Positioning a church for evangelism goes far beyond implementing a program or hiring additional staff. Ultimately, it takes a corporate change of heart.
—Calvin C. Ratz
An ad by the Canadian investment firm Nesbitt Thompson featured this line: “Anyone can ride a bull, but it takes discipline to dance with a bear.”
That’s true, as any investor knows. When a “bull market” is surging ahead, as it was through the early 1980s, everyone makes money. But when it’s a declining “bear market,” that’s not the case.
Pastoring has its equivalent. A friend, who’d never experienced significant growth in any of the churches he’d pastored, has suddenly enjoyed a spurt of numerical growth. “I’m not doing anything different,” he claims, “but all of a sudden our congregation is expanding rapidly.” That pastor is riding a bull market.
The fact is, several other churches in his community are experiencing similar growth. The demographics of his community, the subculture of his congregation, and an influx of transferees have all coalesced to nearly double his congregation in a couple of years. It has revitalized his church.
Many of us, however, are in a bear market. We work hard for every convert. We struggle to maintain our gains. It takes discipline to dance with a bear—the discipline of developing a long-range strategy and a balanced philosophy of ministry, the discipline of rejecting passing fads and apparent quick fixes, the discipline of developing personal character and integrity.
I began at my present church just over seven years ago. For the most part, I’ve danced with a bear. Growth has been neither automatic nor easy. In the process, I’ve had to come to grips with my own approach to ministry. I’ve had to discover how to direct the church’s spiritual energy toward evangelism, when for years it’s been comfortable with the status quo.
One Sunday morning, shortly after arriving, I asked the congregation of about six hundred how many of them had been converted to Christ in the previous two years. I was trying to excite the people about what God was doing. Just six hands went up. Obviously, any growth had been transfer growth.
That brought my job into sharp focus: I had to move the congregation beyond its proud history to the point of wanting evangelism and making it happen. Since then, I’ve discovered the frustrations and joys of seeing a well-established church come to grips with its mission.
There’s no three-step, money-back-guaranteed approach to positioning a church for evangelism. Rather, I’ve discovered it’s an ongoing process of personal growth and evaluation, coupled with sensitivity to the history and needs of the congregation.
Looking back, here’s what I’ve discovered is important for those wanting to create an environment in which evangelism flourishes.
Establish the Church’s Vision
A church, if it expects to rouse from lethargy, must know why it exists and what God expects it to accomplish. This means going beyond knowing that it’s God’s intention for all churches to evangelize. A church must discover God’s plan for its particular contribution to the kingdom. Some congregations are called to be spiritual hospitals, some social activists, some teaching centers. Still others are front-line attack forces.
The first thing I had to know was my own convictions. What specifically does God want to happen in my church, and how? Further, it wasn’t enough to have a solo vision for the church; key leaders needed to share the conviction.
So discovering God’s will for our church became a mutual quest. It all came together at a pastor-board retreat about a year after my arrival. There, following prior reading in evangelism and church growth, we sought the direction God wanted our church to head.
We asked two questions at the retreat: First, what should be the direction of the church? Second, how best can we reach our community with the gospel? I well remember the discussion. One man said, “We’ve got to get off the church parking lot and out into the traffic.”
Another observed, “We’re growing through transfer growth, not conversion growth. We’ve got to do something about the apathy people have for the lost. And, Pastor, I need a new passion as much as anyone!”
After considerable discussion and prayer, the board was unanimous: We were committed to growth, which meant constructing a larger sanctuary. In addition, we outlined twenty basic principles to follow in reaching these goals, such things as prayer, an emphasis on Scripture, an appeal to the unchurched, and strong pastoral leadership.
These principles were more than vague notions; we specifically described them. For example, we recognized that growing churches had one dominant preacher, rather than a rotating team. Consequently, I was asked to commit myself to the bulk of the preaching. I didn’t enjoy cutting back the staff’s pulpit access, but it was an action we felt we had to do to make an impact on the unchurched.
To be honest, a great deal of optimism pervaded the gathering, almost to the point of being unrealistic. But in retrospect, the euphoria was necessary and God-given. It provided the impetus to get us moving and face what was ahead.
After the retreat, we summarized our convictions on paper. Each succeeding year, we’ve hauled out that document to check our progress. There’s little we’d change today. It still outlines our basic convictions concerning where we should be going and how we feel God wants us to get there.
Excite the Congregation with the Vision
When a pastor blows the trumpet for evangelism, it can scare the congregation as much as excite it. The call to evangelism is first of all a call for change, and change can be threatening. So care is needed to woo the congregation toward evangelism.
Our pastor-board discussions brought unanimity, faith, and excitement. But we held the information to ourselves, proceeding slowly because we knew the importance of building confidence and trust. I was still new. Sheep won’t follow the voice of a strange shepherd.
