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?

Multiplying gospel growth

In chapter 9, "Multiplying gospel growth through training co-workers", we read on pages 122-3, “Everyone who by God’s grace becomes a disciple of Christ is not only part of the vine, but also a vine-worker, a disciple-maker, a partner in the gospel. Although some Christians have particular gifts and responsibilities for teaching and oversight, all Christians have a role in prayerfully speaking the word of truth to each other and to those outside.”

“Training (understood in this way) is the engine of gospel growth. People move from being outsiders and unconverted through to being followed up as new Christians and then growing into mature, stable Christians who are then in turn trained and mobilized to lead others through the ‘gospel growth’ process.”

“ …You can’t personally minister to and train 130 people. But you can start with ten, and those ten can work beside you – not only to minister personally to others, but to train others as well, who in turn will minister to others. The ‘co-workers’, in other words, are not a different category – they are just a bunch of gifted potential ‘vine-workers’ who work beside you to get things moving. It’s ministry multiplication through personal training, and it is one of the great needs of the contemporary church.”

Wow! If you do the maths on this, it is impressive. Even one person training two others for a year will result in three vine-workers. If each were to train two others in the second year we would have nine vine-workers at the end of the second year. If this were to continue, we would expect 27 at the end of the third year, and 81 at the end of the fourth. Of course we do need to allow for some not to continue, or to have been encouraged (see chapter 10) to move on to further studies to possibly become “full-time” pastors/evangelists/missionaries, or to have moved to other areas within Australia or overseas taking their vine-working skills with them.

As we work through this, it seems we are returning to the times of the early church. Of course there were problems then, and the Christians had to work through those too. I think we have too much ‘easy believeism’ today – as someone has said, “Pray the prayer, sit in the chair”. When people become Christians there are minimal requirements expected of them. Jesus had some strong things to say about people who would follow Him, but that is another book.

Lord, please help us to follow You, and obey You. Train us to be vine-workers.

Patience Really is a Virtue

As I read the call to train co-workers, identify future leaders and build a ministry team from the ground up... As I read the advice to particularly and strategically focus our efforts on the few who in time can multiply the ministry - rather than the many who cross our path... I am rebuked for my impatience and my desire for quick ‘results’.

Patience really is a virtue in Christian ministry.

A patience borne from a deep trust in God’s sovereign ability to care for those we necessarily choose not to and a patience which keeps the bigger picture in view.

Far better to sow deeply and patiently in a few - who in turn can sow deeply and patiently in a few - who in turn can sow deeply and patiently in a few... than to try and do it all alone. Far better to multiple good gospel ministry by multiplying good gospel ministers... than to merely multiply my own efforts.

May God give us the patience we need to serve him well.

May God give us the courage we need to say no to the good so we can say yes to the best.

Changing churches and changing lives

The gospel changes churches and changes lives. We all need to be growing toward maturity. Training is necessary from before we are trusting in Jesus to afterwards as we grow to become disciple-makers. This training is to help us become vine-workers.

Since each person is at a different stage of growth, the training is best when it is specific. General training is useful for us all, but it is not sufficient. Sunday sermons may be great, but we need more than that, and tailored to who and where we are. If we expect the pastor to do all the training, we will limit growth of people and churches. We need disciple-makers trained so that they can help produce other disciple-makers. Thus the vine will be cared for and grow.

This training is not only for the benefit of the local church, but of God’s worldwide church. Our expectations should be that some of our best will move to other areas to help plant new churches, whether in places where the gospel is freely available, or where it is difficult to find. Some of the trained disciple-makers may move on to further training to enhance their future ministries.

Several approaches are considered in chapter 8, such as “Pastor as clergyman”, “Pastor as CEO”, and “Pastor as trainer”. In this third one, “Where the pastor is a trainer, there will be a focus on people ministering to people, rather than on structures, programs, and events.” …..“Pastoral care, in this approach, is also founded on disciples being trained to care for and disciple other Christians. Small groups may be utilized as one convenient structure in which this may happen, but the structure itself will not make it happen.” [bolding is mine] …..”It’s very possible for a great deal of the personal encouragement and discipling work in a congregation to be done one to one, without any involvement in structured small groups.” (pp. 100-101).

