Value #9 -- Ministry

We believe God has given every Christian gifts and talents to be used to build His Kingdom. (Ephesians 2:10, 1 Peter 4:7-11, 2 Corinthians 5:16-20) 

When we become Christians, our job is not to just “be fed.”  While learning and growing are a continual part of the process of becoming like Christ, God has given each of us gifts to serve the church and build the Kingdom of God.   We don’t believe ministry reserved for the paid professionals but we see each individual as a minister.

Over time, we come to think that spiritual growth happens when we're "fed."  So many Christians will go through their church life, sitting in the pew and hearing sermons and even doing their own personal study.  They become filled with knowledge and believe they're "better Christians."  We don't believe this is a healthy Christian lifestyle.

Imagine if you had that attitude toward your body.  Does it make sense that a healthy body is one that constantly consumes food, but never burns off the calories?  What would happen in that case?  The person wouldn't become more healthy, he actually would become less healthy.  In fact, if you philosophy of life was that you were here to consume, but not contribute to the betterment of humanity, wouldn't that be the exact opposite of what Jesus taught?

I'm afraid that all over, we have a lot of "fat" Christians.  We were never intended to only be consumers, but we were created to be contributors.  Listen to how Paul says it in Ephesians 2:

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

What Paul is saying is not that we are saved by the work we do, but that we are saved so that we are free to work. Our purpose isn't to take up space, it's to take up the mission of the Kingdom.  Every believer has a part to play in the church that builds the Kingdom and every believer is given gifts to be able to accomplish that task.

One of the things that have contributed to lazy Christians is that often they misunderstand the role of the pastor.  Now some people don't believe we should have paid professional clergy and that the early church didn't have them.  I don't agree with that.  I think the New Testament allows for the church to have some people who can devote all their time to the the administration and teaching of the church.

However, one of the things I agree with those people about is that the real danger in having "paid professionals" in the church is that we can expect that we pay them to do the ministry.  But if you look in scripture, the job of the pastor is to "prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up."  (Ephesians 4)  So my job, as the pastor is not to do all the ministry, but it's to equip the people of the church to do ministry.

I see it as my job to teach the church, to drive its direction, and to set up the organization of the church to put people in the best position possible to grow and serve.  The reason for this is gifts.

In the past, churches have expected pastors to be supermen.  They were expected to preach, teach, administrate, do visitation, make the bulletin, make great coffee and mow the church lawn (among other things).  But here's the problem, pastors can't possibly be gifted in all those areas.  In fact, there are probably people within the church that are actually better at those things than I am.

For instance, I'm a friendly guy, but being sensitive to a large number of people's needs is probably not my greatest strength.  As a "pastor," there are certain expectations that I will go out and visit people.  I'm certainly not against and I do some of that.  But there are many people within the church that are particularly gifted in the pastoral role of making people feel loved and connected.  In the same way, I can do some graphic design here and there, but we have people in the church who are heads and shoulders more gifted in that area than I am.

Here's how it works.  The church is most effective when its people are putting their heart and soul into the area of ministry where they're gifted.  The church is less effective when it expects the pastor to do many things that take him away from his most important role and most effective gifts.  In other words, the more time I spend on mowing the church lawn or doing graphic design, the less time I have to work on leadership development or craft sermons that move people to grow in their relationship with Jesus. 

But it's not just the pastor this applies to.  There's a truism in churches that 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  If this is true, churches can't possibly reach their ministry potential because it's a certainty that many of those 20% are doing things they're not particularly gifted to do.  In addition, 80% of the people are "getting fat."  Sometimes 20% do all the work because the 80% don't want to, but sometimes, the 20% do it because they're overly possessive of their ministry and can't let go.  Neither of these situations is good.

So our goal is to find a place of ministry for everyone inside and/or outside the church.