Given my choice, I would have loved to proceed as quickly as possible to build the new sanctuary. But in rousing the congregation to fulfill its mission, I didn’t want to divide the church. Spiritual growth had to take place before there could be effective evangelism. Since we believed a healthy body would grow, we tried to go slowly.
Circumstances, however, forced us to go public with our vision more quickly than we had planned. Within weeks after our retreat, property adjoining the present church suddenly became available. We would either buy the additional five acres immediately to provide for expansion or we would forfeit the opportunity. But to buy the land would signal to the unprepared congregation our intent to grow. The land acquisition became the test of whether the congregation had the will for evangelism.
Our problem was that many in the congregation had been conditioned previously to think the church would handle growth through starting another congregation. It wasn’t that people had evangelistic vision; they just wanted to transfer growth elsewhere and maintain a comfortable size. So our expansion plans wouldn’t naturally sit easily.
A new vision for a church can be both thrilling and traumatic for the congregation. For those who buy the vision, it’s exhilarating; for those who are threatened, it can mean fear and confusion. We experienced the gamut.
From the time we learned the land was available, we had just four weeks to complete the deal. We announced the plan, shared our vision, called a congregational vote, and managed to carry the motion. But we weren’t able to bring everyone on board. We unsettled some cherished values. We learned that spiritual renewal and revival don’t often happen in a business meeting.
Sometimes leaders get so far ahead of their people that they’re perceived as the enemy. That’s what started to happen to us. We discovered about half the congregation was highly supportive, a quarter vocally negative, and a quarter bewildered. So after purchasing the property, we backed off and gave the congregation time to catch up.
The people had to feel a personal conviction for evangelism. They had to want to touch our community and grow. We used a variety of means to encourage people to fulfill the vision God had given us.
• The pulpit. The pulpit can elevate the vision from the secular to the spiritual. So I challenged our people with the needs of our community. I tried to keep the issue not how many people we could get to join our church but how many in our community were lost without Jesus Christ.
I tried to avoid guilt, a poor motivator with only short-term benefits. Its long-term effect is usually cynicism and fear. I did my best to affirm the pioneers by acknowledging that the strength of the church today is a result of their vision and faithful service.
• Conversations. Tom Peters, in his book Thriving on Chaos, suggests a leader should become the vision’s foremost itinerant preacher: “Do not let a single day pass without taking at least two or three opportunities to deliver a three-minute stump speech on the vision.” Wanting to be effective, I tried to develop ways to introduce our vision into most conversations and summarize our dreams.
A couple of questions helped turn conversations toward our vision for evangelism. I’d ask, “What’s God been telling you about our church lately?” and “Are you aware of some of the things God is doing in our church?” In the discussion that followed, it wasn’t hard to summarize what I believed God was saying to the church and how the collective leadership of the church was responding.
• Encouraging ownership of the vision. One of the deacons tipped me off to a nascent problem: “Pastor, some people think this is just your project. We’ve got to correct that impression.” Apparently some people thought I wanted a larger church to feed my ego. One person called the new sanctuary “the pastor’s pet project.” Because of this mistaken notion, we devised a program to share the vision yet take the spotlight off me.
We worked through the committees of the church, particularly our leadership council. At several council meetings, we dealt with the question: What will enable us to evangelize our community? We allowed time for free expression of ideas, fears, and concerns. Lay leaders chaired many of these sessions. I wanted others committed to the vision to answer questions to demonstrate I wasn’t the only one with the vision for change.
• Opinion leaders. We reached out through those we perceived to be congregational opinion leaders. These opinion leaders aren’t necessarily the elected officials. They’re simply the people who command attention when they speak. Their influence may be felt in a business meeting, but more likely it’s felt over coffee after church or in parking lot conversations.
I lunched with many of these opinion leaders to challenge them individually. Most are enthusiastic in their support; a few have remained aloof to the vision.
• Testimonials. For about a year, once a month we had someone share what the church meant to him and how he was praying for the church to reach out to our community. God spoke to the congregation through these testimonials. People began to realize that concern for growth was widespread.
One particularly helpful testimonial came from a man who’d been in the church about three years and who was working in the Sunday school. People heard the passionate concern of someone who wasn’t part of the church establishment or even closely associated with me. He described how the Sunday school was growing, how we had several classes meeting in hallways, and how the youth department was meeting in a nearby school.
His words weren’t the most polished, but the congregation was moved. We turned a corner that morning.
• An abundance of information and means. I asked another pastor what he’d learned going through a similar process. He said, “Give the people more information than you think they need.” That was valuable advice.
