The Trellis and the Vine (2 page)

In the following chapters, we will be suggesting that there is an urgent need to answer these questions afresh. Confusion reigns. Everyone wants their churches to grow, but most are unsure how and where to start. Church growth gurus come and go. Ministry methods fall in and out of favour like women’s fashion. We troop from one new technique to the next, hoping that this one (at last!) may be the secret to success.

Even among those godly, faithful pastors who avoid the trendsetting fads of Christian marketing, there is confusion—most especially between what Christian ministry is in the Bible, and what Christian ministry has become in the particular tradition or denomination of which they are part. We are all captive to our traditions and influenced by them more than we realize. And the effect of tradition and long practice is not always that some terrible error becomes entrenched; more often it is that our focus shifts away from our main task and agenda, which is disciple-making. We become so used to doing things one way (often for good reason at first) that important elements are neglected and forgotten, to our cost. We become imbalanced, and then wonder why we go in circles.

[
1
] DA Carson, ‘Matthew’ in Frank E Gaebelein (ed.),
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary
, vol. 8, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1984, p. 596.

Chapter 2.
Ministry mind-shifts

Over the course of this book, we are going to suggest that most Christian churches today need to undertake a radical re-evaluation of what Christian ministry really is—what its aims and goals are, how it proceeds, and what part we all play in its exercise. In the chapters that follow (particularly chapters 3-5), we will be digging into the Scriptures to lay the foundations for this re-think, and to argue for its necessity and urgency.

However, before we make the argument in detail, we thought it would be worth providing a glimpse of where we’re heading. We will be arguing that structures don’t grow ministry any more than trellises grow vines, and that most churches need to make a conscious shift—away from erecting and maintaining structures, and towards
growing people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ
.

This may require some radical, and possibly painful, changes of mindset. Here are some examples of the mental shifts we might need to make. Each of them touches on a different aspect of structural thinking that inhibits people ministry. Once we make the transition, however, this will open up new vistas for ministry and ministry training.

1. From running programs to building people

When planning ministry for the year ahead, there are two broad approaches we could adopt. One is to consider existing church programs (such as Sunday meetings, youth work, children’s ministry and Bible study groups) and then work out how such programs can be maintained and improved. The other approach is to start with the people in your church, having no particular structures or programs in mind, and then consider who are these people God has given you, how you can help them grow in Christian maturity, and what form their gifts and opportunities might take.

This is a revolutionary mind-shift: when we think about our people, it moves our focus to putting them first and building ministries around them. In the course of doing so, it may become apparent that some programs no longer serve any worthwhile purpose. It may also become apparent that a program is no longer viable because the people who once made it work are no longer available. So the program can be done away with. This might be painful for those attached to them (it takes guts to shoot a dead horse!), but new ministries will begin to arise as you train members of your congregation to use their various gifts and opportunities.

2. From running events to training people

Churches typically adopt an ‘event-based’ approach to evangelism. They use a variety of events to proclaim the gospel: church meetings, guest services, mission meetings, men’s breakfasts, women’s suppers, and many other creative gatherings. In order to appear successful, they keep on running more and more of these events.

However, at one level, this tactic is failing. In our post-Christian, secular age, most unbelievers will never come to our events. Even our members are patchy in their attendance. The ‘event’ tactic relies partly on the appeal and gifts of a guest speaker, and this means we’re limited by the availability of such people in what we can run. For the church pastor, and for key lay people, setting up and running events can end up dominating life, with all our time being spent on getting people to come along to things. Yet, despite the work they involve, in some respects events are a centralizing tactic: they’re convenient and easy to control for the leader/organizer, but they require unbelievers to come to us on our own terms. In the end, an ‘event approach’ distracts us from both training and evangelism.

If we want our strategy to be people-focused, we should concentrate on
training
, which increases the number and effectiveness of gospel communicators (i.e. people who can speak the good news both in personal conversations and in public settings). This sort of strategy involves identifying and equipping more speakers, thereby increasing the number, variety and effectiveness of events. In addition, you can use events to train your workers. If all the members of your congregation are given the opportunity to be trained in evangelism, more unbelievers will attend our events.

But please note: this is a chaotic strategy—an inconvenient strategy. It takes time to train evangelists. It takes time for young evangelists to build their own ministries as they go about preaching the word. It will mean we will have to relinquish control of our programs for, as the gospel is preached, Christ will gather his people into all kinds of fellowships that may or may not fit into our neat structures.

3. From using people to growing people

Volunteers are the ones who maintain and expand church programs. Under God, volunteers are the lifeblood of our churches: they pour their evenings and weekends into Sunday meetings, children’s work, youth group, Bible studies, committees, looking after church property, and so on. The danger of having such willing volunteers is that we use them, exploit them and forget to train them. Then they burn out, their ministry is curtailed, and we find that we have failed to develop their Christian life and ministry potential. Instead of using our volunteers, we should consider how we can encourage them and help them grow in the knowledge and love of Christ, because service flows from Christian growth and not growth from service.

For example, one committed, keen couple I know served faithfully as Bible study leaders for six consecutive years, while also juggling significant study and work commitments. In the seventh year, with the encouragement of their pastor, they took a ‘sabbatical’—a break from leading Bible study to refresh themselves; to simply belong to a group and recharge their batteries. After their year off, they plunged back into leadership again.

We need to care for people and help them to flourish and grow in ministry, not squeeze them dry in the interests of keeping our programs running.

4. From filling gaps to training new workers

One of the immediate pressures upon ministers is to fill gaps left by leaders who leave our programs. But if we just focus on gap filling, we’ll never move out of maintenance mode: we’re just keeping existing ministries afloat instead of branching out into new ones.

