It’s good to talk about ministry. It’s better to do it, and do it passionately.
In 2008, the United Methodist Church lifted up “Four Areas of Focus” for ministry, and churches have responded. But at Ginghamsburg Church, in the rust-belt town of Tipp City, Ohio, the church has been doing exciting and effective ministry in those four areas for 35 years and more.
- Engaging in Ministry with the Poor
- Improving Global Health
- Developing Principled Christian Leaders
- Creating New and Renewed Congregations
The work has led to a host of creative ministries and organic growth…because they were meeting the needs of their community and their world as the hands and feet of Christ.
The book comes with a built-in facilitator Guide to encourage pastor peer groups and other leadership groups interested in deepening the discussion.
It’s good to talk about ministry. It’s better to do it, and do it passionately.
In 2008, the United Methodist Church lifted up “Four Areas of Focus” for ministry, and churches have responded. But at Ginghamsburg Church, in the rust-belt town of Tipp City, Ohio, the church has been doing exciting and effective ministry in those four areas for 35 years and more.
- Engaging in Ministry with the Poor
- Improving Global Health
- Developing Principled Christian Leaders
- Creating New and Renewed Congregations
The work has led to a host of creative ministries and organic growth…because they were meeting the needs of their community and their world as the hands and feet of Christ.
The book comes with a built-in facilitator Guide to encourage pastor peer groups and other leadership groups interested in deepening the discussion.
The Passionate Church: Ignite Your Church and Change the World
The Passionate Church: Ignite Your Church and Change the World
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Overview
It’s good to talk about ministry. It’s better to do it, and do it passionately.
In 2008, the United Methodist Church lifted up “Four Areas of Focus” for ministry, and churches have responded. But at Ginghamsburg Church, in the rust-belt town of Tipp City, Ohio, the church has been doing exciting and effective ministry in those four areas for 35 years and more.
- Engaging in Ministry with the Poor
- Improving Global Health
- Developing Principled Christian Leaders
- Creating New and Renewed Congregations
The work has led to a host of creative ministries and organic growth…because they were meeting the needs of their community and their world as the hands and feet of Christ.
The book comes with a built-in facilitator Guide to encourage pastor peer groups and other leadership groups interested in deepening the discussion.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781501815041 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Abingdon Press |
| Publication date: | 04/21/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 442 KB |
About the Author
Karen Perry Smith is Senior Executive Director of Ginghamsburg Church and Lead Facilitator at Passionate Churches LLC.
Read an Excerpt
The Passionate Church
Ignite Your Church and Change the World
By Mike Slaughter, Karen Perry Smith
Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2016 Abingdon PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-1504-1
CHAPTER 1
Developing Principled Christian Leaders
My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of thy name.
— Charles Wesley, "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing"
At the Core
During his three-year ministry, Jesus frequently attracted crowds for healing and teaching, but after his crucifixion most members of the five thousand families served during the miracle of the fishes and loaves were nowhere in sight. Jesus knew that the secret of creating a vibrant movement was not in drawing crowds but in selecting and growing a core group of disciples to serve as the movement's leaders. Luke 6 portrays how Jesus first identified the twelve apostles, eleven of whom would birth the early church. In Luke 10, Jesus sent out seventy-two disciples to proclaim that the kingdom of God had come near. Then in Acts 1 and 2, Luke reported that 120 believers gathered together after Jesus' resurrection and ascension to pray and await the gifting of the Holy Spirit.
These are not particularly impressive "attendance" numbers by today's church standards, but the true power of Christianity is at the core, not on the outskirts of a crowd. As Jesus reminded us in his prayer to the Father for the disciples in John 17:17-19, the leader's holiness — or sanctification — is critical: "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified."
Easy "believism" without sacrifice is not a viable shortcut, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer compellingly wrote in his classic book The Cost of Discipleship. John Wesley also understood that any thriving movement begins with impassioned and sanctified leaders who have caught a vision that transforms into a whole-life focus. Wesley's "methods" of holiness became foundational to the roots of the Wesleyan movement and the birth of Methodism.
Turning the Conventional Model Upside Down
My journey at Ginghamsburg Church started thirty-seven years ago when I crossed its doorstep for the first time at age twenty-seven. Ginghamsburg was classified then as a rural church, located three miles south of the village of Tipp City, Ohio, and sixteen miles north of Dayton, a small city with an approximate population of 140,000.
When I received the call from my United Methodist district superintendent letting me know that the bishop planned to appoint me to Ginghamsburg, I was serving as a youth pastor in a moderately affluent "country club" church in Cincinnati. The church had a good-sized budget, and I as its youth pastor had even bigger dreams. God had been working in and through the youth ministry that I led to grow a deeply discipled group of students who were ready to change the world for Jesus. Needless to say, I was ill prepared for an appointment to a small, rural, family-controlled church that was perfectly content to remain just that. I realized from the beginning that the biggest key to change would be transforming the congregation's mind-set from a consumer mentality to one that was missional.
Many of our United Methodist churches resemble what I call the conventional church model, as depicted by the triangle below. Ginghamsburg in 1979 certainly did.