I learned the dangers of relying solely on verbal announcements for key information. The spoken word can be misunderstood and forgotten. In addition, at least 30 percent of most congregations is absent on a given Sunday, so the only sure way to inform all the people is through the mail. Though it’s expensive, it’s paid good dividends for us to communicate regularly with the congregation through the mail.
The board also circulated the “Facing the Future, Fulfilling Our Mission” document to the congregation. It detailed our goals and methods and outlined our ten-year plan, the projected growth for the community and church, the concepts of our expansion, and also the idea of planting another congregation.
While some folk will never take time to read such material, I learned that those who are slow in accepting a new plan do take time to read. The literature laid the plan out so there could be no misunderstanding.
• Themes and emphases. A well-stated theme can mobilize people to a vision. When the theme is visible continually—posters, bulletins, signs, bookmarks—it constantly reminds people of the church’s passion.
Each year we’ve set a theme tied to our overall vision of evangelistic and spiritual growth. We’ve used phrases such as “Growing Together” and “Building for the Future.” We called one year simply “The Year of Evangelism,” and during the year taught personal evangelism and programmed several special events, culminating with a Billy Graham-style crusade.
Gradually the vision has spread.
Reshape the Ministries
As a vision for evangelism begins to grow, new challenges emerge. First, it becomes obvious that many of the church programs are introverted.
We’re probably typical; most of our programs were geared to meet the needs of our people rather than touch those in the community. Our research indicated 95 percent of our ministries had little or no evangelistic focus.
For example, our Crusader program, a midweek activity for boys and girls, had plenty of children but no evangelistic component. In fact, the setup made it next to impossible for an outsider to join. The program not only didn’t evangelize; it was a barrier to growth.
We’ve since infused leadership with a heart for those outside the church. We’ve worked to make the program more porous, allowing newcomers a gracious and welcome way in. Now we’re aggressively looking for ways to bring in unchurched children.
All churches face the same pressures. The need to provide support and encouragement to existing Christians is legitimate, but it’s not spiritual harvesting. Growing churches find ways to build an evangelistic component into all their programs; they also establish programs that have evangelism as a primary purpose.
Second, there’s a need to realign the personnel in the church’s programs. Those with both a heart and an aptitude for evangelism can be shifted into positions where their gifts reap the maximum benefits.
We discovered, for example, that the secretary for our music department, a woman who spent hours each week arranging music books and supplies for our choirs, was gifted in sharing her faith. But she was buried in a church office, cut off from the people to whom she could witness. We’ve since redeployed her; she’s leading our neighborhood Bible studies and helping in our counseling ministries.
Not all department leaders live comfortably with the implications of the new emphasis on evangelism. Some find it threatening. Some of our solid workers felt good working among Christians but were intimidated by the thought of working with non-Christians. So we lost a few. But we try to help them find less threatening but equally important ministries.
Third, as a vision for evangelism takes hold, it becomes clear that a church has to rethink its target audience. It has to look outside its four walls to identify the groups it is most capable of reaching.
To be realistic, not only is our community unlikely to become fully evangelized, but also our church doesn’t have the capacity to reach everyone. So, without playing God, we’ve tried to identify those groups most apt to respond positively to the gospel in our setting. This enables us to target their needs and maximize the use of our workers. We’ve identified four groups we’re most likely to reach:
• The hurting. Naaman came to God at a time of crisis. Jesus attracted the diseased, the deluded, and the depressed. He appealed to the ostracized and the social misfits. It’s the same today; people in need are prime candidates for responding to the gospel.
The gospel has always appealed to those in the lower half of society. The trouble is, most of our people have been saved for several years. God has blessed them in the interval, and now they’re socially and economically removed from the most responsive segment of society. Yuppies and dinks (double income, no kids) don’t relate well with people on welfare.
We’ve tried to take this into consideration in planning for evangelism. Our youth, for example, run a monthly event called Sonshine Coffee House that is geared to the mentally and physically handicapped. It’s thrilling to watch our kids reading a story to a blind child or playing games with someone in a wheelchair.
• Young adults. Several consultants have indicated that churches usually grow in the 18-35 age bracket in which people are making major choices and establishing family lifestyles. So we’ve set up three age-grouped programs with these people, to reach out, to integrate them into the church, and to provide teaching and pastoral care.
We’ve tried to make singles feel welcome, not by segregating them (though we do have a singles class) but by integrating them into the life of the church. Each of our adult fellowship groups has a single adult on its committee.
Our monthly Ladies’ Night Out program looks to those outside the church. The evening provides instruction in such things as microwave cooking and Christmas wrapping but concludes with a brief explanation of the Christian faith. Currently about half those attending come from outside the church.
• The over-55 crowd. We’re discovering seniors are responsive to the gospel. I’ve baptized several in their 80s.
