The vacation season is about to hit our country with full-force. A well-planned vacation can be a wonderful experience. I suppose most of us, at some level, have planned a vacation. Planning a vacation is a common sense practice. Here are three essential tips to think about when planning your next vacation:

• Decide where you want to go
• Figure out what it takes to get there
• Begin your trip

Building a ministry is very similar to the tips above. Before you launch out into a ministry I highly recommend you think through these three things prior to launching. This past month I had the privilege of coaching nine people around the country on how to begin a ministry. Answering the tips above was part of their training.

Decide where you want to go

Where I want to go with my ministry is quite simple. I have two primary goals I want to accomplish through The Counseling Solutions Group, Inc.

1. I want to reach every person on the planet with the Gospel.
2. I want to live 25-years after I die.

These two ideas drive everything I do. If what I do does not fit into the framework of these two ideas, then I do not do it. It’s that simple. This is how I believe God has led me to glorify him.

The first goal is self-explanatory. The second goal means I want to extend my life beyond the grave. One of the ways I can accomplish this second goal is by replicating myself in other people. These two goals were the Savior’s. He came to preach the Gospel to “whosoever will” while his organizational objective was to replicate himself into others, so that his ministry would continue after he died.

Figure out what it takes to get there

With the two goals above in mind, I am now free to think about strategies, marketing, administration, training, counseling, branding, technology, revenue streams, and more in order to accomplish them. For example, there are several ways I think about and implement strategies to accomplish the goals above. Here are two of them:

1. In order to reach every person on the planet and to extend my life beyond the grave I focus primarily on the training and the development of leaders. While I enjoy and will always do counseling, replicating myself in other leaders is my primary objective for this business. This is the quickest and most efficient way to extend the Gospel around the world and beyond the grave.
2. Because I am finite, I have to think in “omnipresent ways.” This is where the redemptive purposes of technology assists me to expand my finitude around the earth. I can reach around the globe through Social Media, websites, blogging, and webinars. There has never been a time in the history of the world to reach so many people by such efficient means.

If you would like some help in thinking through how to develop your own ministry, you can contact me below.

Other Related Articles

• Business Strategy 101 – Top of Mind
• How Do I Start a Counseling Ministry?
• Other Personal Coaching Options
• Other Training or Equipping Options

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

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Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Typically people hear about a person–their reputation and their work–before they ever meet the person. It is almost always the case in the helping professions. Accordingly, the more people hear that is good and commendable, the greater the possibility of the person’s message and services reaching and assisting the largest number of people.

A Man (or Woman) With a Plan

An essential element for leadership is a following. You cannot lead without an audience. If no one is following, guess what: you are not leading. Therefore you must position yourself in the minds of those you want to lead and serve.

A Christian has the best news any person would ever want to hear. A Christian also has the potential to reach any person on the planet with this message. Therefore, a key for any Christian, who wants to share the best message with the largest possible audience, is to think strategically about a wise, practical, and aggressive plan to connect the Best News to the most people. It is really common sense.

Top of Mind

For those of you who want to start a counseling business, or any business for that matter, you need to get your message out today. If you want to have a business up-and-running six weeks or six months from now, then you need to be communicating your message right now. There are only three words that you need to know as it pertains to marketing your message: TOP OF MIND (TOM)

TOM, for my business, means that when any person around the world thinks about training or counseling, they either think of Rick Thomas or Counseling Solutions. It’s that simple. This idea is what drives my marketing strategies. If my strategies do not serve the “end game” then I nix the strategies. This gives me efficient marketing precision.

Use TOM Today!

If you have something to say, say it and don’t delay. It takes consistent work to build a business. And one of the key components to building your business is the daily spreading of your message to the largest possible audience. You do this by putting your message on specific vehicles to carry it throughout a series of networks and contexts.

(I am currently hosting training workshops around the country, through the Internet, teaching aspiring ministry leaders how to start para-church organizations.)

TOM Has Never Been Easier

There has never been an easier time in the history of man to build a ministry to share God’s word to the world. Here are four things you need to start right now:

1. Start a blog: It is free.
2. Build-out your Facebook community: It is free.
3. Tweet your message to the world: It is free.
4. Place your teaching on YouTube: It is free.

If you foresee yourself in a self-supported business two years from now, then you need to begin the work necessary to get you there today. If you need help getting your ministry up and running, please contact me.

