Ministry apprenticeship

On page 149 we read ”Whoever you recruit, one hard truth must be faced: recruiting people for ministry, training them as apprentices, and sending them off to Bible college will result in a steady departure of your best and most gifted church members. This is a challenge to your gospel heart. What are you more interested in: the growth of your particular congregation, or the growth of the kingdom of God? Are you committed to church growth or to gospel growth? Do you want more numbers in the pew now, or more labourers for the harvest over the next 50 years?“

The significant components of the apprenticeship program are mentioned, including our tendency to want to recruit people like us. Creative or revolutionary people may be more difficult to train, so we can miss people with new approaches.

Chapter 12 covers ”Making a start“ with enough information to get us excited and moving. Critical statements on pages 152 and 153 are: ”The aim of Christian ministry is not to build attendance on Sunday, bolster the membership role (sic), get more people into small groups, or expand the budget (as important and valuable as all of these things are!). The fundamental goal is to make disciples who make other disciples, to the glory of God. We want to see people converted from being dead in their transgressions to being alive in Christ; and, once converted, to be followed up and established as mature disciples of Jesus; and, as they become established, to be trained in knowledge, godliness and skills so that they will in turn make disciples of others.“ ….. ”The goal of all Christian ministry, in all its forms, is disciple-making.“

“At a profound level, all pastors and elders are just players on the team. They do not have a different essence or status, or a fundamentally different task – as if they are the players, and the rest of the congregation are spectators or support crew. A pastor or elder is one of the vine-workers who has been given a particular responsibility to care for the people and to equip the people to be disciple-makers.” (page 155)

In what ways would our local congregation change if the pastor and elders were vine-workers, training and equipping all the people to be disciple-makers?