Our city has twice the number of seniors as the national average, so we’re programming to meet their needs with a monthly luncheon and a Wednesday program of table games and carpet bowling. In addition, our seniors’ choir sings at least one Sunday a month, performs cantatas, and appears regularly at community events. We have a seniors’ handbell choir, a seniors’ orchestra, and a men’s octet called “The Singing Grampas.” These people have time and talent to devote to the church. We just need to reach out to them.
• Children. Children are still the segment of society most responsive to the gospel. We’ve divided this potential harvest into two groups: children of church families and those from non-Christian homes.
We’ve seriously investigated our success rate at keeping our own children. Biological evangelism doesn’t happen automatically. To meet the need, we hold children’s crusades, and we’re reemphasizing Sunday school and several midweek activities.
One of our pastors has established an informal group for parents of older teens and young adults who aren’t living for God. He meets with these parents, helps them deal with their sense of failure, and helps them find ways to reach their grown children.
Upgrade Platform Ministries
What happens on the platform is critical because it touches newcomers and influences people on the fringe. Consequently, we’ve worked to upgrade our Sunday-worship effectiveness.
We don’t want to be so concerned about keeping the Christians happy that we make outsiders feel uncomfortable. Twenty-five years ago, 88 percent of Canadian university students said it was important to have a philosophy of life. A recent survey indicated that number has dropped to 39 today. People obviously have changed. The truth is, if we’re presenting the gospel the same way we did ten years ago, we’re probably missing the mark today. To hit the mark, we’ve worked out several goals.
• We will make church a positive experience for outsiders. Ours is an experience-oriented generation, not a thinking generation, and our churches have felt the shift. Those entering a church sanctuary today are more interested in feeling good spiritually than in gaining biblical knowledge. Inspiration has replaced information as the hot button in today’s church market.
This presents us with a dilemma, because religious experience without biblical knowledge fosters fanaticism and confusion. Fortunately, authentic, biblical Christianity does provide an experience. In the New Testament, both the gathering of believers and the public proclamation of the gospel to outsiders were intense, heart-moving encounters. People experienced relationship and emotion. There was joy, anger, conviction, sorrow, and tension. Everyone who touched New Testament Christians experienced something.
We want people to have a legitimate experience that brings them closer to both God and their friends. We may offer this experience through warm interaction in the foyer, the tasteful use of humor, soaring music, or a well-developed illustration that touches the emotions. We want all our services to lead to an encounter with Almighty God—the most heart-stopping, life-changing experience possible.
• We will provide a warm, relaxed atmosphere. I used to be all business on the platform, but now I’ve concluded every church needs a Willard Scott, the weatherman on nbc’s “Today” show who daily mentions some Boy Scout in Kansas or wishes happy birthday to some 101-year-old lady in Idaho. He’s a “people person” who creates a warm, caring atmosphere. We need more of that. No matter the size of the congregation, real people are important, and they’re interested in other real people.
Obviously the atmosphere of the service ought to usher people into the presence of God. But how does that happen? Today, more than ever, people respond to a relaxed atmosphere. People don’t want to come to church to be lectured, and they certainly won’t bring a guest to a setting that’s strained, heavy, or eccentric.
I’ve always striven for dignity in a service, but sometimes in achieving dignity, I’ve sacrificed the relaxed atmosphere people need. We’re working at closing the emotional distance between pulpit and pew. I often take time to chat with the people, although I try to keep it separate from the sermon. A friend of mine calls it “pastoring from the pulpit.” I want to be transparent, to let people see that those on the platform are essentially no different from those in the pew.
• We will waste no time. It’s amazing how easily worship time is wasted. Radio and television preachers know the danger of dead spots. The fact is, dead time hurts any service by inviting thoughts to wander. Here are some things we’ve done to honor the time of member and visitor alike:
—Eliminated 95 percent of verbal announcements. They’re in the bulletin, and that’s it. Interestingly, it hasn’t affected attendance at activities. Verbal announcements impress department leaders, but few others.
—Eliminated introductions of musical groups. The information is listed in the bulletin. Musicians are trained to be in place at the appropriate moment, so time isn’t lost while they’re walking to the platform.
—Tripled the number of offering bags used by the ushers. That cut four minutes from the time it took to collect the offering.
—Rearranged the logistics of serving Communion, saving about ten minutes in the Communion service.
• Preaching will relate to life. I’ve heard preaching called “the fine art of talking in someone else’s sleep.” Regrettably, I must plead guilty to putting more than one person to sleep on Sunday morning, and when I have, it’s usually because I haven’t been touching people where they live. Every Sunday, I have to earn my credentials, my right to speak. Paul told Titus, “Make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10).
