In churches positioned to evangelize, members have confidence in the church and feel comfortable inviting outsiders to the services. Growing churches have built a culture that views evangelism as the norm.
—Calvin C. Ratz
Walking down the first fairway at a golf club, Don, a recent convert, told me about his work. He ran his own business, specializing in securing high-profile managers and executives for large corporations. “When they need a certain type of person,” he said, “they come to me. People call me a headhunter.”
That caught my attention. As I plotted how to land my four irons on the greens, I also thought about my job. Yes, I’m called to preach, pray, and visit the sick. But finding people to fill jobs—and finding jobs in which to place people—is a critical part of my ministry. I, too, am a headhunter.
More specifically, one ministry to which I am called to recruit people is evangelism. One church leader put the challenge this way: “I have no difficulty getting my people to serve on a church committee, sing in the choir, or even teach a Sunday school class, but how can I get them involved in sharing their faith with others? How do I prepare my people to witness?”
Whose Job to Witness?
Preparing people to witness begins with a conviction that lay people make the best witnesses, mostly because they are more strategically located to witness than ministers. So, if extensive evangelism is going to happen, it’s going to happen through them.
Tom is a mechanic who came to the Lord a couple of years ago. Many of his friends continue to drop by to talk about old times. One of his friends, a truck driver named Gord, was an introvert. He had no personal church experience, but he did have strong opinions about preachers and what he thought went on in church. The idea of conversing with a preacher turned him off.
However, Gord was intrigued by the change in Tom and started asking questions. Tom told Gord what had happened to him and how he could experience the same thing. Gord and his wife eventually came to the church with Tom’s family, and then Tom brought them to see me. We talked for a couple of hours, setting them at ease and sharing the way of salvation. The next week we met again, and Gord and his wife each committed themselves to Christ. The final decision was made in my office, but it was Tom who had brought them to a place of faith.
Tom’s friends were not afraid or intimidated by him. He was unencumbered by the negative images outsiders have of preachers and the church. In addition, he had just experienced a radical change in his life that was noticed by non-Christians. It’s the Toms in our churches who are the keys to evangelism, and growing churches are committed to helping their Toms reach their friends for Christ.
Consequently, evangelism in our church is primarily a lay ministry, a function of the whole church, a cooperative effort between pastor and people. If we limit our outreach to the specialists, the platform personalities, or the itinerant evangelists, we end up bottlenecking our growth. So, we try to create an environment in which lay evangelism is expected, and a large percentage of our people are involved in personal evangelism.
But this conviction about the priority of lay evangelism is not enough. We also have a strategy to make it an ongoing reality.
Make Evangelism Part of the Church Culture
One personnel executive told me, “Every company has its own culture. Some corporate cultures foster growth; others inhibit it. A positive corporate culture is the glue that holds the team together and engenders an atmosphere where creativity and achievement are the norm.”
Church culture is no less important. Every church has its unique identity and group values. It shows up in the way people think and talk about themselves as a church. Churches that feel good about themselves are positioned to evangelize, because members have confidence in the church and feel comfortable inviting outsiders to the services. Growing churches have built a culture that views evangelism as the norm, not a marginalized anomaly.
Excitement about evangelism can be created in a variety of ways, but one of my friends who pastors a vibrant church puts it best: “Excitement for evangelism starts with the pastor and leadership team of the church. Only then will it infect the congregation.”
As pastor I try to bring the evangelistic vision into sharp focus. I say and model the message: “There’s an exciting job to be done, and with God’s help, we can do it.” I talk, practice, and encourage evangelism.
Working with the church leaders, I’ve tried to build excitement about evangelism into the culture of our church in a variety of ways:
• We’ve made evangelism our theme for an entire year. We talked about evangelism and built a heavy evangelistic component into everything we did, including special outreach activities in every department. In Sunday services, we featured guests who were known for both their appeal to outsiders and their ability to gather a harvest.
That year we distributed gummed labels with the phrases, everyone a minister and i’m a lay minister in training. I Still see the labels on refrigerators and the covers of Bibles. The labels keep evangelism in the minds of the people.