We should start with the people that God has given us, not our programs. We need to consider each person as a gift from Christ to our congregation, and equip them for ministry accordingly. So instead of thinking, “Who can fill this gap in our personnel?”, perhaps the question we need to consider is “What ministry could this member exercise?”

We could recount many examples from our own experience of where this has and hasn’t happened. Take Sarah, for example, an elite sportswoman converted as an adult through sports ministry. Sarah was well followed-up and established in her faith, and her church provided a strong and edifying environment. What’s more, Sarah had a passion for Christ and for evangelism, and had a large network of non-Christian friends, teammates and acquaintances with whom to share the gospel. However, instead of training and encouraging Sarah to pursue this evangelistic ministry, the church strongly urged her to become a member of the church management committee, because there was a gap and a need, and Sarah was enthusiastic and willing to help. The church was gap-filling, not building ministry around the gifts and opportunities of people.

A more positive example was Dave, a young man who suffered from schizophrenia. Dave was a very intelligent and able person who loved the Lord, but his illness meant that nearly every common avenue for ministry was closed to him. He didn’t have the mental stability or strength to lead Bible studies or follow up new Christians or contribute to other church events or programs. However, in his lucid and rational periods, Dave had enormous potential for evangelism and ministry among his many friends and contacts who also suffered from mental or emotional disorders. His pastor trained and encouraged Dave in this ministry, and had other Christian friends support him, back him up, and help him with follow-up. It was a marvellous instance of seeing the ministry potential of a unique person, and helping and equipping him to make disciples.

If we begin viewing things in these terms, it will open up new areas of ministry centred on the particular gifts and opportunities of our members. Instead of filling a vacancy on a committee, one of our members might start a ministry to his/her ethnic community, or a Bible study group in his/her workplace. Furthermore, focusing on people will help us to discover and train potential candidates for full-time word ministry (more on this in chapters 9 and 10).

5. From solving problems to helping people make progress

A common feeling among Christians is that they only get prayed for and visited when they’re sick or out of work. Of course, our churches will always contain people with problems; God’s people have many needs, just like the rest of the population. And as ministers of Christ, we need to love and welcome everyone, whatever their individual needs and situations, and not dismiss their problems with cheap words (Jas 2:14-17).

However, we don’t want to create the kind of ministry environment where the only way people can relate to one another is by discussing their problems. If ministry in our churches is based on reacting to the problems people raise, many will receive no attention because they are more reserved in sharing their problems. The goal is to move people forward in holy living and knowledge of God, whether they are facing problems or not; this is why we proclaim Christ, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28).

So ask yourself whether your ministries are reactive or proactive. If you are mostly reacting to people’s problems, you won’t have the energy to put into proactive training and growing new work. If you take a problem approach to ministry, people with the most critical needs will dominate your programs, and these needs will wear you out and exhaust you, and reduce the effectiveness of your other ministries.

6. From clinging to ordained ministry to developing team leadership

Denominations are quite right to ordain or accredit ministers to be faithful shepherds of Christ’s flock. However, there are a number of ways in which the practice of ordination hinders ministry training in churches. Firstly, if the only ‘real’ ministers are people ordained by the denomination, our churches will not have any incentive to encourage others who are not ordained to test their gifts of preaching and teaching. Secondly, if the policy is limited to filling ministerial gaps in vacant churches, why look for evangelists and church-planters who could grow new work? Thirdly, we will tend to select people for training who fit the mould of the ordained minister, ignoring the fact that some gifted people may not fit comfortably in traditional ministries, and that their gifts could potentially lead them to break new ground for the gospel outside existing denominational structures.

In traditional thinking, the ordained minister of a church is expected to exercise all the public ministries of word and sacrament, pastoral visiting, evangelism, school Scripture classes and more. But if we are going to focus on training, this implies team ministry. Church members are often opposed to team ministry for a variety of reasons. Firstly, training appears elitist as only the few are selected. Secondly, some Christians only want the ‘real’ minister to preach or visit, and are not happy when his place is taken by a trainee or lay minister. Finally, the time that the minister spends training the team is often perceived as a distraction from his pastoral duties. However, the benefits of team ministry are many, so it’s well worth freeing up our ministers so they have the time and space to build themselves a team.

7. From focusing on church polity to forging ministry partnerships

Issues concerning how churches are governed often dominate local ministry. At one level this is to be expected, because all denominations are partially defined by their distinctive understanding of church government, and it’s important for a church to be faithful to its evangelical heritage. However, inflexible commitment to a particular polity can destroy training. Churches can find themselves spending too much time debating questions like “Where do trainee ministers and ministry teams fit into our structures? Are they elders, deacons, ministers or members of the church committee?” It’s probably more helpful to think of these things in terms of ministry partnerships rather than political structures.

Another way to think about it is that elders and congregational leaders should be active vine-growers themselves before we consider giving them responsibility for oversight. They should be the kind of people who are reading the Bible one to one with others and sharing Christ with their neighbours.

8. From relying on training institutions to establishing local training

Bringing together gifted and scholarly pastors to provide rigorous theological and academic training in a college setting is a wise strategy. This sort of training is essential for both lay and ordained ministers. But a college cannot be expected to provide total training in the character, conviction and skill that is required for ministers and co-workers. Much of this ought to be done through training ‘on the job’ in church life. So it’s ideal if education in colleges and training in churches can work together hand in hand. This may not always be possible concurrently. For example, in our part of the world it is common for formal theological education to be ‘sandwiched’ between a ministry apprenticeship before college and in-service practical training after college. (For more on local ministry apprenticeship, see chapter 11.)

There are also lots of opportunities for churches to integrate formal or external training into their regular training and growing of people—for example, participating in a distance education program to train lay people in theology alongside other training.

9. From focusing on immediate pressures to aiming for long-term expansion