I believe we need to re-think our plans for the small groups we have at St Stephen’s, and develop a new mind-set so that we are training disciple-makers rather than majoring on fellowship.

Am I normal?

"According to Paul, gospel partnership is the normal Christian life. It means to stand together united in the gospel, determined to live as citizens of heaven in the midst of our corrupt generation, longing and striving to see the gospel be defended and proclaimed, and bravely copping the conflict, struggle and persecution that inevitably follow." [66]

May God give ALL of us the courage to live the 'normal' Christian life, come what may. And may we not leave our pastors and 'keen-beans' to hang out to dry!

How can we encourage one another to resist the temptation to 'spectate' and instead to together 'leave it all out on the field'.

Partners and training

The church at Philippi had a strong partnership with Paul. We read in Acts 16 how the church began. They continued on in partnership with Paul, even though in the early days Paul and Silas had to leave the city. Paul writes to them as partners, and there was personal communication, with people such as Epaphroditus travelling between the church and Paul.

Marshall states on page 66: “The gospel itself demands that we stand with our leaders and preachers in profound unity, teamwork and solidarity – not because of their personalities or gifts, but because of our common partnership in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There aren’t two classes of Christians – the partners and the spectators. We’re all in it together.”

What would we do if our pastor Chris was arrested and thrown into prison for preaching the gospel? Would we disown him – well, we didn’t really know him that well, and we did think he was a little extreme? Or would we support him? Visit him, help him in every way we could, and keep on preaching that same gospel to show our support?

How do we do this in real life? What do we do if we don’t agree about everything? Prayer is significant. Following God’s Word is critical. Discussion in closed meetings such as the Session is also important. Then, what if we still don’t agree in private? Should we keep that disagreement private? Or should we separate, such as Paul and Barnabas did over John Mark? (Acts 15:36-41).

Chapter 6 covers training and how it is far more than planned lessons, although these can be very important so that we know what has been covered. Training is relational, so that information is caught as well as taught. “Copy me”, says Paul, “as I follow Christ”. In 2 Tim 2:2, Paul tells Timothy to pass on what he has learned to faithful people, who in turn will teach others. The Greek word here (often translated as “men”) is “anthropo” (meaning mankind – men and women), and not “andro” (meaning males). [From my Greek-English New Testament, 1975].

“Paul urged his congregations to join him in suffering for the mission of Christ, to seek the salvation of others by forgoing their own rights. His ambition to save others was to be their ambition too.” (p. 74). We, in the Western world, rarely hear anything about suffering for the sake of Christ. How come we are missing out? Does it matter? If we were “real” about our faith, would that bring on suffering for us?

This chapter ends with the goals of teaching being conviction, character, and competency. These will be enlarged in subsequent chapters.

Ch 3

We often wonder what God is doing in the world as our society appears to become more and more godless. Psalm 80 asks the same sort of question and asks for God's mercy. Then in 1 Peter 1 we see that the answer to these Old Testament longings are found in the sufferings and glories of Christ. We also learn the news of Christ's sufferings and glories come to us by the Holy Spirit working through human evangelists. So God's current priority is Spirit-backed preaching of the gospel leading to people being saved. When we look at the growth of the early church in Acts, this is exactly what we see. So we should make God's priority our priority, put our focus on people rather than structures and more specifically spend time speaking God's word to others so the Spirit can apply it to people's hearts.