• We’ve encouraged ordinary Christians to share their faith. Most Christians feel inadequate to witness and need reassurance about their ability to lead someone to Jesus Christ.
People need my encouragement, but they are more excited by living examples of evangelism taking place through the lives of others in the church. Consequently, we find people with positive witnessing experiences to share their stories during our Sunday services. Such testimonies are often the high point of a service.
• We’ve stretched the old guard. Perhaps the hardest people to excite about evangelism are Christians who’ve been around the church for twenty years. They’ve heard it all. Sometimes they’re cynical, and often they’re the most fearful about witnessing.
Exciting these veterans without antagonizing them is a delicate process. The key is getting them to do something that stretches their faith but is not so threatening it scares them away.
We saw a tremendous change in some of these evangelism drones as they participated in a prayer-visitation program. It wasn’t raw evangelism, but it did involve calling on church families they didn’t know. As we recruited the callers, most of whom never had done anything like this before, it was obvious they were terrified.
The visits were parceled over a three-week period, but by the end of the first week, many callers returned asking for more homes to visit. They were excited by what they had accomplished. Those prayer visits helped build confidence, so that now, many are prepared to take on other ministries that involve contacting strangers. Successfully completed ministry at this level built confidence to take on personal witnessing.
• We also publicly announce our priorities. At the conclusion of worship, I often encourage my people to make a difference in the world through the power of Jesus Christ. It’s a continual reminder that ministry takes place outside the church as well as in it. I want our people to leave our services feeling. With God’s help, we can witness.
• We use positive motivation. A church culture that breathes excitement about evangelism can’t be built on guilt. Enthusiasm is created by seeing possibilities, by seeing what God is already doing and by recognizing the thrill that leading a person to Christ brings. I find it easy to slip into guilt-producing vocabulary when trying to encourage my people to share their faith. But lately I’ve been working to eliminate vocabulary that produces unnecessary guilt: “If you don’t evangelize …” or “You should …” In addition, through preaching, bulletin articles, and personal contacts, I underscore that ordinary Christians without a theological degree not only can lead a friend to faith, but also that sharing our faith is the most fulfilling thing we can do.
It’s so thrilling when people catch the vision for evangelism. Recently we’ve been talking about retooling some longstanding programs to have a stronger evangelistic component. I knew we were getting through when one of our experienced members asked me, “When are we starting with this new emphasis? I want to be a part of what’s happening.”
Make Enlistment a Top Priority
Great sports teams are built through solid recruiting. Teams that consistently win replenish their ranks each year with quality young players.
The same is true in the church. Great churches don’t grow by chance; evangelism happens when people are recruited and then channeled into ministries that make it possible for them to make contact with those outside the church.
It’s not easy to enlist people into evangelism ministry. Witnessing can be the most intimidating thing a believer can do. Often it’s necessary to overcome apathy, fear, and even some theological misunderstandings to get people involved.
Preaching and other platform ministries can create interest, but it’s personal recruiting that activates a church’s evangelism ministry. Here are some things I’ve learned about enlisting others in evangelism.
1. Enlist through prayer. Jesus said, “Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.” Some have made those words the domain of world missions, but they apply to local evangelism just as much as the call to foreign missions.
One of my staff had been frustrated for several months trying to locate a new leader for one of our children’s programs. Under the previous leader, the program had become ingrown, self-serving, and a barrier to new folk coming into the church. We saw this as a time to refocus this ministry to include a stronger evangelistic component.
One morning, as he was praying about this position, he thought of a person neither of us previously had considered. It was obvious this person could do the job, and the next day he was approached. He accepted, and he turned the program around. A ministry that had become self-contained now has an outward focus, and the right recruit came through prayer.
2. Enlist new converts. Established church members may be good people, strong financial supporters of the church’s ministries, and even involved in running some of the existing programs of the church. But many are just not into talking about their faith to non-Christians.
New converts do. They take to sharing their faith naturally, so we don’t want to make the mistake of putting them to work staffing programs that serve the existing church.
