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Pastors and Working Hard pt 3
By jason | January 2, 2008
Pastors and Working Hard pt 1
Pastors and Working Hard pt 2
I want to pick back up on the series I began before Christmas and add one final thought to the fray. In part two I spoke of The Work of the Word which I described as every ministers need to be disciplined at studying God’s Word and spending time with him in prayer.
I would argue it’s not enough to lock oneself away in the study to study, pray, and meditate. Ministry necessarily entails relationships, for many reasons. In fact, I’d contend that the context for life and ministry is community. In this piece I want to add another dimension to the hard work of ministry.
The Work of the World
In my estimation too many pastors take Ephesians 4.11-12 and apply it solely to their Sunday morning teaching ministry. While that is surely part of what it means to equip the saints for he work of ministry it is not enough. Don’t misunderstand me, the Word is powerful and can have an effect on people immediately. But we would do well to notice the ministry of Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others in the NT. They did not think it enough to teach and write to the masses alone, they spent significant time with real people.
This work of the world, as I’m calling it, is the work of relationships. If I’m going to help equip people I must be involved with the lives of real people. If not we will be hard pressed to do better than condemn people with the information (by proclaiming what to do without showing them how to do it).
Study and prayer in a vacuum is not valuable for those to whom we minister. We must understand what real people are facing and we must help individuals grow in their relationships with Christ, reproducing ourselves in others.
Here are some things I have found helpful over the years:
Overarching all these suggestions is a framework that will allow us to know how to actually disciple others. So the place to begin is there. If you don’t know what it would look like to disciple someone then you need to do whatever it takes to learn how to do so.
1. We need to have people we are discipling (this entails reaching people for Christ and growing people in Christ). I can’t help but think the western classroom approach to discipleship has been unsuccessful in developing fully devoted, reproducing followers of Christ. We’d do well to look to Jesus and others as our examples for disciplemaking.
Sure, spending one-to-one time with a few isn’t as sexy as speaking to a large crowd of 500, but at the end of the day it might be more meaningful.
Question: Who are are handful of people in your life, right now, that you could develop a discipling relationship with?
2. Disciplemaking needs to become the norm. To many think that disciplemaking is good but is for the super-Christian. One of my goals in life to help create a culture where disciplemaking is the normal Christian life.
3. We need to train people to do what we do. We need to continually seek to reproduce ourselves in others (clearly this means we need to examine ourselves… do I really want people to look like me?) I think training has to be core to equipping the saints for the work of ministry.
4. We need discipline. If we’re going to spend time with people we must become disciplined to do so. It is easy to become well intentioned and yet fail to disciple others. This is hard work, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
5. We need to become intentional disciplemakers. In my mind the work of the world is a process where I proactively seek out others to disciple. This is, primarily, a sit in your office and see if anyone calls to set up an appointment discipline. This is a rigorous seeking out of others to invest your life in.
In all I would argue that if someone is not actively making disciples on a very relational level (contra speaking to the crowds alone) they are failing to fully equip the saints for the work of ministry. If life on life ministry is not present then I wonder if ministry is really happening.
But the good news, as always, is because of the gospel there is hope that my tomorrow can be different than my yesterday. It doesn’t matter how well or how poorly I’ve done at working hard, or hardly working, tomorrow is a new day. And we all have a chance to set a new course, a new direction when it comes to our work in the kingdom.
For discussion: In your life who have been some effective disciplemakers? Who do you think of when you think about effective disciplemakers (current or historical)?
Topics: Leadership, LifeConnection |
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Speaking of sexy—nice site.