If a church is to be evangelistic, the people in the pew have to feel the preacher understands them and knows what’s going on in today’s world. Illustrations have to be current. Facts must be accurate, statements substantiated. We’re not called to be pop psychologists, but we are called to lift up Jesus Christ in such a way that people recognize him as the solution to their frustrations, hurts, and despair.
I’m working on both the style and content of my preaching now more than ever before. I’ve developed four checks for my sermons that help me stay on track. First, I plan my invitation prior to writing the final draft. Every sermon is designed to get a response. Second, I try to write my sermon concept in seventeen words or less. If I can’t, my sermon doesn’t have focus, and I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Third, I write a description of one person I’m trying to reach and ask myself. Will this person relate to what I’m trying to say? Fourth, I ask myself, Will a non-Christian understand the language I’m using?
• We will provide special events and services especially for outsiders. People don’t want to bring a neighbor the morning the pastor speaks on stewardship. They want to know when it’s a good time to bring their friends to church. So we try to provide special events and services, and tell the people that these services are designed with outsiders in mind.
Recently several of our Sunday evening services dealt with age groupings: for seniors, “When I’m Old and Gray;” for young adults, “The Generic Generation;” and for those in between, “Handling the Middle Ages.” Other evenings hit contemporary issues, family life, and practical ways of coping with life. Drama has proved an effective way to explain the gospel to non-Christians, so we do three or four productions a year.
When the conduct of our services doesn’t go smoothly, it tells visitors, “This group doesn’t have their act together. They don’t care enough to look after the details.” And, sadder yet, it’s a statement to outsiders that Jesus doesn’t relate to today’s world. That’s the message we don’t want to communicate; that’s the idea we fight through a concerted effort to upgrade our platform ministries.
People like Bill make the effort worthwhile. For a couple of years. Bill kept telling me about Dave, a man he worked with as a mechanic in a maintenance shop. Bill asked me to pray that God would help him as he witnessed to Dave. One day, Dave responded to Bill and to the Lord and accepted Christ. Bill continued to work with Dave and helped lead him to spiritual maturity. Today Dave is fully integrated into our church and is, in turn, reproducing his faith in the lives of others. That’s the kind of church I want us to be.
Positioning a church for ongoing evangelism goes far beyond implementing a program or hiring additional staff. Ultimately, it takes a corporate change of heart.
Pastors can engender that attitude, but only the Holy Spirit can bring about an intense passion for spiritual harvesting. Dancing with a bear can be terrifying, but if the Holy Spirit is orchestrating the music, it will be life-changing and fulfilling.
Giving an Ingrown Church an Outward Focus
Too often we take our most committed people and make them rear-echelon bureaucrats instead of front-line officers. We produce managers, not ministers. We need to streamline our structures, freeing our leaders to be primarily ministers, not managers.
—Frank Tillapaugh
After a year of following Jesus Christ and being trained by parachurch organizations, my wife and I could have been told, “There is an apartment complex; move in and start a ministry.” And we would have understood: move in, meet people, present the gospel in a variety of ways, and perhaps hold a Bible study in our apartment.
Later, when I became a pastor, I found not everyone shared that understanding. If I suggested to church people, “Let’s have a ministry in that apartment complex,” they’d return a blank stare. They didn’t reject the idea; they simply couldn’t comprehend it. Terms like apartment complex, military base, college campus and the word ministry simply didn’t fit together. Ministry meant passing out bulletins, serving on committees, teaching Sunday school, and singing in the choir.
In short, ministry had little to do with reaching people beyond our walls. Ministry meant serving the people inside.
When I came to Bear Valley Baptist Church seventeen years ago, there were some good reasons for that. The church had gone through five pastors in the previous seven years. The congregation (attendance: forty) hadn’t made a payment on their building in two years. With all that going on, no one had the time, energy, or inclination to think about reaching people in the community; the focus was survival.
Before I came, for example, most of one business meeting was spent debating the merits of fixing the broken typewriter in the church office. They finally decided the church didn’t have the money to repair it, but a member who lived near the church owned a typewriter, so, the members reasoned, if the pastor needed one, he could walk down two or three doors and ask to use it.
We soon learned our church’s focus on internal matters wasn’t that unusual. Ever since, I’ve struggled, prayed, and studied to answer: What does it take to get a church to reach out to the community? How can we move beyond the “fortress mind-set”?
To my joy, over those seventeen years I’ve seen our church develop an outward focus. For example, currently we have twenty-five outreach ministries that target unwed mothers, jail inmates, international students, singles, the unchurched elderly, members of cults (and their families), and other groups. Here are some of the principles that have helped give an ingrown church an outward focus.
Bring People Face to Face with the Needs
The first principle in expanding people’s vision is: get them to see, up close, the great needs of the people in the community.