Gary became a Christian a couple of years ago. Having few church connections, he immediately began sharing his faith outside the church. Within a year he brought a dozen of his family and friends to Christ.
One of our staff members recognized what was happening, so he encouraged Gary. He spent time helping him learn how to share his faith more and more effectively. Consequently, Gary continued to influence others. If we’d guided this new convert to meet the needs of existing Christians, we’d have lost a prime opportunity.
3. Enlist personally. Jesus’ disciples weren’t volunteers. They were painstakingly chosen one by one. It takes time, but there’s no short cut in effective recruiting. Announcements from the pulpit or blurbs in the bulletin rarely produce good recruits. Most good evangelism workers are individually recruited.
Individual recruiting is especially important in encouraging shy and reticent people to share their faith. Many timid people never will volunteer. But when we approach them personally, their confidence increases. Often, these folk are gifted and qualified. They simply need to be drawn into the work through personal contact and reassurance.
I’ve stopped recruiting in the rush after a service. It leaves the recruit with the impression that he was just the first one I came across. The best recruiting takes place away from the church building, when attention is more focused. People tend to respond to a task and perform in ministry according to the way they are recruited. Elevating the process of recruiting not only shows the potential recruit the seriousness of the task, but it also secures a higher level of commitment when the assignment is accepted.
4. Enlist to specific tasks with a time limit. When recruiting individuals for evangelistic ministry, particularly leadership positions, we’ve discovered the recruit needs to know exactly what he’s being asked to do. So we’ve developed written job descriptions for all the leadership positions in the church. That eliminates later confusion.
Putting a time limit on leadership positions also helps recruitment. Some hesitate to take on a new assignment because they’re afraid that once started, they won’t know how to get out of the job gracefully. Too many have taken on a Sunday school class only to find themselves stuck with it twelve years later.
Consequently, all our leadership positions are annual appointments. This gives us an out every year if we need to make a change. It also means a recruit can leave a position gracefully without appearing a quitter.
5. Enlist to lifestyle evangelism. Some free spirits never will fit the mold of organized programs, though such people may possess a strong bent for evangelism. In fact, most evangelism takes place in the normal flow of life, outside the framework of the congregation’s programs.
For example, one member of the church family. Bill recently had a business lunch with an acquaintance. The conversation eventually turned to spiritual matters. Over a sandwich and several cups of coffee, he had convinced his friend to trust in Christ.
When ordinary believers, in the normal course of life, respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to share their faith, great things happen. Preparing a congregation for evangelism means challenging and preparing each believer to seize such opportunities.
Enlisting people for evangelism is an ongoing job. Although we recruit annually for all our ministries, recruitment isn’t left at that. It’s at the top of my own job description, and it’s the mind-set I try to instill in my staff.
Train for Evangelism Continually
In his book. Thriving on Chaos, Tom Peters says, “Training has been IBM’s secret weapon for decades. At one point, the senior Watson had just a one-person staff—an education director. An ad last year featured an IBM worker at the company’s Lexington, Kentucky, site who had undergone major retraining a half-dozen times in a twenty-five year career to fend off technical obsolescence.”
Whether it’s IBM or Disney World, growing companies spend lavishly on training. They’ve learned that taking a person off the job and sending him through a training program not only increases his productivity, it also builds confidence and morale. Training costs are an integral part of annual budgets in successful companies.
In much the same way, training in the church has to be planned and budgeted. Sadly, many congregations spend a great deal on buildings and maintenance but little time and only a minimal amount of their annual budgets on developing people for ministry, especially evangelistic ministry. Yet we can’t afford not to train our people. Setting aside time and money for training may mean short-term inconvenience and cost, but long-range payoffs ensue.
We now include several thousand dollars in our annual budget for conferences and seminars that provide training for staff and members. We’re prepared to assist financially people who attend training seminars outside our church. In our annual church calendar, we also set aside time for training workshops.
Training has to be continual. There’s no such thing as a one-time training program that fits all the people for a lifetime of ministry. Aggressive corporations don’t simply retrain staff to avoid obsolescence but to maintain sharpness and commitment in their employees. Because we forget much of what we learn, ongoing training is essential to keep important information up front.
