SERVICES
TaylorGlobalConsult has focused five arenas stated below which mark its mission, core values, services and future. Bill currently is focusing his life on mentoring, writing and some consulting, with limited investment in teaching and speaking.
MENTORING / WRITING / CONSULTING / TEACHING / SPEAKING
The vision and future of mentoring, life coaching and apprenticing men and women for thoughtful and significant living and vocation carries high priority. These individuals may serve within their home country (“passport culture”) or in cross-cultural and international contexts. These unique relationships take on distinct shapes, from the less-formal ones, to spiritual formation, all the way through to apprenticeships.
Mentoring takes place in three life stages.
01
With younger adults in the middle of change of calling, vocation and gifts.
02
In the lives of older servants who face significant crossroads in their lives and ministry.
03
In the latter years of the journey. They need wisdom and counsel from someone who has “been there” and who can walk alongside them with grace and insight.
LEVELS OF FOCUS
1. Purposeful relationship that is less-formal, flexible and less-structured.
We meet face to face to dialogue as needed and desired. It can be limited in time or remain open ended. It can be done over a meal or in a home, by email, phone or Zoom. In these cases the initiative comes primarily from the mentee. Assignments can be discussed but are not required; they may be very valuable however. A session flows from 1-2 hours.
2. Purposeful relationship that focuses more on spiritual formation.
It has parallels the first but is more open-ended, and distinct in focus and intention. The initiative comes from the person seeking spiritual formation and a sounding board for life and vocation related to over-arching call-vocatio on the person’s life. Assignments will be part of this relationship. A session can run from 60-90 minutes.
3. Intentional mentoring relationship that falls into non-formal education.
This is not an internship but it becomes a longer-term relationship of wisdom and experience, spiritual formation, self-analysis, growth and life-coaching towards personal and ministry goals. This relationship requires an investment on the part of both mentor and mentee, because the process includes guided reading, key assignments and discussion of processes and outcomes. This can also include guiding a person through advanced formal studies, such as a specialized masters or doctoral program.
4. Formal apprenticeship, structured, goal-oriented relationship with process and project components.
It carries the language of life-coaching, of apprenticeship, of internship, or traveling with a person through a masters or doctoral program. It requires a more serious longer-term relationship with a substantial commitment on both sides. The dynamics of this level of relationship overlap with the ideas of consulting.
OVERVIEW
The vision of mentoring into “global servant leadership” points to a process of guiding the life, the skill-set, spiritual gifts and dreams of the mentee into a unique blend of servanthood, competency and leadership that is focused primarily on God’s mission in the world.
The global dimension refers to life and ministry in the context of other cultures and geographies. I work together with my colleague to define a series of key terms, including leader and leadership, styles and models of leadership, global, cross-cultural leadership, servant leadership. Together we sort out expectations of these open-ended relationships.
The ministry of mentoring is carried out both in the USA and in other nations. Bill has cohorts that he works with on a more intentional basis in the USA and in Latin America. In 2013, 2015 and 2019 he spent significant time in South Africa, primarily speaking and mentoring. This international life-coaching will continue but select trips will be fewer and wisely taken. Some faces of this ministry require a face to face, and others can be handled by Zoom and correspondence.
COST
All four categories have financial dimensions. The first category requests an end of year gift to TGC. The other three categories entail a regular financial commitment by the mentee of his-her sponsoring organization or network. The amount is determined by both mentor and mentee.
Donations to cover these services are calculated by the hour ($150-$250); by a full day ($800); on an pro-rated extended monthly basis; a project basis, or distributed over a year-long or multi-year budget.
Cases in point: one foundation invested on a monthly basis $1,300 for the formal five-year mentoring-apprenticing of their executive director; a church covered their mission’s pastor apprenticing with an annual donation of $3,000.
To inquire more about this service, and/or to arrange one, please contact us at btaylorgc@gmail.com or use the button below.
This is the question Bill is asking now: “What is it that the Spirit of God has deposited in me that is unique and needs to be published”?
Bill began to write during his years in Latin America, publishing books on worship and drama in the church, on Christian courtship and marriage, and on world missions. More recently he rewrote and expanded the Spanish language grass-roots missionary course that he originally co-wrote in 1984 with Nicaraguan colleague, Eugenio Campos.
