Milestones

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

We have talked about vision and mission in evangelism. But now we need to talk about something very practical: milestones. What are milestones? They are stages. Stages in the service, in the country. When we come to open a country for service, what do we do? There are many stages, and we move from one stage to the next. When you enter a new country, you will know where you are. If you join a country that already has an existing service, you will know what stage that country is in.

Before we talk about milestones, we need to remember the most important things - the vision and mission that drive everything.

Vision and Mission

The vision is: engaging people to Christ, on the foundation of the Christian Orthodox Faith, and according to the Holy Tradition of the Coptic Church.

And the mission - our mission is to deliver the living Christ within us and show His endless love, to all the uninvolved Christians, unbelievers, and churched people in whatever countries are in need and willing to accept our service. We strive to draw people's attention to the goal of our existence and afterlife destination, which is the Kingdom of Heaven, and to gain souls to Christ through establishing a church, running sustainable projects, and preparing suitable calibers to be rooted in the faith of the Mother Coptic Orthodox Church, and to be equipped for evangelism and pastoral care. St. Paul Coptic Service will humbly give the needed help and support, avoiding the authoritarian image.

What do we mean by these target groups? Uninvolved Christians - we go to many countries where the population may be listed as 85% or 95% Christian. But on the ground, we find people who are Christian but don't know anything. They don't live as Christians. They are uninvolved. Unbelievers - atheists, and they are starting to spread all over the world, even in Egypt. And churched people - in some countries, especially in Africa, some people have turned the church into a business. Someone comes and says, "I am a prophet," and they know how to talk and they get many followers and they do churches and those churches take money from the people.

When we opened churches in many countries, people asked us to collect money. How can we go out of the church and ask people for money? On the contrary, we sometimes help people. But we don't aim to spend money freely - we help people. There is mercy and compassion in many things. But we are not used to taking money from the church. This is important.

The idea is that when we go to any country, we want to bring all the people to Christ. We establish a church, run sustainable projects, and - the most important thing - we prepare suitable local servants to be rooted in the faith of the Mother Coptic Church. Why? Because the service must be continuous. Any country we serve, we need to establish local services. We cannot stay in one country doing everything ourselves for many years. We are supposed to build local services, leave that place, and go to another place. The local servants continue the service as we have taught them. This is how we serve in more than one place.

Most of the countries we visit were not used to outsiders like us. At first, people were afraid - in some countries they were anxious about what we would do. But when we sit with them and live with them, they see our love and our way of dealing with them. We want to improve their lives. And the whole idea about us as strangers changes.

The Seven Milestones - An Overview

This is the service methodology we work with. There are 7 milestones, and in each country, we aim to reach Milestone 7 - the Empowered Church.

1. Team Building - Preparing the people who will go
2. Exploration - Discovering where God is leading
3. Building Reputation - Earning trust through consistent presence
4. Existence (The Resident) - Planting a permanent presence
5. Coptic Church - Establishing regular worship and spiritual life
6. Growing Church - Increasing the congregation through baptism and discipleship
7. Empowered Church - Handing over to local leadership and moving on

Let us walk through each one.

Milestone 1 - Team Building

Team building is the level you are in right now. It starts with the education course. Then you enter the training phase. Then you join a country or function team.

What is a country team and a function team? A country team is assigned to a specific country. A function team is responsible for certain activities across the service. Each has a list of people and the skills needed.

Team building happens through:

• Education course - the course you are taking now
• Training in Egypt - before anyone goes to the field
• Joining a country or function team - attending development courses, weekly meetings, courses at the institute
• Preparation for missions together - the team prepares as a group
• Vision, mission, and values - understanding what drives the service
• Codes and rules orientation - the service has a code, meaning regulations that everyone in the structure follows. The code is available to everyone. We are all following it.

Milestone 2 - Exploration

Exploration is about getting to know the country. In the past, exploration took a long time because we had to discover things in person. Now, everything is online. We can learn about 80% or more of the information about a country from the internet - the economy, culture, environment, health, education, politics. There are checklists for all the things we do in exploration. Even the denominations present among Christians. It is easy to get this information online.

Then we do an on-ground exploration mission by the team to make sure that the information we got from the internet is correct. Most of the time it is correct, but sometimes it is outdated. So we go to verify.