In order to build evangelism into every church department, we include evangelism training in the regular training we give to each department. Sunday school teachers are shown how to lead children to Jesus Christ, not just tell Bible stories. Our Wee College, a program for preschool children, is designed to lead children to faith in Jesus Christ, not just creatively teach them.
During Sunday school classes, we’re teaching our adults and youth how to witness, and we even practice witnessing to each other. The fear of failure, the fear of rejection, and the fear of people are accentuated in the church. People don’t want to disappoint a pastor or fail God in some way. Well-defined training programs go a long way in overcoming fear and building confidence.
Our training has three dimensions. First, we prepare people spiritually. Character creates credibility, and intimacy with God builds intensity, all of which makes for effective evangelism.
Training for evangelism, then, starts with spiritual disciplines and spiritual vitality. We begin by teaching people how to read the Bible and pray—genuinely.
This doesn’t mean people must attain a superior level of spirituality before they begin to minister. If that were the case, few of us would qualify. But a solid spiritual base must be established from which they can mature. After that, involvement in ministry spurs further spiritual growth. Knowing that others are watching is a great incentive for maturity and growth.
Second, we prepare people factually. Historically, a lack of information hasn’t been our problem. Many churches have been filled with overstuffed Christians who do little with their biblical knowledge.
But times are changing. There has been a significant decrease in Bible literacy, even among the churched. Our experience-oriented society places little emphasis on information. Our children and young adults may have genuine experiences with God but often little logical understanding of the Scriptures to back up that experience.
So, many new converts bring nearly complete ignorance of the Bible and spiritual principles. One 45-year-old man who has been a Christian for two years and has attended church regularly jolted me with the question, “Pastor, I’m confused. Did Moses live before or after Jesus?”
Evangelism training programs, then, can’t make many assumptions about a Christian’s knowledge. If we’re going to train people to share their faith, we have to make sure they understand their faith, as well as the techniques of sharing it.
Third, we prepare people practically. People need specific ways to share their faith. For example, if asked by a friend to explain how to become a Christian, many believers could give an adequate answer. However, those same people have trouble turning a secular conversation to spiritual things. They know how to answer the question, “What must I do to be saved?” but they don’t know how to get a friend to ask the question.
We teach our people to move conversations gently to spiritual concerns and then to ask questions like: “How would you describe a real Christian?” and “Do you ever think about God or religious things?” The answers to these nonthreatening questions clearly indicate a person’s understanding of the Christian faith. The more tools such as these that people have at their disposal, the more they’ll activate their witness.
I encourage people to ask this question when appropriate: “Would you like me to tell you the difference Jesus Christ has made in my life?” It certainly arouses curiosity. In some of our training classes, we have people write out and memorize a sixty-second testimony on “what Jesus Christ means to me.”
Another question: “Would you like to know how Jesus Christ can make a difference in your life?” Again, we believe it’s important for people to be ready to give a simple explanation of the gospel. We encourage the use of Billy Graham’s “Steps to Peace with God.” It’s understandable and covers all the basics, and Billy Graham’s imprint immediately engenders trust among many to whom we witness.
In addition, we’ve run a six-week course for those who counsel the people who respond to our altar calls. The training emphasized the critical nature of such counseling, the spiritual preparation required, the logistics of counseling in our church, and the special methods of counseling people who respond to a public appeal.
Successful training requires a training mind-set among the pastoral staff. Training is at the top of the job description of every one of our staff members. It’s not so much the programs we run as the atmosphere in which we counsel and interact with people that encourages people to start sharing their faith.
Consequently, some training takes place through the staff’s informal contacts with the members. For example, the other night my wife and I were having coffee with a church couple. Unplanned, the conversation turned to a discussion of their ministries. As we talked, I was called on to answer some questions this couple had about their church work. Though it was informal, this talk probably accomplished as much as a structured training session. Because it was personalized, I was able to apply my answers to that couple. Our staff is constantly on the lookout for such opportunities.