This is harder than it sounds, because many churches have value systems that don’t emphasize getting involved in the complex world outside the church. Before World War II, America retained a predominantly rural orientation, so American churches were built upon rural values: stability, harmony, intimacy. During the frontier era, for example, the Methodists and Baptists were tremendously successful in planting churches in rural areas, and the churches later were characterized by these values.
Since World War II, however, America has become increasingly urban and has adopted urban values: change, diversity, accepting conflict (and managing it), bigness, and mobility. Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, maintains that in today’s world we must leam to Thrive on Chaos (the title of a subsequent book).
Yet in many cases, the church has clung to traditional understandings that say, in effect, “God’s work is to be done in traditional, safe settings,” not in the world at large. Consider the burgeoning population of single adults. Over a decade ago we had a typical singles ministry in our church: seven or eight singles, who had been raised in Baptist churches, meeting in a corner of our building. Then I heard Ray Stedman of Peninsula Bible Church say they had baptized seventy-five singles recently. Why? They realized sophisticated San Francisco singles wouldn’t come to a church building but would attend a breakfast in a local restaurant. Of course! I thought. Let’s move the singles to a local restaurant.
The original room we rented holds one hundred people, and we filled it and then rented a restaurant in another shopping center. Soon those two groups gave birth to a group that met in a condominium clubhouse. The group of seven or eight has grown to over two hundred.
The rural values of harmony and intimacy and stability remain vital in an urban age, especially within small groups. But to minister effectively to those outside the church, we have to hold these values in balance with the need to reach out. We’ve found face-to-face apprehension of community needs can open up a tight circle. Let me illustrate three of many ways to help people loosen their grip on fortress thinking.
Some time ago, James Craig of the West Lafayette (Indiana) Christian Church wrote me about a creative idea: “One November Sunday, with no prior notice to our members (except for a few key personnel), we asked our congregation to grab their coats and head out the door. Chartered city buses carried us through trailer parks, sprawling new subdivisions, apartment complexes, stately old neighborhoods, and student housing. Carefully prepared scripts read by “tour guides” helped us see 100,000 people living in more than 52 apartment complexes, 150 subdivisions, 23 student dormitories, 15 mobile home parks, and 19 nursing homes. Half are unchurched, and informed estimates indicate that five thousand unchurched families in our community are open to enrolling their children in Sunday school, participating in Bible study, or identifying with a local church. What a challenge!”
An Australian pastor told me he took a man from his church to a funeral he was conducting. This member observed unchurched parents grieving the loss of their 12-year-old son. He was so overwhelmed by it that he asked the pastor for a list of all the families for whom the pastor had conducted funerals in the past five years. He invited those families to a grief group. Approximately thirty people attend the bimonthly meeting, and in the first three months, three have prayed to become Christians. There is tremendous power in coming face to face with the need.
I discovered this one week when I preached a message on helping the poor. As part of the message, I mentioned that in Colorado incidents of child abuse rose from 176 reported cases in 1971 to over 10,000 in 1981. “Half of these cases are in our Denver metro area,” I said, “and yet the head of Denver Social Services tells me she has only three hundred to four hundred volunteers to help these kids; the other 4,600 abused or neglected children have to be put on a waiting list.” At the end of the message, I said, “The invitation for this morning’s sermon will be given tomorrow night when the head of Denver Social Services comes to tell us what she’s up against.”
As a result of that meeting, nearly sixty members of our congregation signed up to help. Dubbed “The Care Company,” members of this group meet weekly with abused or neglected children, neglectful parents (mostly single mothers), indigent elderly, and juvenile offenders. The ministry probably never would have begun had not people been brought face to face with the need.
Spotlight Ministers, Not Managers
Another way to encourage people to minister outside the congregation is to highlight church members who do so. Unfortunately, in most churches the spotlight is given to those who manage, not those who minister. And the message isn’t lost on the congregation: The really important work here is to serve on a board or committee.
This emphasis on committees not only draws members to manage (instead of minister), it also focuses their attention on themselves (rather than the world around them). When I came to Bear Valley, forty people attended, and the constitution required approximately twenty committees. I was shocked that this struck no one as odd. Everyone groaned about the committees, most of which were not functioning, but it hadn’t occurred to them that there might be a better way to run a church. To solve this problem, I insisted—as one of the conditions of my accepting the pastorate—that the church restructure into a single deacon board.
My experience combating committees is not unique. Several years ago I was invited by a pastor friend to attend his church’s monthly council meeting. The church had ten boards, and the ten board chairs formed the church council, which led the church. My friend lamented that church members were fighting one another, and the church had almost no ministries beyond its walls. Furthermore, the six to eight internal programs were faltering. Essentially, he said, they didn’t know where they were going, and they weren’t having any fun getting there.
