The year 2015 will mark some milestones for me. I’ll celebrate 25 years of being a pastor. I still can’t believe anyone wanted to hear a 19-year-old preach!

After a quarter-century as a pastor, and 5 years of training pastors in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, I’ve learned a few things about pastors.

• Pastors mostly love their jobs. They face discouragement like anyone else, and there are days when they want to quit, but for the most part they love being pastors. They have a deep satisfaction in helping people.
• Pastors want someone to invest in them. Every pastor has gaps. Some don’t know how to manage a church budget. Some have no idea how to counsel. Some struggle with leadership or administration or discipleship or discipline. But they all desperately wish someone would invest in them.
• Pastors are force multipliers. When you make an investment in a pastor who loves his job, your investment is multiplied many times over.

These are the truths that pulled us from a life we loved in Texas and brought us to Costa Rica. We discovered that even a small organization like ours could make a huge impact if we invested in the right people the right way.