The exploration mission should be small - two to three members. They should be compatible, easy to communicate with, and able to move from place to place.

During exploration, we must answer key questions:

• What is the preferred location for the service? Start at the capital, then explore a maximum of two nearby villages.
• What is the best approach for the service? How do we enter the country - through education, through a vocational center, through medical work? Every country is different.
• What are the country's needs?
• What are the rules and regulations? We study the country's law so we can work within it. We learn exactly what is required to register an NGO and a church.

Here is an important lesson the service learned over time: we used to say you either register a church or an NGO, because in some countries there is no church registration, so we registered an NGO. But now we say you should plan to register both a church and an NGO. Each serves a different purpose. We think of both together. We learn new things every day. The St. Paul Service started in 2008 - we have been at it for many years now, and we still learn new things every day.

A critical practical point: every person you meet is a contact. The taxi driver who picks you up from the airport, the receptionist at the hotel - any contact you meet in the country is a contact. We take their information. We meet them, or we talk about Christ with them. The exploration mission is about gathering the largest number of contacts, whether from ordinary people or from officials. In some African countries, it is easy to meet a government minister directly - not like in other parts of the world. We can meet officials and introduce ourselves and the service.

At this stage, do not buy land, do not buy a building, and do not start a business or NGO - unless you are sure of the place and approach. There are exceptions at every stage, but usually we go through the milestones in sequence.

Expected results of exploration:

• Service location decided
• Contacts gathered (from people and officials)
• Country needs understood
• Target group identified
• Following year missions plan

Milestone 3 - Building Reputation

Building reputation means frequent missions in the same place with different activities. What does that mean? Medical missions are very useful for people. It can also be school visits, health awareness campaigns, children's activities - different activities each time. Any mission should have spiritual input.

Building reputation involves:

• Introducing the Coptic Church to the locals
• Maintaining good reputation among locals and officials
• Addressing people's real needs
• Finding the best location for permanent service
• Deciding whether to rent or buy a service residency
• Finding out how to establish the NGO and register the church
• Planning the tasks and jobs needed from a future resident

Important considerations at this stage:

Keep doing continuous missions at the same place. Select a reachable location - a place where the resident and the priest can settle, that the team can access regularly. Use your contacts wisely with other churches and authorities. And again - do not buy property at this early stage (with rare exceptions to be discussed).

Here is something remarkable that happens when people see genuine service: we have had situations where, after seeing our missions more than once, the government or local officials say, "We will give you land." They offer it freely. This has happened more than once. When people see consistent, selfless love over time, walls begin to fall and hearts begin to open.

Expected results of building reputation:

• Good reputation for the Coptic Church among locals and officials
• Best location of the service residency decided
• Decision on rent vs. buy for the service residency
• Best sustainable service approach identified
• Understanding of how to establish the NGO and register the church
• Tasks and jobs needed from a resident defined

Milestone 4 - Existence: The Resident

The fourth milestone is called "Existence" because this is where a resident is assigned. The resident is one of the most important servants in the entire service. Why? Because when we go on a mission, we are there for 10 days, maybe a few weeks. It is nice - you can create excitement for the servants and the people and there is great happiness. But then we come back, and maybe we do not return for two or three months. The resident is the one who stays. He lives with the people.

The resident goes from Egypt. He goes and stays - not less than three to five months at a time. He goes and comes, goes and comes. This is very important.

The resident's tasks include:

• Arranging regular meetings and activities with locals
• Starting a group of disciples from the local population
• Studying community development activity - training for schools, hospitals, clinics
• Starting the NGO and church registration - making contacts with officials in the country
• Preparing the service residency - a place where the team can stay during missions
• Arranging focused missions - as long as there is a resident in the country, he knows how to coordinate what needs to be done, what the schedule should be, and he prepares everything

Critical considerations:

The resident's main task is evangelism, not necessarily following projects or constructions. It is tempting to get consumed by building projects and logistics, but the resident was sent for the service of evangelism.

The team in Egypt must not feel that their task is ended just because there is a resident. On the contrary, they are very important. They must give all the support and all the materials the resident needs. There should be strong coordination between the resident and the team in Egypt. The targeted missions should lead to the vision, support the resident, and focus on the local needs at the selected place only.