Ch4

While most Christians would agree with the need speak God's word and pray for his Spirit's activity in people's lives, not all would agree about who should be responsible for doing it. In Acts 2 and 4 we see that all the disciples were involved in speaking the word of God with boldness, not just the leaders. The priority of everyone speaking God's word comes through in Ephesians 4-6, Colossians 3, Romans 15-16, Heb 3, 10 and especially 1Corinthians where the speaking gifts are to be valued above the other gifts, so everyone can be built up. But what about speaking to non-Christians? 1Peter 3:13-16 tells us we should all be ready to give a reason for our hope. In 1Thessalonians 1:5-10 the gospel had come to them through human words along with power and conviction and they had become imitators of Paul so that the word of God went out from them throughout the region. Then in 1Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Paul calls on them to structure their whole lives to bring God glory, minimise offence to others and try to please everyone not for their own advantage but so that many may be saved. 1 Cor 8 and 9 shows similar priorities. Mt 5:13-16, Col 4:2-6, Tit 2:1-10, 1Pet 2:9-12, 3:1-2,15 all show the priority of bringing the gospel to the world for ordinary Christians. So we should all be creatively looking for ways to speak God's word at home, in our congregations and to our community around us. The chapter finishes with lots of helpful examples of the sorts of things we can be doing.

ONE in - ALL in!

Vine work = Prayerful Proclamation of the gospel that People may be saved and changed into disciple-making disciples.

Vine-workers = EVERY Christian.

'To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker'. [43]

Why?

Its through prayer, proclamation and people that God is building his church and growing his kingdom. This is something every Christian is called to participate in.

Like the first rule of the footy field brawl: It’s ONE in - ALL in!

What is it, I wonder, that stops me prayerfully proclaiming?

Sometimes it’s simply my laziness or selfishness or desire for comfort...

Other times though, I suspect it’s my wrong assumption that proclamation (be it for edification or even more often for evangelism) must always be ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ - and so, not surprisingly, I choose nothing. But of course there is a whole lot of ‘something’ in between ‘all’ and ‘nothing’ - including the things mentioned by Marshall on pages 54-56 and a whole lot more besides.

Culture teaches us emperical measurement but God counts differently

Cultural teaches us to measure empirically. In a market driven environment personal satisfaction, esteem and identity is produced, then measured, via the net utility of 'what you do'. Market logic demands that people be commodities of their work, so that their 'exchange value' is measured by what goods, services, ideas, and relationships they create and produce. We then bring these culturally reinforced ideas of the measure of worth to our Christian lives/ministry/church. We rush to measure with the wrong ruler; hence our frustration and questioning 'What is God doing?' Importantly, I think, the bible does not assess work's adequacy via productivity, rather, faithfulness to the task entrusted to them (Matt. 24:45; cf 25:21, 23). We (I) need to transform the mind set and begin to think with a gospel paradigm (Rom. 12:1ff) The trouble is vine stuff is difficult to measure and remains a little unseen; where as the Trellis stuff is visible and noticeable. We (I) will need like minded people around me to remain focused on the main game.

Every Christian a vine-worker?

 The apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (I Cor 15:58 – TNIV).

Chapter 3 is on “What in the world is God doing?” and chapter 4 “Is every Christian a vine-worker?” All the Bible points to Jesus Christ. The prophets knew that He was coming, and through His suffering we would be blessed (1 Pet 1:10-11). Jesus declares that He is the vine, and we are the branches. If we remain in Him we will bear much fruit (John 15:1-11). What does this mean for me? Sharing the Gospel, God’s Good News, is to be a significant part of each church. The growth we are looking for is in the life of each believer. This comes through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

The early disciples were all speaking the word of God to those around them (eg. Acts 4:29-31). When persecution arose, with the stoning of Stephen, “all, except the apostles, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1). We too easily leave the work of tending the vine (witnessing to non-believers, and caring for new disciples) to the paid staff (minister, pastor, youth worker, etc.). Yet we read in Ephesians 4:11-12 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. This sounds to me like the paid people are there to help train and equip us to do the work of tending and helping grow the vine (of course the Holy Spirit does this work, using us).

Colin Marshall says on page 52, “The Christian without a missionary heart is an anomaly.” Now “anomalous” means abnormal. So, where have we gone wrong? How can we encourage each person in the church to be involved? Marshall further defines this as “in prayers for the lost, in making sure our behaviour offends no-one, in gospel conversations with friends” and other areas. This “can happen at home, at work, over the back fence, at church, in small groups, in coffee shops – anywhere. But that it happens is vital, because this is the ‘work of the Lord’; this is the Great Commission in action: this is the vine work that all Christians can and should be engaged in.” (p.56).

