Equipping the saints to do ministry

I apologize for not posting for a few days, but we've been visiting our son and his family in Pennsylvania and just returned home yesterday evening.  We had a great time with him and our grandchildren, but all good things must end so we had to return home and to work.

One of the positives about bivocational ministry is that people in bivocational churches often understand the pastor is not always available.  These people are often willing to take on more ministry responsibilities simply because they know their pastor has another job that prevents him or her from doing ministry at certain times.  However, just because they are willing doesn't mean they will step in and do things if they haven't been trained to do them.  That was a mistake I made early in my pastorate and one I had to correct if we wanted to see more of our members involved in ministry.  I see many pastors making the same mistake.  We may fuss about the lack of ministry involvement by the people in the churches we serve, but if we have never trained them we shouldn't expect them to be involved.

Actually, regardless of whether one serves in a bivocational church or is fully-funded, the biblical model is that the pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry (Eph.4).  The failure of many churches to follow that model is one reason so many churches are not living up to their ministry potential.  We have separated the roles of clergy and laity to the point that too many clergy persons do not trust the laity with ministry responsibilities, and many lay persons do not feel confident or called to do ministry.  We forget that Scripture teaches that the Spirit of God has given every believer at least one spiritual gift that is to be used for ministry and that one of the responsibilities God has given pastors is to train the people entrusted to him or her how to use those gifts.  If we could recapture that message we would soon find our churches serving in ways far beyond what we often see today.

The good news is that many churches are taking the Ephesians 4 model of ministry seriously and intentionally raising up disciples who are equipped to do ministry.  Greg Ogden, in his book Unfinished Business: Returning the Ministry to the People of God, notes that the first Reformation gave the Bible to the people, and the second Reformation will give the ministry to the people. This Reformation will not be easy for some churches because it will represent a major paradigm shift for both pastors and congregations.  It will require some pastors to learn new skills because many were never taught in seminary how to equip their church members for ministry.  It will also require a much higher level of discipleship that many people in some churches have ever known.  It will require a major restructuring of how churches are structured.  We cannot expect people to sit on a half-dozen boards and committees and also be engaged in ministry outside the church.  It will require pastors to learn how to delegate and trust others to do the ministry that they've often done themselves.  I'll stop here, but I hope you can see it will require a lot to make this change, but I cannot overemphasize how critical it is that this change happens in our churches.

I devote an entire chapter on this subject in my book The Healthy Community: Moving Your Church Beyond Tunnel Vision and encourage you to read it as well as Ogden's book mentioned above.  When the church I pastored became serious about developing our lay people for ministry it revolutionized our church.  I believe it will do the same for your congregation.