Read These Related Articles

• How To Start a Counseling Ministry
• Would Spurgeon Twitter?

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

What are the things that will help you attain your center point?

Once we can identify what a person wants to be when they grow up, we begin brainstorming the components that are necessary to help them accomplish their primary goal. These components go on the peripheral points of the star. Do only the things that feed, support and promote your primary goal, your vocation.

My goal is to develop as many Christian leaders as possible for the glory of God. Therefore, some of the peripheral points that feed into the center point are:

• Spiritual, e.g. prayer and accountability
• Education, e.g general and specific to hone my skills
• Networking, e.g. Social Media and building databases
• Public Relations, e.g. blogging and other promotion materials
• Training, e.g. programs, coaching, counseling, training, etc
• Finances, e.g. fundraising and fees
• Community, e.g. like-minded leaders for mutual encouragement
• Colleagues, e.g. people who believe in my vision and want to help make it happen

Cut to the Chase

Figure out what you want to do and let that be your lodestar. Keep your eye on the center point and only do the necessary things that make the center point a reality in your life. Be slim and trim. Do the essentials and don’t digress into other things that keep you from your center.

Borrow Brains

Learn from others who are doing what you are doing, whether it is your main point or the elements that feed into your main point. For example, if you don’t know how to network, then find a Social Media consultant and ask him/her for tips. If you are not savvy in the blogging world, look at what other popular bloggers are doing as well as ask them for tips.

Build Community

Someone once said, (and I don’t remember who said it)

“You show me the people you surround yourself with and the information you put in your head and I’ll tell you what kind of person you are.”

I have found this to be true in my life as well as the hundreds of people I have coached, trained or counseled over the years. Bad company does corrupt good morals. (1 Cor. 15:33) You are the sum of your friends and your friends are not just people. Friends also include the things you read, watch and listen to.

There are two primary genre of books that I have been reading since the early eighties. My first choice are books that help me become a better Christian. My second choice are books that show me how to succeed in business. The first biz book I read nearly 30 years ago was the classic In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best Run Companies.

The reason for these two primary reading choices is because God created me and, therefore, I want to learn from him, since he knows me better than I know myself. Secondly, I want to learn from others who have succeeded in their vocation. People who have succeeded have qualities that are worthy of imitation.

My first choice of books helps to keep me God-centered while the second choice gives me some practical advice that is relevant to the culture I live in.

Other excellent books on business success are:

• Built to Last
• Good to Great
• First, Break All the Rules

Other articles in this series

• Case Study: I don’t know what to do with my life!
• What do you want to be when you grow up? 1.0
• How to be what you want to be when you grow up, 2.0
• Desire and Burden Do Not Make a Biblical Counselor

Photographs courtesy of Expressions by Bev

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

God has an answer for all of life’s questions. In 1 Peter 1:3 we learn that:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.

We not only receive our skills from God, but we are told how to use them. Our skills are to be used for life and godliness. As Christians we have the privilege to model something the world knows nothing about. We are God’s purest form of image bearing.

The world, on the other hand, is about self-imaging for their own personal benefit, promotion and glory. The Christian is empowered to be God-centered for God’s glory. One of the ways we can do this is through the skills he has given us. Unfortunately, too many Christians are perplexed as to what they are supposed to do with their lives.

This perplexity usually manifests in two areas:

• I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with my life.
• I know what I want to do, but I do not know how to get there.

In that way, the Christian is no different than our non-Christian friends who do not have access to God’s wisdom and power. One of the privileges I have is to help men and women maximize the truths of God’s Word in their vocational lives. Our culture calls it coaching. The following are two simple tips that I use to help people discover the what and how regarding their livelihood.

What is that thing you want to be when you grow up?

Someone once asked (I don’t remember who asked this) what do you think about when you are walking to the mailbox?

What is that thing you think about when you have nothing else to think about?

That thing may be the thing you ought to be doing with your life. Minimally, you may want to make it your goal to eventually be able to do that thing in the future. Once we can identify the thing, I ask my client to draw a star (see pic above) and put that thing in the middle of the star.

This center point should be like a magnetic lodestar and everything in its orbit naturally clings to the lodestar. This will keep the person focused on what they are supposed to be doing. My center point or main aim in life is not counseling. Counseling is one of the disciplines I use to accomplish my ultimate goal. My primary goal is to train Christian men and women to be leaders in our world, whether it is in their marriage, parenting, workplace or church.