Encourage People to Persevere
Keeping people involved in evangelistic ministry is as critical as recruiting them to ministry. I’m thankful that it’s also easier. Retailers say that it takes five times more effort and expense to get a new customer than it does to maintain an existing customer. Likewise, I’m learning it takes less effort to motivate and encourage existing workers in the church than to recruit and train new ones.
These volunteers don’t work for pay, but neither do they work for free. Church workers, particularly those whose ministry is evangelism, are a special breed, a valued resource. They need to be handled with care.
Releasing people into ministry doesn’t mean abandoning them. When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two, he set them free to preach, witness, and heal. But when they came back, he took them aside to refresh them. I imagine he offered encouragement and assessment, as well as further teaching and instruction. He likely celebrated their victories and answered their questions.
I encourage my people by trying to be present and involved in their ministries. I show up often enough to indicate I care and absent myself enough to show I trust them.
Most new programs, particularly those associated with evangelism, stall around the nine- to fifteen-month mark when the reality of launching a new program settles in. Sometimes there’s opposition or misunderstanding. Sometimes there’s conflict with other programs. Some good people just don’t have what it takes to sustain a new program.
One cure for discouragement is pastoral encouragement to combat the inertia that plagues almost every new program. Normally it doesn’t take a lot to encourage workers. Most compliments take less than a minute. I make every effort to thank people and celebrate what they’re doing to help the church to grow. Public recognition is invaluable.
More than Technique
I believe more people are lost to ministry because they are challenged too little than because they’re asked to do too much. My desire is to give people freedom to minister, not just to fill a position. I want to give them substantive ministry, not a token.
When I do that, and back them with encouragement that’s genuine and expectations that are high, they will witness to the hope that is within them.
Randy, a sharp, young executive, was climbing the corporate ladder. It seemed he was getting a promotion every few months. But Randy’s heart was in serving God and sharing his faith. He wasn’t afraid to talk to his colleagues about his Lord.
Randy and I spent hours together discussing church work, the meaning of Bible verses, and ways to serve God. Whether it was in my office or after a strenuous game of racquetball, we tossed around ways of sharing our faith and making contact with those outside the church.
One Saturday evening a pastor from a neighboring church phoned to say he was seriously ill and asked if I had someone to preach for him the next morning. I gave Randy a call, and though he’d never preached before, he agreed to do his best. He stayed up most of the night studying and praying, and then spoke the following morning. He did a respectable job, I heard. And the unleashing of his talents brought growth and expanded his appetite for ministry.
In the end, of course, it’s the Holy Spirit who excites God’s people and mobilizes them into an army of spiritually motivated lay evangelists. He creates an internal motivation, a lasting excitement, and a sense of urgency.
We can’t take the place of the Holy Spirit. He’s sovereign and moves in ways we’ll never fully understand. But we must always acknowledge and make room for the Spirit’s ministry, for he is the ultimate motivator for evangelism. Without him, our efforts at rousing an apathetic church are futile.
Getting the Right People in the Right Places
Our task is to discover the untapped resources already within the congregation. I wanted a way to draw out from each person what God had especially equipped that individual to do.
—Frank Tillapaugh
I want to get involved, but I don’t know where I fit.”
“I’m not ready to do ministry. In fact, I could use some ministry to me first.”
“I want to do something, but I’m not sure I have anything to offer.”
We all hear such comments often in ministry. I recognize them as expressions of a basic Christian need: to be useful and adequately equipped for ministry.
The church’s traditional approach—fitting people into existing slots in the church’s ministry—doesn’t always meet this need. Nor have I found spiritual gifts classes, growth institutes, or seminars particularly helpful in encouraging and equipping lay people to reach out. Instead, they’ve often received a mish-mash of material, a muddle of messages, but no clear direction on what to do next.
Consequently, I began to look for a model that represented how the church could better meet this need, helping people become involved in useful ministries. I worked from two assumptions: (1) God has entrusted to each believer the necessary resources for what he has called that person to do. (2) God has given each church the people necessary to do what he has called that church to do. Our task is to discover the untapped resources already within the congregation. I wanted a way to draw out from each person what God had especially equipped that individual to do.