The council meeting opened with prayer, and then the chairman said, “Let’s hear the minutes of the last month’s meeting.” But before the minutes could be read, one of the council members interrupted: “What is our guest doing here?” The chairman explained that when they finished their business, I would speak about developing strategies for outreach. The questioner responded, “I don’t think any outsiders should be in this meeting. What we’re discussing here is none of his business.”
The chairman, now clearly upset, said, “I really don’t care what you think. Let’s read the minutes and get on with the meeting.”
The antagonist insisted, “No outsiders should be in this meeting, and if you won’t ask him to leave, I insist we take a vote.”
Two voted for me to leave, four voted for me to stay, and four abstained. The pastor told me later this incident typified the bad blood between the chairman and the other man.
The next week I was speaking in New Mexico, and during a break, two men told me about their ministry in local bars. They pray for an hour two mornings a week and on those evenings spend time in designated bars as “bar chaplains.” When we finished talking, the younger man threw his arm over the shoulder of the older man, and they walked off, clearly enjoying their ministry and each other.
As I watched them go, I thought. What’s the difference between these two men and the two I met the previous week? Then I recalled a speaker’s illustration that encouraged people to stay on the front line of ministry. “In war,” he explained, “there is only one objective on the frontline: defeat the enemy. Everyone pulls together; there’s no time to complain. But when you get a few miles behind the front line, everyone is complaining—about the food, the mail, the weather. When you leave the front line, griping becomes a way of life.” I realized these two men were front-line officers; the ones I’d met the week before were rear-echelon bureaucrats.
But too often we take our most committed people and make them rear-echelon bureaucrats instead of front-line officers. We produce managers, not ministers. In Leaders, Bennis and Nanus observe, “The problem with many organizations, and especially the ones that are failing, is that they tend to be overmanaged and underled.” We need to streamline our structures, freeing our leaders to be primarily ministers, not managers.
We begin by encouraging our people to minister, not manage. A key way to do that is to reverse the normal process and highlight those doing ministry. Some churches display pictures of the elder board in the church foyer. We think it’s better to put up pictures of people leading ministries. We list the lay leaders of our target ministries on the back of our weekly bulletin and in our visitor’s brochure. At our annual Celebration Sunday, a slide show highlights the people involved in our ministries. Occasionally people set up in the foyer displays about their ministries. As a result, although few people can identify our deacons, many recognize the leaders of our ministries.
After a while, that message begins to change things. We have in our congregation a doctor who is a pastor’s son. He was raised in the church and believed that playing a significant lay role in the church meant serving on a church board. He has served two terms on our deacon board, in fact. But when he caught the fire for ministry, he decided to open a medical clinic in the inner city. He now earns his living by working half-time in a suburban practice and donates his remaining time at the clinic. I doubt he would accept an invitation to be nominated for the deacon board again, because he’s tasted ministry and found it more satisfying than management.
We tell our deacons, “Your management here is critical, because you’re the only ones doing it.” And we take them on an annual retreat and thank and encourage them there. But we’re honest with them: “You’re in a context in which managers don’t get lots of attention.” We have to find deacons who are cut out of true servant material, who can thrive in a behind-the-scenes role. We resonate with Acts 6: Let’s find some qualified people who can handle the distribution of funds, so that we can free the others to do the more important work of ministry.
Give Everyone Permission to Minister
Whenever I talk about getting lay people involved in ministry, one of the major concerns is, “How do you train them?” My answer is, “Life has probably already trained them.” In our congregation, for example, we have a lawyer who began a mediation ministry. An occupational therapist began serving the physically disabled. Four couples, after reading Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, began our street ministry. The point is, every one of these people drew upon his or her life experiences to begin an effective ministry.
But in many churches, we pastors are afraid people can’t minister until they’ve been trained, and training, we assume, means giving knowledge as colleges and seminaries give knowledge. (Naturally, we cognitively trained leaders reproduce what we have experienced.) Training means receiving content. As a result, I’ve found most lay people are convinced they don’t have enough knowledge to be real ministers.
But when the focus is on skills, lay people are encouraged: life has given them skills, and they know it. I’ve watched a host of people who probably wouldn’t perform well in the classroom do a great job in ministries. Probably none of the people I mentioned above could define sacerdotalism, but they can design, lead, and participate in significant ministries.
So over the years, we’ve underscored that in the Great Commission Jesus already gave everybody permission to minister. If people want our church to recognize their ministry, however, they must follow four simple guidelines:
1. Don’t ask for money (unless you’re willing to have your ministry proposal decided by those responsible for the budget).