In this conventional church model, the real power and authority are typically held by the middle layer — the committees. At Ginghamsburg, a church of ninety attendees when I arrived that shrank to fewer than sixty in my first six months, about twenty people staffed those committees, with the primary function of controlling and approving the ministry that I as the pastor was then supposed to go out and do. Clearly, one man or woman being the hands and feet of Jesus under the strict jurisdiction of a committee is not going to be effective. The pastor eventually becomes the cork in the bottle, limiting ministry and mission to the narrowest of confines. Given how pervasive the conventional church model is, it's no wonder we hear so much about pastor burnout. Over time, the pastor basically becomes the caregiver to a stagnant and declining congregation, and the mission of discipleship is never fulfilled. In a few years, the pastor moves on to another conventional church, and both the previous church and the new church continue in the downward spiral of stagnation that eventually leads to death.
My job at Ginghamsburg was to help the church transform itself from the conventional church model to one that more closely resembles the triangle depicted below, which I call the unlimited-exponential model.
When the church structure matches this model, the pastor is not the doer of the ministry. He or she becomes the vision crier, the equipper, and the behind-kicker, working to build and equip the teams who will then work through the entire congregation to deploy ministry and mission throughout the community and world.
As Ginghamsburg eventually moved into and embraced the unlimited-exponential church model, the servants of Ginghamsburg Church were empowered to impact hundreds of thousands of lives through a wide variety of ministries and mission initiatives that were dreamed, staffed, and deployed by the priesthood of all believers — not just the pastor.
Empowering Leaders Who Empower Others
I did not invent the unlimited-exponential model of what church can be. One of the first leadership gurus who named the need to empower lay leaders for the mission can be found in Scripture: Moses' father-in-law, Jethro. In Exodus 18, the Israelites under Moses' leadership and God's provision had escaped their Egyptian captors after four hundred years of enslavement. The Israelites were camped in the desert when Moses received a message alerting him that Jethro was coming to visit. When Jethro arrived, he became deeply engaged as he listened to Moses share all that God had done to free his people.
The next day, though, Jethro spotted a major stumbling block in Moses' management style. Moses would sit from sunup to sundown each day serving as the people's chaplain, commander-inchief, and arbiter, hearing arguments, settling suits, keeping the peace, and shepherding the flock. This role may sound familiar to many pastors, who find themselves scurrying from committee gathering to board meeting, from hospital bed to nursing home, while also trying to write an engaging weekly sermon — a perfect recipe for burning out or even dropping out. Jethro recognized immediately that this style did not represent the best use of Moses' leadership gifts and calling. He told Moses: "What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone" (Exodus 18:17-18).
Jethro reminded Moses that his best leadership gifts were prophetic teaching and visionary leadership, not being an arbitration specialist. As a result, Jethro advised Moses to become a leader of leaders, identifying and mentoring a cadre of godly folks who would listen to and judge the peoples' disputes. Jethro also wisely noted that some of these new leaders would be more capable than others:
"But select capable men from all the people — men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain — and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves." (Exodus 18:21-22)
Moses had the good sense to act on sound advice.
He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves. (Exodus 18:25-26)
When the pastor is the lone doer of the mission at the top of a lonely pyramid, the mission is limited and soon stifled. When the pastor becomes the equipper and deployer of the saints, mission multiplication is limitless.
The ultimate New Testament example of this leadership empowerment principle in action is Jesus himself. After deep prayer and discernment, Jesus chose and then poured himself into twelve disciples, eleven of whom would be the founding leaders of a movement that changed the world forever. What I have always found fascinating about Jesus' selection of leaders was their diversity. Look at the list in Matthew 10:2-4:
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
The group included fishermen, a tax collector, and even a zealot (part of a first-century political movement that sought to overthrow Roman rule). At first blush, these men would appear to have nothing in common. In fact, Matthew and Simon were in essence enemies, the former an agent of Rome's power and influence and the latter an advocate for Rome's overthrow. This inclusive selection and deployment of unlikely people created a movement that not only reset the calendar for all future days to come but is transforming the world to the present day. Note that not a single disciple was part of the ordained clergy class of the day.
When it comes to Kingdom work, there is room at the table for everyone. Jesus may have deployed diversity toward the greatest accomplishment of the ages — the establishment of his church — but he was not the first in Scripture to see the value of casting a wide net across the potential talent pool. Nehemiah 3 is one of those chapters in the Old Testament that we love to skip, since it has little exciting action and is filled with names that are hard to pronounce. Yet the people behind those names were chosen by Nehemiah to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem in only fifty-two days, an astounding accomplishment in an era before cranes, bulldozers, and power tools. The variety of wall laborers ranged from Eliashib the high priest to Levites, goldsmiths, perfume-makers, the sons of rulers, and the daughters of Shallum. No one was excluded from the opportunity to serve or lead.
Diversity is essential; however, it only takes us so far. Not everyone is called and equipped for leadership.