His prime commitment during these many years (both in Latin America as well as worldwide) of writing and editing had been to get other women and men published, whether through books or the Mission Commission journal Connections. He wanted to release global voices for global mission issues. In recent years, following the conclusion of his thirty years with the MC, he is released to write from his own journey, gifting, experience, training, wisdom and passions.
On the back cover of the private edition of My Father’s Shoes: The Journey of a Global Pilgrim, (written primarily for family and a few friends and colleagues), he states:
Perhaps a dozen years back, my children and grandchildren began saying, ‘Dad-Papa, you must write these stories. You are the historian and storyteller, the only one qualified to pass on that legacy.’ That simple collection of memories and stories became a personal calling and passion as I stitched the family history with my multiple experiences around the world.
While my narrative started off with one vision (the family history), I discerned that God was irresistibly leading me to write something more substantive. Starting with my story, my parent’s story, our family story, it also would paint a story of the contemporary evangelical global mission movement on the broader canvas of the worldwide Evangelical church.
This book unfolds in three distinct movements. The first traces my DNA and roots from before birth through children and youth, formal studies, marriage to Yvonne, our service and three children born in Guatemala, and then the permanent move to the USA and the peculiar pivots of life. The second movement finds me in the World Evangelical Alliance global arena to serve its Mission Commission starting in 1986—twenty years as executive director and ten as senior mentor. I am re-named again. I track my stretch marks in mission, theology, ecclesiology, and the Spirit. I examine personal dimensions: family, friends, mistakes, life-long support-raising, serving with challenging people yet learning from them, pain, and loss. I developed as a leader, reluctant at first, but the Spirit equips and re-shapes me. I learn much from other leaders. I conclude with the vision of the foothills and the commitment to finish well. The final movement summarizes my reflections on the three prime facets of my own life—private, family and public ministry—primarily in the global mission arenas.
Above all, my passion has been to finish well. The physical reality of my father’s shoes (on the cover of this private print run) became my driving metaphor. That was part of his legacy to me. As you journey with me, you will discover this repeated phrase, ‘Little did I know’. It’s so true.
However, after editing this extensive manuscript, my son, David said, ‘Dad, you have two books. The first one describes your unusual life, taking you up to the permanent return to the USA and those transitions and re-namings—it fits into the category of memoir. The second half, the decades with WEA, is a study in lessons you learned about leadership, your personal leadership, but also what you discerned as you observed different leaders and their styles around the world.’
Now my goal is to write two very distinct books, following David’s insight. I am well along on the leadership one, tentatively titled, Leading from Below: Lessons from the Crucible of Global Mission. It will probably take the rest of 2022 to complete that project, and then I return to the personal memoirs.
When he completes these two more personal books, he will return to the project begun years ago, to complete an accessible book on global harassment, persecution and martyrdom. The target audience will be Christians from North America and Europe, but it will be designed for translation and adaption into other languages.
RECENT PROJECTS & PUBLICATIONS
Global Mission Handbook: A Guide to Crosscultural Service
Sorrow and Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom
La Familia Auténticamente Cristiana
Misiones Mundiales
Spirituality in Mission: Embracing the Lifelong Journey
My Father's Shoes: The Journey of a Global Pilgrim
This dimension overlaps with mentoring but focuses more on professional direction and coaching, competency development and institutional change. It is a service provided to individuals, foundations, churches, mission agencies, businesses (including Business as Mission—BAM), schools and other types of educational organizations.
Consulting refers to assessment (off or on-site), professional coaching, evaluation, insight and wisdom to guide a person, team or organization to effectively carry out its long-term strategic mission, projects and programs. Bill’s life-long background of tested relationships and international cross-cultural experience enable him to make a unique contribution to the consultative process.
Historically, Bill’s core Holy Spirit gifting has been in
teaching—a craft he has honed all his life.
During the first two decades of his public ministry Bill taught full-time in theological seminaries both in Guatemala and the USA. During the last 30 years this gift has been more on hold, with the exception of modular courses taught in the USA and internationally. His teaching style combines a singular mix of formal, non-formal and life-on-life education. Spiritual formation values are central to his teaching approach as he desires each time to build a “educational-spiritual community” in his classes.
After decades of international travel and speaking, this stage of Bill’s life calls for a keen focus in this area. He senses that the more recent calling on his life is to consider a limited number of speaking engagements, accepting only those with very clear spiritual andstrategic potential.
To view some examples of Bill speaking, visit our Resources page for photos and video.