2. You, not a staff person, must run the ministry. (To put it negatively, you’re not at liberty to create monkeys for other people’s backs.)
3. Stay out of morally questionable areas.
4. Stay out of doctrinal disputes.
If they adhere to these guidelines, they already have permission to launch the ministry. (The thinking behind these guidelines will be explained further in Chapter 8.)
We seldom have to say no to someone, but if we do, these guidelines keep us from being accused of favoritism. Most of the time, however, the four simple guidelines give people who didn’t think they could minister the permission to plunge ahead. As a result, nearly all of our outreach ministries have come from the minds and initiatives of lay people. Some members, for example, saw the needs of step-parents and started a support group for them, which has proven tremendously effective in reaching unchurched remarried people.
Don’t Train Too Soon
Although effective ministry doesn’t require extensive knowledge, training remains helpful. In fact, lay people today have greater training resources available than most clergy have had throughout history. The trick, though, is not marshaling plentiful resources, but timing the training. It’s usually best to wait to train people until they are already immersed in ministry. Training doesn’t produce ministry. But once God’s Spirit moves and ministries begin, training enhances ministry, because people involved in the challenges of daily ministry yearn for greater effectiveness.
When I came to Bear Valley, I introduced the church to Evangelism Explosion. We ran the program and introduced people to Christ. The moment we’d halt the program, however, we wouldn’t hear any more stories of members leading others to Christ. The program hadn’t developed into a lifestyle.
The problem, I realized, wasn’t the program; it’s excellent, and we still use it. The problem was the timing. People weren’t already involved in the lives of non-Christians, so they didn’t fervently want to learn how to share their faith effectively. I wasn’t building on what they were already doing. So as long as I called the meetings and got the people out and oiled the machinery, people were won to Christ. But it was incredibly draining since conversions depended on my continually keeping the program cranked up.
Now, we offer training after most members are involved in ministry, and I hear about conversions through more natural ways: A young woman who attends our ministry to mothers of preschoolers is led to Christ during lunch. A student from Japan writes to say she’s become a Christian through our international-students outreach. The members who take Evangelism Explosion training now usually come hungry to hear because they’re involved in a ministry in which they can use the skills.
In addition, we offer MIT (Ministers in Training)—Bible-college courses on topics such as church history and systematic theology. For years we’ve used the Navigators 2:7 discipleship program, materials from other parachurch groups, and programs we’ve written ourselves. Recently we’ve developed a ministry of “spiritual planning,” in which we tailor an individual discipleship program to a person’s experiences and needs.
However, the primary element needed to do ministry is desire, not training. So we tell people, “You don’t need training to do ministry. However, once you’re involved in ministry, the training can help you become more effective.” And that’s when we offer it.
Bend with Building Needs
Separating church ministry from the church building jars many people. And some church-growth adherents unintentionally foster dependence on buildings when they stress the need for parking and large nurseries, and declare the three most important factors of growth are location, location, and location.
We’ve grown in an inadequate facility in a part of the city where churches haven’t grown for over a decade. It’s not due to the location or facility; nor have we greater access to God. I attribute our growth to our flexible mind-set. Other things being equal, maybe the three most important things about church growth are flexibility, flexibility, flexibility!
Some of our ministries—particularly music and Christian education—would benefit greatly if we relocated. A contingent on our deacon board occasionally points out the liability of our cramped facilities. We get comments about the lack of adequate parking.
Improved facilities would be nice, but they don’t fit our philosophy of ministry. We’re not against big buildings, but we don’t want to build one simply to house internal ministries such as choirs and Sunday school. We want to look outward, and we’ve learned we can do that even with fairly limited facilities. We’ve developed multiple “congregations,” and we hold ten services each Sunday morning, one of them at a junior high school.
A Long Journey Begins with Patience
Options for ministry abound. Every hurting and confused part of the culture represents a great opportunity. The average church can become a powerhouse of ministries penetrating the culture. But the process won’t happen overnight.
I began teaching these principles in 1971, and it was 1977 before we started our first ministries beyond our walls. It took six years to create the necessary mind-set to mobilize people for ministry. But God is not in a rush. The most important thing is to get started in the right direction.
A man in our church wanted to set up country-club dinner parties to reach unchurched executives. He had connections with some of Denver’s prominent business people, and we were excited about the prospect for outreach. We announced a brainstorming meeting for anyone interested in the ministry. Nobody came.
A year and a half later we announced another start-up meeting for such a ministry, and a few people came. At the first dinner, eighty executives turned in cards indicating a decision for Christ, a desire to join a Bible study, or a request for more information.
For some reason, we got put on hold for eighteen months. But when the ministry began, it took off. We were reminded to stay dose to the Head and wait for him to release the desire to minister.
Copyright © 1990 by Christianity Today
