the lead pastor of Deer Flat Church — a thriving Free Methodist congregation that has been attracting people for 115 years to encounter God amid the beet fields near Caldwell, Idaho.

Now Stoops is in a position to help others who could benefit from coaching or encouragement as they begin or enhance their pastoral ministry. With the support of the River Conference, Deer Flat is launching the School of Applied Ministry (SAM). The school “will help pastors to be better prepared for practical issues, practical ministries and provide effective shepherding,” according to its website (deerflat.org/sam). The new school isn’t designed to compete with existing seminaries, colleges or universities.

“We don’t want to dabble in the academic piece of theology, because we know that we already have that taken care of with some of our institutions,” Stoops told Light + Life. “We’re looking at more of the practical pieces from administration to just general shepherding — how to do hospital visitations, funerals and weddings.”

Stoops said he’s benefited from the wisdom of Dave McGarrah, Deer Flat’s teaching pastor who previously served as the congregation’s lead pastor while Stoops served as associate pastor until transitioning into the lead pastor role last year. “Having somebody like Dave who mentors me and speaks in my life has been invaluable for these moments.”

McGarrah will draw upon more than 40 years of ministry experience while serving as one of the school’s instructors, and he is passionate about pastors receiving practical training.

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“How do you lead the congregation through something very traumatic that’s happened?”

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“I went all through studying for the ministry and never had any kind of assistance on: How do you conduct a funeral? How do you deal with a tragedy that has impacted the whole church? How do you lead the congregation through something very traumatic that’s happened?” said McGarrah, who added that some pastors also need help understanding insurance issues or how to handle a property sale, a building project or a remodel. “We have a chance to really help them know, ‘All right, here are the steps that you want to go through.’ That saves a lot of poor decisions.”

The training will help pastors become knowledgeable before they unveil plans and building projects to their congregations. “People can tell that you’ve done your homework,” McGarrah said.

Developing Leaders

Pastors also need to train up other leaders, and those leaders need practical training for ministry.

“Many of our great flagship churches are no longer great because time has taken them down, and the pool of capable leaders to draw from is pretty shallow,” McGarrah said. “How do we find those people? If we can’t find them, we have to develop them.”

In pondering the need to develop new ministry leaders, McGarrah came up with the concept of the School of Applied Ministry and shared it with Stoops and retired Pastor Kay Cole, who has led churches of different sizes in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Oregon and Missouri.

They developed the school to serve a group of 20 pastors who will meet together with pastoral mentors in a four-day retreat four times over two years. The SAM website notes that “Deer Flat has been blessed with a continuum of leadership that has spanned decades and has created an organic mentor/mentee relationship over generations of pastors. With active pastoral staff ranging from 20 to 80 years old, the leadership at our church believes that practical ministry can best be taught through passed-on experience and wisdom. Deer Flat has a heart to share this unique approach with pastors across the country.”

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“We’re not providing homework for people. We’re being a resource for them.”

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Stoops said church leaders chose the two-year schedule so that SAM won’t require a lot of regular time commitment for pastors with busy schedules. Along with the four gatherings, pastors will have a monthly Zoom session that will last approximately an hour.

“We’re not providing homework for people. We’re being a resource for them,” said Stoops, who noted the program is limited to 20 people “to adequately come alongside of these men and women. We don’t want to take on too many and water our ability down.”

The program will cost each pastor a total of $4,000 over two years with the fees covering all meals and lodging for onsite visits. That won’t actually cover all of the costs of operating the school, but Deer Flat and the River Conference are providing the necessary funding to make SAM a reality.

“We actually budgeted for it here at Deer Flat to help underwrite some of that cost, simply because that’s how much we believe in the need. We’re tired of seeing churches close and properties sold,” McGarrah said. “What if we took some of that money [from properties sold] and put it into developing these leaders?”

Launching This Year

The first 20-pastor cohort initially was scheduled to launch this month, but Stoops said the launch has been moved to later in the year to provide more opportunity for pastors to participate. The school is open to pastors of other denominations, but its founders had Free Methodist pastors in mind when envisioning the program.

“Our hope and our heart is that we can be a blessing to the Free Methodist tribe,” Stoops said. “We’re kingdom people at heart, so at the end of the day, if our tribe doesn’t find value in this, we want to extend that to any and all who would find value, because we want to see the kingdom advanced.”

McGarrah agreed and added, “Other denominations are facing the same issue that we have —good help is hard to find. [SAM] gives those other conferences or denominations a chance to also have some skin in the game, because if they want to send somebody, they need to also help that person with underwriting some of that cost.”

Click here to request additional information about the School of Applied Ministry or email sam@deerflat.org. +