| The staff members
of FLM receive the majority of their income through their
full time employment, thereby maximizing the impact of the
financial support received through FLM.
William E. Wakefield is a co-founder
of Front Line Ministries, a non-profit missions organization
that provides team-building training to missions teams. Strong
teams are essential in gaining maximum impact as we minister
in the name of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Front Line
Ministries is currently serving missions teams in Mexico,
Russia and Africa. Bill holds a masters degree in Counseling
and Guidance from Texas A&M at Commerce, Texas. He is
a consultant and president of Leadership Development, Inc.,
and has worked for over ten years with a variety of businesses
and organization in the capacity of solving people problems
and maximizing team relationships. In addition, Bill has a
private counseling practice focusing on marriage and family
relationships in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Bill is a licensed
professional counselor and a clinical member of the American
Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. Bill is married
to Joyce and they have two young daughters, Sara and Maggie.
Joyce D. Wakefield is co-founder
of Front Line Ministries. In addition to serving Front Line
Ministries, Joyce provides counseling services in the Baton
Rouge community. Joyce holds a master degree in Counseling
from Louisiana State University , Baton Rouge. She has served
as the the Director of Counseling at The Dunham School, an
independent Christian school (K-12) where she coordinated
the school counseling program and provided guidance for academic
services and the Advisory program. In her work with Front
Line Ministries, Joyce also draws on her ten years of leadership
experience in various management and supervisory positions
with American Airlines. In addition, she served on the staff
of campus Crusade and Christ for three years. Joyce shares
the same two lovely daughters with her husband, Bill.
Keith Boyer joins
the staff of Front Line Ministries with a rich background
in both counseling and pastoral ministry combined with an
acknowledged ability as a speaker and preacher. He sensed
the Lord calling him into full time ministry at an early age.
In 1984, Keith graduated with a Master of Arts
in Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary, Winona
Lake, Indiana. That year he received the Grace Seminary Expository
Preaching Award in recognition of his homiletic skills. During
the next year, he worked with Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan
Allender as a Counseling Intern. In 1986, he received his
Master of Divinity degree. In 1985, Keith and his family moved
to the New Orleans area. Keith founded and directed Christian
Counseling Ministries.
In February 1991, Keith, desiring to explore
the potential of the local church to bring about substantial
change in the lives of people, accepted the call to pastor
Faith Bible Church in Slidell, Louisiana, where he continues
to minister. Keith also serves as chaplain for the Slidell
Fire Department, is a guest lecturer at the New Orleans Dental
School in the area of ethic, and is director of the Coast
Bible Conference. Presently, he is enrolled as a doctoral
student in the Doctor of Ministries program at Dallas Theological
Seminary.
Johnny Ervin comes to FLM after
working for Entergy, a regional electric utility company,
for 33 years. He retired from Entergy as the vice president
of Customer Service Support where he managed a number of Entergy’s
functions. Johnny’s decision to retire early was made
after a substantial amount of prayer and searching for God’s
direction with the conclusion that he had spent enough time
in the corporate world and now is the time for him to invest
in things with more of an eternal perspective.
Front Line Ministries is one of three ministries Johnny feels
led to invest a portion of his time because of its mission
to help those who are serving God. He is also working with
two new church “plants”, one in Madison, Mississippi,
(where he and his wife Sylvia live) and one in Gulfport, MS.
There are many similarities in the needs of church planters
and the needs of missionaries.
Johnny brings planning, organizational and administrative
skills to FLM. He is involved in performing an assessment
of FLM’s efforts to achieve its mission. He will also
help develop a comprehensive missionary care model that FLM
and mission agencies can use to work together to effectively
deliver the services needed by missionaries. He also desires
to help communicate Front Line Ministries’ efforts and
successes to both supporters and mission agencies.
Tara Sedlacek has held a deep
interest and love for missions since becoming a Christian
in 1984. She has participated in several short-term mission
trips and has hoped on more than one occasion that God was
calling her to the mission field. Tara has spent the past
10 years in the corporate world fine-tuning skills that would
now be called into service with Front Line Ministries. She
has over 10 year of training/facilitating experience in business
and academic environments. Her relevant skills and experience
include presentation, facilitation, organizational, and leadership
skills; instructional/graphic design and program development
experience; project management experience; and creation of
brochures, presentations, and other marketing-type pieces.
