Hello!
We are excited and honored by your interest in The MVP Leader Group!
Inside this 10 minute read, you’ll learn details and feel our heart behind what has become our passion: encouraging Christ-following ministry and business leaders. You may also find out more about us personally by clicking here.
Sincerely,
Terry & “Sam” Allen
Founders
The MVP Vision
February 11, 2017, I had a flash vision from the Lord.
In this vision, I exited off an interstate, continued up a long off-ramp toward a stop sign where I encountered a vehicle, parked to the left, halfway in the road, half off on the shoulder.
Coming out from under the right front side of the vehicle, in the middle of the lane, I saw a man’s naked thighs, legs and feet protruding out in the open road. It looked like the car had fallen on top of the man while he was working on it.
I quickly exited my vehicle, moving to where he was. I never spoke to him, but I somehow knew he was still alive.
The next thing I saw was myself talking on my cell phone saying these words, “Get over here and help me get this car off of this man!”
After waking and not knowing fully what it meant, I asked the Lord for the interpretation. The following is what I believe He said to me:
The car represents the local church as a whole. Some congregations are doing well, but many are somewhere halfway in the road and halfway off. The Church is pointed in the right direction, but stalled out and not moving forward.
The man under the car is a pastor or a Christ-following ministry leader. He is under the weight of the “machine” of the church and working on everything that he thinks is needed to fix it preoccupied or distracted with matters that are the least important.
His nakedness represents the exposed condition of many in the leadership of the body of Christ. Alone. In the road. Working desperately. Self-isolated. Exposed to the enemy and not even realizing it.
His lack of shoes represents the manner in which the ministry is being presented.
It occurred to me, the leader’s feet are to be “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,” but many leaders are no longer ministering from a place of peace, but rather in a state of stress, obligation and physical fatigue. Isolation has set in from unmet expectations which has in turn spawned depression. The message of the Good News is, now, tainted and loaded with pressure. Stoked by aloneness, fatigue, emotional weakness and pure brokenness, we have begun to wreak with what a pastor-friend coined as “the cologne of desperation.”
In the months following that vision, I believe I received a mandate to help lead a difference. So in January of this year, after serving in various ministry positions for the past 36 years, my wife and I formally founded The MVP Leader Group.
What Do We Do?
The bullseye for MVP is pastors and ministry leaders. The secondary targets are leaders in the business and civic sector.
We are reaching out to the thermostats who are leading and setting the spiritual temperature of this country.
Pastors, ministry leaders and Christ-following leaders in secular business are the MVPs of the church. As they go, the Church goes. As the Church goes, the community goes. As the community goes, our nation rises or falls.
We are using three strategies to hit our targets:
Honor
Encouragement
Connection
How Do We Implement these 3 Strategies?
First, we honor leaders by showing concern for their spiritual, physical and emotional needs. Not the church’s or organization’s needs, but the personal needs of the leader. Whatever and however we can show honor, that’s what we do.
Second, we simply encourage leaders through prayer and spiritual and emotional support with their day-to-day struggles. Also, we go a step further to give tangible resources as the Lord provides.
Third, we connect leaders together in relaxing environments outside of their norm and allow God to work through them, peer to peer. They pray for each other and build one another up, encourage and develop friendships that stand in the gap against moments of isolation.
Our footprint is growing and has increased to five states.
With very limited resources and time we have been able to provide...
300 book resources for pastors
47 Fast Break and respite opportunities around professional and college sporting events and vacation getaways
15 peer group fellowship opportunities
30 financial grants for ministry widows, ministry orphans, pastors in crisis, PK children’s toys, hospital care packages, funeral expenses, medical expenses, counseling services
Countless meals and table top encouragement
400 plus ministry touch-points
Why is MVP Needed?
I can’t convey it any better than a prominent pastor’s wife did after the suicide of her cousin’s husband.
Pastor Wayne Oglesby, a preacher’s kid, ended his own life on March 4, 2010 in his mid 50s.
MVP has an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of leaders around the country. We have taken the vision seriously.
We can excuse ourselves from this growing problem or we can circle the wagons around our leaders and help fight off the enemy. I have personally had all I can stand of this “Goliath” cursing and challenging God’s best. Is there not a cause?
Ecclesiastes 4:12 “A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated. But two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided-cord is not easily broken.”
MVP is determined to make a difference. We can whip discouragement and isolation. We can provide resources to honor, encourage and connect our finest and best. Here’s some good news for you...
“He who refreshes others will themselves be refreshed.”
One last thing, certainly not intended to be the least, needs to be said.
If you are a ministry leader or a Christ following business leader, we want you to know that you are not alone, so stay in the fight and lead. Help your church, business and city win in the game of life. We desperately need your leadership, so take care of YOU.
MVP wants to be a catalyst in helping you to not just “keep it together,” but to thrive in your spirit, body and emotions.
We honor and respect who you are in the pulpit and in the boardroom, but most importantly who you are as a man or woman of God.
Don’t ever give up or give in to the enemy. May you never quit until your work is called “finished” by God. Be strong! The speed of the leader determines the speed of the team. You are the MVP for those you lead. As you rise, so will we.
God bless you and may God bless everything you put your hands to.
Stay in The Game,
Terry Allen
MVP Founder