I looked for models of a structured but personalized approach. In the end, a financial planning model seemed appropriate. When people plan their finances, they first analyze their assets and liabilities. Then they develop a plan that will make the most of their financial resources. Through the efforts of two of our pastors at Bear Valley, Tim Robertson and Ron Oertii, this idea was developed and applied to personal resources. We called it “Spiritual Planning.”
There are three phases of the planning process. First, we ask each person to take inventory of the resources God has entrusted to him or her (like spiritual gifts, natural talents, and acquired skills). Then we propose potential ministries (based on the church’s needs and available opportunities) and job descriptions. Finally, we help the individual write a specific plan of action for the next twelve months. This plan includes measurable, attainable goals for growth and ministry as well as a system of accountability.
No doubt, other churches would do it differently, but here are the steps we use.
Taking Inventory
Linda had been a Christian for several years, but not serious about her faith. One day, she explained why to me. “I’m not sure I have anything to offer the church. I have no idea what special gifts or talents I might have. In fact, I’m not sure God even gave me any.”
Rather than immediately find Linda a position or program to work in, we decided the better way would be to help her discover the spiritual resources God had placed in her keeping. For example, Linda had been divorced recently and was feeling useless to Christ as a result. Instead, we pointed out that this life experience could be the beginning of her resource inventory.
An inventory of resources is more than a list of experiences, however. One man effectively taught trigonometry at a public high school. But he was frustrated when, in light of his experience, his church asked him to teach a Bible class; he was not an effective Bible teacher. Spiritual gifts and acquired skills are two different things, but both must be included in a person’s resource inventory.
In addition to natural talents, specialized training, and life experience, people also have God-cultivated concerns about others’ needs which intrigue them or keep them awake at night or drive them to action. Burdens for others give them goals and aspirations. These things together—experiences, gifts, aspirations—we call the “resource mix.”
At Bear Valley, people attend four sessions with one of our trained spiritual planners. The first three sessions focus on the resource mix. Before the first session, we give each person a questionnaire. It must be completed prior to the first session and covers a number of key areas.
The questionnaire also screens out the merely semi-interested because it requires extensive thought to complete. After looking it over, some people cancel their first appointment because they’re not ready to give serious thought to finding their place. We’ve found those people probably would not act on their discoveries even if they complete the process. On the other hand, those ready to serve find the questionnaire stimulating.
The Survey
The ten questions on the inventory explore spiritual growth from many angles. We encourage people to write their answers, but if that’s too daunting, we let them think through the questions and come prepared to discuss them.
1. Describe your personal, spiritual pilgrimage. What led to your conversion to Christ? What formal and informal training has contributed to your growth? What crises have you weathered? What have been your experiences in ministry? Also mention individuals who have greatly influenced you.
2. Is God “cultivating a concern” in you for ministry? What specific needs, issues, or situations particularly touch your heart? Do these concerns make you want to “roll up your sleeves” and go to work?
3. Up to now, what concrete steps have you taken to address these needs or get involved in these issues?
4. What do you believe is the general purpose of this process?
5. Specifically identify several things you expect to accomplish through this process.
6. Set aside these expectations for the moment and dream. Assume you had all the resources you wanted and needed, and that God would guarantee your success in anything you wanted to do. Describe what your life would look like ten years from now. Who would you be? What would you be doing?
7. Identify several resources God has entrusted to you (e.g., spiritual gifts, natural talents, acquired skills, experiences).
8. What is your greatest strength?
9. Are there any present barriers keeping you from living up to your God-given potential? If so, identify them.
10. Where do you need to grow the most?
The Sessions
During the first spiritual planning session, we go over the answers to the questionnaire. We ask permission to take notes on what individuals say and then move through the questions. We ask people to clarify or expand answers we don’t fully understand.
Then, typically, the leader will ask people if the process, so far, is meeting their needs. He’ll also give them permission to drop out at this stage if they’ve discerned this is not what they need. He encourages them to continue, and promises to work with those who do so. He reminds them, as well, of the exciting discoveries that lay ahead.