Tara will use her skills with FLM to help missionaries develop
presentation materials to better tell their individual missions
story. Our goal in providing these services is to reduce the
amount of time missionaries spend raising funds and therefore
increase their available time for the active ministry to which
God has called them.
Ron Tyndall is the Associate Pastor of Pastoral Care at Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, LA. He has served with PBC since 1983. During this time, Ron has developed a Grief and Divorce Recovery ministry, which includes weekly education and support meetings and accompanying materials. This ministry has touched over 1800 participants. Ron has also established chemical dependency support groups, teaches and ministers with Singles 50 and up, and spends hours each week in pastoral counseling. Ron recently developed the Marriage Works workbook (see the Resources page), resourcing some of the prime books on marriage.
Doug White received his bachelor’s
degree in General Studies from LSU in 1986. He spent eight
years in health club management with a sideline personal fitness
training business in Baton Rouge and Atlanta. Following his
salvation experience in March of 1990, Doug began to sense
God’s calling on his life to work with hurting people.
While earning his master’s degree in recreational therapy
from Southern University, Doug first volunteered with and
then became employed by Baton Rouge Youth where he worked
as an activity therapist with troubled and at-risk youth.
He also has also worked on the inpatient acute and geriatric
psychiatric units of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical
center where he conducted groups and therapy sessions for
the profoundly mentally ill. Doug then joined the team at
Synergy Behavioral Health in 1999 where he is currently clinical
director of recreational therapy.
Doug’s ministry experience includes working with youth,
couples, as well as men’s support groups, specifically
in the area of addiction issues: alcohol, drug, sex. Doug
is on staff part-time with Istrouma Baptist Church, Baton
Rouge, LA, where he leads Celebrate Recovery (a 12-step, Christ-centered
recovery ministry). For the past 4 years, Doug has been working
with Celebrate Recovery as a means of ministering to those
with addiction issues. Not only has he helped start Celebrate
Recovery at numerous churches, he also serves as a consultant
to other CR ministries.
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1998: Front Line Ministries
began formally operating in January after two and one-half
years of careful research on the need for an organization
that would provide support services to missions organizations
and missionaries in foreign mission fields around the world.
Front Line Ministries created and refined the models we now
use to teach missionaries how to improve their effectiveness
as teams of people working together for Christ.
1999: FLM used our team-building
models with seven churches in the United States to help them
strengthen their teams and work through a variety of issues.
We also took our first two foreign mission trips to Moscow,
Russia, and established a base at Hinkson Christian Academy
(the missions school in Moscow) from which to meet the needs
of English-speaking missionaries in Russia.
2000: The work of Front Line Ministries
deepened in Russia and spread to Mexico. We took three trips
to Russian and one trip to Mexico.
2001: FLM continued working with ministries
in Russian and Mexico as well as expanding internationally
to include ministry to Guatemala and Cameroon, Africa.
2002: Front Line Ministries worked extensively
in a consulting role with several missions organizations whose
headquarters are stateside. In addition, we focused on expanding
our FLM staff team. Two new staff persons were added—both
of whom fulfill multiple roles.
2003: FLM worked with a collection of churches in Kaluga, Russia, and with Hinkson Christian Academy in Moscow. In addition, FLM partnered in ministry with Central American Mission, International, in Mexico City and Queretaro, Mexico.
2004: FLM partnered with the Association of Christian Schools International at the International Educators Conference in Kijabe, Kenya. We partnered with Hinkson Christian Academy in Russia conducting trainings in team building, career counseling for the high school students and critical incident stress management. We also partnered with Hombres Fieles (Faithful Men) and CAM Int'l to conduct an addictions conference in Mexico City, Mexico.
2005: FLM partnered with the Association of Christian School International at their European Administrators Conference, Beatenberg, Switzerland, speaking on Maintaining a Healthy Marriage in Ministry. FLM also spoke at ACSI's African Administrators Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, speaking on Being Effective Team Leaders.
[top]
 FLM
Powerpoint Presentation (~1.4 MB)
Doctrinal Statement (~25 KB)
Central American Missions International
Medical Centers of West Africa
Hinkson Christian Academy
AWANA Clubs International
Cutting Edge Foundation
Association of Christian Schools International
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