My goal is to help people practically apply God’s truth in their lives and the lives of their families and friends. My center point is the “replication of leaders for the glory of God”. Counseling is one means in which I accomplish my primary purpose.

I am in the “replication business”. This is what I want to be when I grow up.

Other articles in this series

• Case Study: I don’t know what to do with my life!
• What do you want to be when you grow up? 1.0
• How to be what you want to be when you grow up, 2.0
• Desire and Burden Do Not Make a Biblical Counselor

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

I am passionate about counseling! However, at times I feel finite when it comes to my time to accommodate my counselee friends versus the counseling needs of these friends. Counseling has built-in limitations.

Their counseling problems are typically a lot bigger than a two-hour session. And then, of course, they return to the real world to work out their problems on their own for one or two weeks, until our next meeting.

For more about this read my 7-part series called Inherent Liabilities in Biblical Counseling

And because of these counseling limitations I thank God for technology! I can now blog my counseling thoughts, tips and advice to my friends. I can get in front of them outside the office as well as scores of other people who I could never meet around the world.

People in England, France, Africa, Puerto Rico, Canada, South America and others have asked me to share counseling ideas and tips with them. I do that through this blog. It would be cost and time prohibitive to counsel that many people. It would also destroy my marriage.

Quite simply, there is not enough time in the week to counsel a person effectively.

Welcome to Wiki-Counseling

Technology allows me to equip the people I meet week to week through what I call “Wiki-Counseling.” Wiki Counseling consists of mini-sessions where the counselee can take his counselor home with him/her. This is one of the ways a counselee can follow through on what he is learning, particularly if he plans to be diligent in working out his problems.

One of the things I encourage my friends to do is to use the blog as “mini sessions” during the week. They cannot literally take me home and I cannot be their personal coach. And I cannot follow-up daily with them, but if they are my counselees and they are being affected by my counseling, then I ask them to get on the blog and allow me to serve them in a cyber-kind-of-way. If they trust my counseling, then they can “hear” me every day of the week. This is a significant investment on my part and I’ve seen positive effects on my friends.

Become a Cyber Servant and Multiply Yourself

If you are a counselor, then let me encourage you to multiply yourself. Start a blog. Do something. Create ways to get your words, your thoughts, your life into the heads of those you love the most. Give them something to think about when they are not sitting in front of you. Create “mini-sessions” outside of your primary meeting time that will equip and envision those you serve.

Most certainly if they apply Wiki-Counseling you’ll see an immediate effect from week to week.

Go ahead, take me home with you!

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Someone said somewhere something like this: Show me a man’s friends and I’ll show you the man. What he was saying was that we reflect the people we hang around. A football fan has football friends for the most part. A drinking buddy has drinking friends more than likely. A passionate Christian will place himself in the company of other like-minded Christians.

The passionate Christian won’t overlook or pass by others who are not like him. That would not be the way of the Savior (He was found eating with sinners), but the ones he really relies on, hangs with and seeks out for company, strength and counsel will be other like-minded believers.

As I reflect back on the folks that I have counseled through the years I’ve found this to be true. Like-minded people hang out with like-minded people.

• The materialist loves materialistic people
• The hedonist loves hedonistic people
• The gambler loves his gambling buddies
• The geek loves his geek friends

We tend to become like the ones we hang with. This is God’s way too. God said it was not good for man to be alone, so he made a partner for Adam. We were made to be social and since the creation of the second person in the world, Eve, we have been looking for friends who are like us.

Unfortunately like-mindedness has caused problems also. You can read Genesis 11 to get a peek at the tragedy of bad associations.

There is nothing wrong with this principle for the most part. However, where it becomes a problem is when the gang or group we become or associate with is not focused on the right things or that which is good. There are always two options and sometimes the temptation to choose that which is wrong or easy is tempting. Standing for the moral good is not always the easiest path.

In my experience I have found another type of “group” that reveals a lot about a man. It is the collection of things he reads, watches and/or listens to. If you collect a man’s reading, watching, listening material and place it in a pile you will have a good idea of what this man is like, what he pursues and what is important to him.

Therefore, I would agree with the person who said you show me a man’s friends AND what he reads and what he watches and what he listens to and I will more than likely be able to tell you what kind of man he is.