Serving alongside leaders
Years of ministry beside pastors and lay leaders shape every lesson and every weekly plan.
About
Built by a minister who is also a project manager.
The Jethro Plan brings proven planning tools to the local church, where time is the scarcest resource of all.
Dr. Doug (Douglass P. Smith, PhD) is a licensed minister who serves alongside pastors and lay leaders. Up close, he has seen how much a small church asks of the people who lead it: the sermon, the lesson, the visits, the building, and the budget, often on top of a job and a family.
He is also a certified project manager and a professor of the practice. He spent years as a CIO and an IT consultant for clients ranging from small businesses to federal agencies, and he now teaches project management and leadership at several universities.
Those two worlds rarely meet. Project managers know how to plan work, protect time, and share the load. Ministry leaders carry a calling that no plan can contain. The Jethro Plan puts the first to work for the second, so leaders can give their best hours to what only they can do.
To learn more about his teaching, research, and ministry, visit his personal website at drdpaulsmith.com.
Licensed ministerPhDMBAMaster of Project ManagementPMPFormer CIO
What he brings
Three kinds of experience, one purpose.
Leading real projects
As a CIO and consultant, he planned and delivered projects for organizations of every size. The same tools help a church plan a quarter.
Designing courses that work
As a university teacher and course designer, he builds learning that ordinary people can pick up and use right away.
About the logo
A shepherd's staff, built from planned hours.
Our logo is a shepherd's staff, and it's shaped like the letter j, for Jethro. Before Jethro ever counseled Moses, Moses kept Jethro's flock (Exodus 3:1), and Scripture calls every leader in the church to shepherd God's people with care (1 Peter 5:2).
Look closely and you'll see the staff is built from blocks, like time on a weekly planner. Each green block is a planned hour of ministry: study, visits, teaching, and preparation. Together they form something sturdy enough to lean on. The curve at the bottom is the crook, the part a shepherd uses to guide and rescue.
The gold block sits at the top, above every plan, because God comes first. We plan our 15 hours. We trust God with all 168.
In small places, like a browser tab, the blocks close together into a simple staff. Up close, the plan. Step back, the calling.
Get the full sample lesson free.
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