The prophet's handbook

Leadership

Uniforming and Standardizing the Prophet

The task of uniforming all the standard functions, features, activities, and abilities for the office is a massive one that can take years to accomplish. Careful study lets one easily see that all prophets, like any other professional group, share commonalities that are exclusive to them or particularly concentrated among them. These should be isolated, organized, and applied to what prophets do for God and His people in the world. Such a giant leap toward uniformity cannot help but foster unity in this office. This author’s initiative in this cause was the development of The Prophet’s Dictionary. It lays a solid foundation for future work in this area and can serve as a suitable platform for gathering and creating related tools to accredit this ministry. In addition, after the dictionary, this author developed a number of standardized assessments to help you better define and refine the prophets in your sphere of authority. The hope is that, with these tools, fearful prophets and even more fearful Christian leaders can embrace this vital ministry as an integral part of mainstream Christian service. Of course, this requires the prophets submit themselves to screening, and after that adequate, specialized training in order to win the confidence of the church at large. At present, only a few of the Lord’s contemporary prophets consider formalized education a must for their ministry. This is unfortunate, since a quality educational training program for any subject does two necessary things: it equips and perfects. Using well-defined goals, objectives, and outcomes, quality readiness programs declare what they set out to do, accomplish it, and then inform the student how to recognize its accomplishment upon completion. Every program’s objective, through its chosen materials, is to speak what learners need to understand and perform adequately in their chosen fields of study and proposed service. Ideal learning materials should tackle the strengths and weaknesses of the field, including its proponents and opponents. It should factor in what people respond to most or dislike about a particular field of ministry. Good readiness programs address how the learner may counter, conquer, or override his field’s sources of opposition and best profit from its opportunities. These may be competitors with equal or similar strengths and values or former leaders in the field who have not kept up as they should with changing trends and user or consumer needs and views. At the least, these should motivate learning and teaching programs that prepare people for God’s