Church Consulting Ministry
Mentoring the Heart; Equipping with Excellence

"...I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever the Spirit of truth… I will not leave you as orphans..."(John 14:16-18)

MAPI's Paraklete Consulting Ministry has the vision of aiding pastors, their leadership, and their church in individualized and objective ways to become healthy models and reproduce what they have learned in other churches, helping reach MAPIs goal of:  "Every Pastor with a Christ-like Mentor; Every Church with Healthy Leadership".

This ministry, led by Marcelo Fraga, works within the country of Brazil with pastors and their (lay) pastoral teams in three areas: personal growth as pastoral leaders; maturity as a pastoral team; and the growth of the local church as a whole.  In each of these three spheres, it follows three steps: diagnostic evaluation, strategic planning, and follow-up.  The pastor and his team determine the areas in which they most want to grow, and the consultant helps them set goals for the next year and strategize for how to meet them.  This process can be repeated yearly, allowing for both qualitative and quantitative church growth. 

The first step is an evaluation and diagnostic meeting between the pastor and the consultant.  Several months later the whole (lay) pastoral team meets for eight to ten hours of  strategic planning meetings.  Objectives include: getting to know themselves and each other better through diagnostic tools; determining one or two areas in which to grow as a team and roughing out initial goals and a plan for the churchs growth in those areas over the next year.  The consultant will interact with the pastor at least twice more to help implement the plan, modify it according to pressing needs, or deal with barriers that may come up.

Consulting can be done four different ways:

• Personal mentoring for the pastor or a key church leader who desires it;
• Mentoring the pastor and his main leaders in becoming a high-production team that can pastor and coordinate the members of the church;
• Aiding the pastor and his team in strategic and structural planning for the growth of the whole church
• An intensive consulting process that involves all three of the above.  The latter format would include personal mentoring for the pastor; aid for the leadership, executive team, or pastoral team of the church; help for a few key leaders of some of the church ministry teams; training in a specific area; and strategic planning with the pastoral team.  

Through this ministry we hope to create a partnership with at least two churches in every state capital of Brazil, so that those churches can then partner in reaching their city and helping other churches become healthy. 

For more details about the specific areas in which MAPI offers training see the Nine Strategies for a Healthy Church.