By giving people permission to back out, we give those who are not ready a graceful way out; we also increase the commitment of those who stay. By the fourth session, those who remain will then be open and ready for spiritual direction.
At the end of session one, we briefly go over the Meyers/ Briggs Type Indicator question book and answer sheet. We give an envelope with postage on it. People complete the MBTI and mail it back to us before the second session.
In session two we analyze the results of the type indicator and explain the implications. The Meyers/Briggs Type Indicator analyzes people according to four continuums, each of which describes a personality trait: Extroversion-Introversion; Sensing-INtuition; Thinking-Feeling; Judging-Perceiving. There are many combinations, each of which are summarized in four letters, one for each dominate trait the person displays. (For example, one person on one end of each continuum would be described as an ESTJ, at the other end, INFP, and somewhere in the middle, ESFP.) Naturally, we don’t pigeon hole people or make definitive statements, but use language like “You tend to make decisions this way.” Often, people find this analysis the most helpful thing we do in all four sessions. It gives them a clear and concise way to perceive and understand their God-given personalities.
At the end of session two, we provide information on spiritual gifts—listing those in the Bible. Then we ask each person to talk to others during the week about the impression he or she gives. How do others perceive him? What gifts do they feel she has? This provides interesting, sometimes surprising, information for people.
During the third session, we discuss spiritual gifts. We teach what the Bible says regarding spiritual gifts and encourage individuals to experiment and, within the context of ministry, discover their gifts for ministry. We discuss areas in which people have excelled in the past. We try to help people discover not one single gift, but a gift mix of two or three.
In addition, we try to notice patterns among all elements: life experience, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts. Brian Hathaway, pastor of The Atatu Bible Chapel in New Zealand, once observed that King David used his natural talent (music) to soothe a troubled king, his acquired skill (sling) to slay a ferocious enemy, and his spiritual gift (leadership) to produce a triumphant period in Israel’s history. Likewise, we believe God provides each person a unique resource mix.
At the end of our third session, we give a printed description of all the ministries of Bear Valley Baptist Church and the specific jobs within each ministry. In addition, we encourage people to imagine ministries they’d like to be involved in that don’t exist—yet.
The participants leave session three with two assignments. First, based on what they’ve learned, they pick three or four ministries that interest them. Second, they write an action plan.
A Plan of Action
An action plan is a specific, written procedure for spiritual growth and ministry. This “spiritual plan” lists goals for the next twelve months in seven areas: worship, instruction, fellowship, ministry, stewardship, family/friends, and personal development. We discuss the action plans at session four.
Since every person is unique, each final product takes on a different form. One artistically inclined woman presented her written plan in the form of a creative collage, while an engineer, Pat, came in with a four-page computerized printout. Others scribble their action plans on napkins.
Whatever the means, we want people to list attainable and measurable goals. For instance, here are the types of goals people set in each area.
• Worship. This includes both corporate and personal worship. One person may promise to attend Sunday worship more regularly, even when traveling on business or vacation. Another may decide to have personal devotions ten to fifteen minutes a day, five days a week. Again, we’re not looking for extravagant goals, but ones that are simple, manageable, measurable.
• Instruction. This category embraces participation in a Sunday school class or small-group Bible study, or following a “reading plan.” One person may commit to reading two books a month. Another may decide to listen to tapes that feature a Christian speaker. One fellow chose to go to a seminar on leading small groups, a gift he wanted to nurture.
• Fellowship. A Sunday school class or Bible study group may include fellowship as well as instruction. A church softball league may also suffice. The point is we need one another and sometimes must deliberately plan fellowship to make it happen.
• Ministry. After people have chosen three or four options from our opportunity list, they choose one ministry they will likely participate in. This goal describes when, who, and how ministry will be engaged in. We encourage people to try a particular ministry at least three months to see if the fit is right.