Milestone 5 - The Coptic Church

At this milestone, a Coptic priest is assigned. The Coptic priest starts:

• Communicating with locals on a one-to-one basis - personal, relational, pastoral
• Regular spiritual meetings and liturgy
• Running a catechumens' course - this is essential before anyone is baptized
• Following up with locals ready for baptism
• Running the community development activity
• Planning focused missions by the team

A very important point: after the priest comes, he must review everything that the first resident did and ensure everything is in order before baptism. We do not rush baptism. We need to make sure that the people can learn everything and believe in everything before baptism is completed. We do the course and then we see to baptism.

Important considerations at this stage:

We cannot start with a local priest. A local priest has not yet been formed in the Coptic Orthodox tradition. We need a Coptic priest from Egypt. After two more milestones, we will be able to ordain a local priest. But in this phase, we need a Coptic priest to establish the church properly.

The main target is evangelism, not pastoral care. Not pastoral care for Egyptians or other Christians from sister churches. Sometimes there are Egyptians in the area, and of course they are welcome, but we are not there to serve the expatriate community. We are there to bring the local people to Christ.

Start with a simple, small chapel. We do not need a big church building right away. To build a big church, there should be a considerable congregation of baptized locals. In any small place, we can do the meetings and the liturgy. The church is the people, not the building. We are not there to spend money on buildings.

Milestone 6 - The Growing Church

The growing church means all the services that were established are now increasing. The Coptic priest continues to maintain the service in the church and works on increasing the congregation by:

• Baptizing ready locals - always through the catechumens' course first
• Regular liturgy, Sunday school, and other meetings
• Servants' preparation courses - raising up local servants
• Empowering local servants to lead the spiritual meetings - Sunday school should be led by local servants under our guidance. The important thing is that we do not hold everything ourselves. We must prepare the local servants so they can do all the services.
• Local priest preparation - beginning the process
• Starting sustainable development projects (clinic, nursery, school) if possible
• Exploring new locations in the country - the vision does not stop at one church

Important considerations:

Use a catechumens' course for preparing for baptism. Do not rush in baptizing people. And do not promise any financial support for baptized locals or servants. Sometimes people come thinking we are going to distribute money. When this issue is made clear from the beginning, the person who continues in the service is someone who truly believes and will continue faithfully. We do not want people who are only there for financial support.

Milestone 7 - The Empowered Church

This is the final milestone, and it is the most beautiful. The sign of an empowered church is that there is a local priest.

The local priest was a local servant. We find the right person, empower him, and prepare him to take over the service of the church. At the empowered church stage:

• A local priest is ordained, empowered, and followed to take over the service
• Sustainable service continues - liturgy, Sunday school, meetings
• Local servants are empowered to lead the spiritual meetings
• Sustainable development projects continue
• An evangelism course is given to local servants - so they can train others
• A complete hand-over of the church is conducted with careful follow-up
• The team moves to a new location to establish a new church

Why is the local priest so important? This was in our imagination at first, but the experience proved it even more powerfully. If the Coptic priest from Egypt can reach 100 people, the local priest can reach 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 - because he is one of them. He speaks their languages. In all the countries where we work, there are tribal languages and many local languages. The local priest speaks these languages naturally. He can reach everyone easily. The local priest is an incredible blessing.

We now have more than one country where there are local priests. Praise be to God, it is a great blessing.

Important considerations:

Keep following the local priest. We do not simply walk away. We continue mentoring, encouraging, and supporting the local priest.

Make sure you have planted an evangelistic church. The church must not become inward-looking, satisfied with its own members. It must carry the same fire that brought the Gospel to its doors and take that fire to the next village, the next town, the next community.

Key Takeaways

• The seven milestones provide a clear, proven pathway from team preparation to an empowered local church - each milestone builds on the one before it and cannot be skipped
• Team building comes first - you cannot build a church abroad if you have not first built a team at home through education, training, and spiritual formation
• Exploration requires patience and humility - do not buy property or start organizations too early, and remember that every person you meet is a valuable contact
• Building reputation through consistent, selfless presence is essential - trust is earned over time, not demanded on arrival
• The resident is the most important person in the service - someone who lives among the people, showing Christ's love daily through presence, not just visits
• The ultimate goal is an empowered, self-sustaining, evangelistic local church led by local priests and servants - the team then moves on to bring the Gospel to the next community

Dive Deeper

Resources coming soon.

To our God be all glory and honor, now and forever. Amen.