All members of SEND need to develop an Annual Ministry Plan and an Individual Growth Plan for themselves each new year. Your AMP states your new ministry goals for the coming year. Your IGP states your learning goals for the coming year. You should start with thinking about your AMP. Here are some questions that might help:

1. What are the greatest needs that should be addressed in our/my ministry in this coming year?
2. What new opportunities has God given us that we need to focus on in the new year?
3. What new tasks is my team asking me to give time to in the coming year?
4. What could I change in my current ministry that would significantly improve or extend its impact?

Once you have developed your Annual Ministry Plan (or even a draft version), ask yourself:

1. What do I need to learn or get better at in order to accomplish these new goals and tasks?
2. What is the Lord showing me that needs to change in my life in this coming year?
3. Who could I ask to coach/mentor/advise me in the growth areas or the tasks that are before me in the coming year?
4. What could I do to strengthen my understanding of the language and culture of the people I am seeking to engage in ministry in this coming year?

These questions will help you develop your Individual Growth Plan for 2021. SEND allows us to give 10% of our time for our ongoing growth and development. Let's be intentional about our own growth.

Remember that you can find the AMP / IGP Guide on the wiki. It has explanations, questions and templates for putting together your AMP and IGP. The Guide also talks about the “IGP Encourager ” role. This is how to help someone complete their IGP goals! I hope many of you will be asked to be an IGP Encourager in 2021.

SEND U is in the process of developing its Annual Ministry Plan for 2021. As part of that process, I have been asking our Regional Leadership Teams what types of training they would like SEND U to provide for them in the coming year. I welcome your suggestions as well. SEND U wants to be addressing the training needs of our membership, not just running programs. Just chat me on MS Teams or send me an email (to kguenther@send.org or to my Movaci address).

Does SEND have a leadership development strategy and process?

We do, but we are still in the process of improving it. This past summer I spent about a week describing SEND U's thinking about leadership and leadership development over the past 10 years. The document I developed was further improved with input from members of the International Leadership Team. I then presented this document to the last Directors' Council and answered some questions about it. Now, together with the rest of the International Leadership Team, we are working on addressing the gaps in leadership development that were listed at the end of the document.

One of those “gaps” is that we recognize that we need to do a better job of explaining our leadership development process to SEND members, and particularly to our emerging new leaders. So here is your chance to read the document, “Leadership Developmentin SEND International ” You can find it on this wiki page.

• Nov. 25 - Dec. 2, 2020 - Guilt, Shame, Fear… and Faith - A 1-week online course (6-8 hours) designed to help you understand some fundamentals of culture and ministry contextualization and personally enhance your ability to proclaim salvation and faith in the context of your new culture.
• Jan. 4-11, 2021 - Learning Culture through Purposeful Observation- A 1-week online course (4-6 hours) designed to help you as a new missionary or cross-cultural worker to begin to put into practice your culture-learning skills.
• Jan. 4 - Feb. 6, 2021 - Team Leader as Supervisor- This 5-week online course (30-35 hours) is focused on equipping the team leader with the tools to serve more effectively as a supervisor or manager of people.
• Jan. 4 - Feb. 14 - MOP 201- A 5-week online course that is required of all mid-term and long-term members of SEND. It looks at worldview, cultural values, cultural stress, incarnational ministry and safety and security. This used to be called “MOP online”. It is facilitated by Bethany Reedy.
• Jan. 11 - Feb. 6, 2021 - MOP 202V- A 4-week Member Orientation Program to be done by videoconferencing for those who went through mini-MOP by Zoom in March 2020.
• Feb. 17-24, 2021 - Contextualization and Culture Study- An 8-day online course (5-7 hours) addresses foundational concepts of contextualization and its importance for effective ministry. It underlines contextualization’s inseparable link to purposeful culture study.
• Feb. 22 - April 3, 2021 - MOP 202V- A 6-week Member Orientation Program to be done by videoconferencing for those who did not go through the mini-MOP in March 2020. This orientation course is required of all long-term members of SEND.

All these can be found on the SEND U Training Events pageon the SEND U wiki.