In addition to the niche in the church they are going to experiment with, we challenge people to begin praying for one personal relationship they can cultivate, with God’s help, as a ministry. They may not even know the person at this time, but we want them to pray about the opportunity. Over the next twelve months, they are encouraged to nurture that relationship for the sole purpose of sharing the gospel. We do it not so they can add a scalp to their belts, but rather to experience the adventure of personal evangelism, which is part of ministry, as well.
• Stewardship. This encompasses use of time and money. A minimum goal is to tithe. If people are tithing, they may choose to increase their percentage.
At this point, we often discover that someone is deep in debt, which has strapped their giving. In this case, a person may decide to meet with a financial counselor and become a better manager of financial resources.
We also ask people to be good stewards of their time. So another goal may involve cutting down the amount of overtime one works to give more time to ministry. Others feel called to cut back church involvement for the sake of family. Chuck was miraculously saved out of a drug culture. He was so excited about his faith that he jumped from one ministry to another, one fellowship group to another, and he never stayed with one thing long enough to truly benefit. In addition, he wasn’t spending enough time at home. During spiritual planning Chuck asked, “I need some fine tuning. What do you think?” Because of the spiritual planning process, one of our pastors (Chuck’s spiritual planner) was free to say, “You need to withdraw from your small-group Bible study. You’re getting plenty of instruction in the seminary classes you’re taking. At this point, regular time with your wife is more important than the extra instruction.”
Balancing family, career, church, and community is difficult. At times we simply encourage a commitment to ongoing evaluation—committing, for instance, to sit down each month to discuss the balance with family members. Most people find this feasible (and measureable).
• Family and close friends. We ask each person to list particular goals in regard to their family and friends. Some couples decide to have a date one night each week. One man vowed to travel to see both of his adult sons within the next year. He had not been a Christian when they were growing up, and so it was important to him that they see his lifestyle now.
One single woman who yearned to be married decided, with the encouragement of her spiritual planner, to change her hair style and work on her weight problem; she wanted to look as attractive as God made her to be.
• Personal development. We also ask people to accomplish something they have always dreamed about but have never done. One person finally took banjo lessons. Another man climbed a number of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountain peaks. Any kind of development that stretches someone personally is encouraged.
Workable Accountability
This plan works, of course, only if accountability is built into the process. We’ve tried to prevent the staff or the spiritual planner being the ones holding people accountable. Otherwise, when people are accountable to us, we notice that they disappear around corners when we wave to them at church!
Instead, we’ve tried to build an accountability system with peers of the same gender. A couple might choose another couple, but in most cases, the wife and husband each choose somebody different. In any case, each person is asked to identify a peer or mentor who will serve as an “accountability partner.” A minimum of four meetings (one per quarter) are scheduled during the year, about which the church office gently reminds people by postcard.
The accountability people act as mirrors, not judges. They hold up the plan and help people look objectively at their goals and analyze their success at fulfilling them. If people aren’t meeting their goals, the accountability people simply ask, “Why?” They don’t dole out punishment; they discuss reasons. They suggest possibilities: “Do you think you should call your spiritual planner back and redefine the goal?” “Do you think this goal is stretching you enough?”
Does It Work?
An effective plan is one that does two things: (1) results in a more dedicated and distinctively Christian lifestyle in people, and (2) puts people in specialized ministries. Sharon is one example of how the system has worked.
Sharon had a background in Christian education. She had taken seminary courses and taught Sunday school classes. But this ministry did not fulfill her. During her spiritual planning process, we learned several key facts about Sharon: she had expertise in computers and could write programs in four languages. In addition, she was concerned about, among other things, people withdrawing from cults.
Bear Valley has a ministry called Shield of Faith which targets people coming out of cults and aberrant Christian groups. And, at the time, Shield of Faith desperately needed someone to work with their computers—a matched set! Later, when Sharon’s career led her to another city, she wrote us that the spiritual planning process was some of her most beneficial time spent in Denver.
Many people, of course, are involved in Sunday school classes and other normal church activities when they begin the planning process. And many, as a result, don’t change their commitments. But afterward, they’re engaged with greater purpose. Many now say, “I know why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
And that not only strengthens them, it also solidifies the whole church.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