As the paid, and other workers, help train us, we are equipped and released to do the vine work. Yes, trellis work is important too, but usually that gets done. It seems to be the vine work that is lacking.

Ch1 - The vine and the trellis is a useful metaphor for seeing how maintaining structures and institutions can take our focus off Biblical priorities of growing a church full of maturing Christians. It is not that maintaining buildings and having committee meetings to organise programs and events is wrong. They are necessary activities up to a point. But what are they for? A big solid trellis may look impressive but its not alive and without a flourishing vine it has no point to it. Chapter 1 makes clear that in the Great Commission Jesus' has charged us all with disciple making as a central priority. This means both making new disciples and nurturing them. Personally I think that even with these two tasks there is a danger of concentrating on the nurturing, so we become inward looking and ignore the making of new disciples. This is especially so in our current secular society where so many seem antagonistic to the gospel. However I think that it is only by keeping the disciple making at the forefront that the other bits fall into place and the church is kept from stagnation, institutionalism and secularisation. Also, as the book points out, we need to be careful not to tie ourselves to traditions (a very Presbyterian temptation) or to trendsetting fads which constantly come and go.

Ch2. This chapter sets out basic ideas on the type of thinking which can help to grow people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ.

- Change the focus on programs to growing Christian maturity and getting people to make the most of their gifts and opportunities.

- Instead of using up large amounts of time with organising events and programs, which few outsiders will come to, we should focus on training people to be effective gospel communicators. Events and programs will then flow in various and chaotic ways out of this.

- Rather than burn people out in our focus on maintaining programs we should prioritise helping people to grow in their knowledge and love for Christ. Then their ministry will grow and flourish naturally.

- Rather than looking at who can fill a gap to keep a program running we should look at what ministry could this member of the congregation exercise? This can open up new ministries and is also valuable in finding potential candidates for ministry.

- Change the focus from dealing with people's problems to moving people forward in holy living and knowledge of God.

- Develop a team leadership approach which allows more people to develop their gifts such as preaching, teaching, evangelism and church planting. It also frees up time for the ordained minister/s to build up the team.

- As people are trained, be less concerned about defining their official position in the church political hierarchy and more concerned about encouraging people to be active vine-growers working in ministry partnerships.

- Encourage local church training as well as college and institutional training. Both can be integrated at times by using distance education.

- Keep the focus on long term expansion not on the immediate pressures of running programs.

- Minimise the minister's administrative workload (eg. in committees, property management, program organising and church business) so he has more time to train and teach.

- Be happy to be exporters of trained people, not hoarders. Our view of gospel work should be global, not just local.

Ouch

As I read these first two chapters I realised (again) that I am more involved in working on the trellis than on the vine (p8). I appreciate the vine work being done here in St Stephen's, and I do want to be more involved.

Vine work can be scary because it involves working with people who may not appreciate what you are doing. Yet it is the work of each person who says they are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Therefore, there is a job for everyone in the church, without the need for extra committees and teams.

We have a lot of relearning to do. Or, as is explained in Chapter 2, to experience a ministry mind-shift.  ".. 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." (p17)

May God help me, and us, in this.

In times passed

'Elders and leaders should be vine-growers themselves'p24

This was cause for me to reflect on my history as an elder at my home congregation. It seems to me that we (I) filled our (my) time with a lot of business. At times some of our meetings in reality looked more like BOM meetings rather than the shepherds of the flock meeting to grow the vine.

In my first 2 years here in Melb I have really changed my perspective of what 'ministry' looks like.

Reflecting on my past experience it seems retraining with a new mind set is required within our sessions. Should all the elders be reading this book together?

Welcome

This is the first post to Stephen's book club.

By way of introduction, we are a group from St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in Surrey Hills, Victoria. We want to encourage each other in reading helpful books, and will use this blog to share our comments on what we have read. Other people may also comment on this book, or even on our comments, if they wish.

Our aim is to read two or three chapters each week and then comment on these. In some weeks people may be exceptionally busy, and we understand that. However, we do want to encourage each other with setting goals which we think are achievable.

Noel, one of the blog owners.