Deploying diversity in all its forms toward the mission is only one component for growing lay leadership within the church. The Bible has a great deal to say about the qualifications for leadership, and it deserves our consideration. Popular wisdom tells us that desperate times call for desperate measures, but we can never become so desperate that we risk the core leadership value of integrity. Our leaders, whether clergy or lay, must walk the walk and talk the talk.
Mind the Gap
Not long ago, I was part of a team of United Methodist clergy that spent time in England, revisiting the roots of our Wesleyan movement. Stops included many important landmarks from the ministry of John Wesley in York, Epworth, Oxford, Bristol, and London. In London we frequently took the subway, also known as the Tube, to move about the city. At each stop, a voice came over the public address system cautioning those exiting to "mind the gap" — in other words, to watch our step as we navigated the space between the edge of the train car and the start of the platform. If we weren't careful, the result could be painful, or even dangerous. The more I heard "mind the gap," the more the Spirit impressed it upon me as an appropriate aphorism for leading with integrity.
Too often, what we as Jesus followers, much less church leaders, claim as central beliefs do not match our core actions. There is a gap between what we proclaim and what we do. For instance, I suspect most of our United Methodist clergy believe it is important to take care of our bodies, the temple of the living God. Yet a 2015 report on United Methodist clergy health showed that 42 percent of the survey respondents were obese and an additional 37 percent qualified as overweight. The report indicated that this clergy obesity percentage was much higher than a demographically matched sample of US adults at large. Our actions as clergy, in other words, do not match our claimed beliefs in this area. Ultimately what we do or don't do is the real indicator of what we value. Watch what I do, for what I do is what I really believe.
Many of our church folks would claim a belief that being in regular corporate worship is important. Yet many church Baby Boomers have transitioned into what I call the "up and down" generation. Each Sunday they are either up in the mountains or down at the lake, spending time with grandkids and enjoying their relative affluence. I can relate — I love the mountains and my grandkids. But many of us who used to be in worship weekly now consider ourselves "regulars" if we show up once a month, or even once a quarter.
Once again there is a gap, as what we espouse and what we do fall out of alignment. Authentic, principled leaders within the church do not have that luxury. We must be ever mindful of the gap. That is one reason I pray each day, "Lord, today let me be who you need me to be and who my family believes me to be." As Jesus cautioned us in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
One of my favorite descriptions of a biblical leader is Psalm 78:72: "And David shepherded them with integrity of heart; with skillful hands he led them." Principled leadership requires both skill of hands and integrity of heart. We cannot abdicate either of those leadership criteria on behalf of the other. And yet in our humanness it is so easy to do so. Natural talent is easier to spot; discerning the integrity that must underlie it can take more time.
Even the prophet Samuel struggled to discern integrity in his initial anointing of David as the future king of Israel. As described in 1 Samuel 16, per God's instructions Samuel traveled to Bethlehem to anoint God's new choice of king after King Saul's character proved fatally flawed. When David's oldest brother Eliab appeared, Samuel was convinced that the tall, healthy, mature-looking young man had to be God's choice. God corrected Samuel, saying, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart" (v. 7).
Paul also was mindful of what it means to be a "principled" leader. In 1 Timothy 3:1-13, Paul advised his protégé Timothy about selecting leaders within the church:
• Those aspiring to leadership are to desire "a noble task," not self-promotion or self-aggrandizement (v. 1).
• A leader's public life must be above reproach; he or she must be temperate, self-controlled, and hospitable, and should not be a violent person, an overindulger in alcohol, nor a lover of money (vv. 2-3).
• The leader's private life must be in alignment with this public image. Leaders are faithful to their spouses, strong disciplers of their children, and successful managers on the home front (vv. 4-5, 12).
• Leaders must be well grounded in the faith, not recent converts; the stakes are too great. As Paul described, "They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience" and "first be tested" (vv. 6, 9-10).
• Leaders also need to have, or be coachable in, the necessary skills required for a given leadership position. Paul describes this for Timothy's list as "able to teach" (v. 2). In other words, as the psalmist noted, "skill of hands" is essential along with "integrity of heart."
Too often we are tempted to grab the first "Eliab" who comes along and appears to look the part. If you searched your pews in your mind's eye as you read Paul's list and came up wanting, your church may have another serious gap — a discipleship "gap" that we had better be "minding." The Towers Watson findings reinforce the criticality of strong disciples for successful leadership.
One of the key factors the report identifies as driving laity effectiveness in churches is the lay leaders' demonstration of a vital personal faith, including disciplines of prayer and Bible study, regular worship attendance, proportional giving, mission participation, and personal faith-sharing. These disciples rotated through multiple positions, using a variety of gifts in various servant leadership roles over time.
Further, the study linked lay leadership with pastor leadership: an important attribute of pastor leadership was shown to be the developing, coaching, and mentoring of lay leaders. Clearly, equipping the saints by empowering the priesthood of all believers is essential for accomplishing the mission of Jesus.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Passionate Church by Mike Slaughter, Karen Perry Smith. Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Welcome to The Passionate Church,1. Developing Principled Christian Leaders,
2. Engaging in Ministry with the Poor,
3. Creating New and Renewed Congregations,
4. Improving Global Health,
Epilogue,
Notes,
Facilitator's Guide,