#15
This is real team ministry.
This group meets regularly to design and build the organizational structure, set policy, and formally make the decision that the Lay Pastors Ministry is “just what our church needs.” Four to twelve people are sufficient, depending on the size of the church and the number of people who share the vision. As soon as the ministry is in place the group shifts from production to maintenance, following its birth with guidance through infancy, adolescence and mature years,. This MLG has ongoing “ownership” of the ministry. One way to successfully form a MLG is to assemble interested and concerned people and covenant with those who share the vision to meet regularly to;
- Study the book, Can The Pastor Do It Alone?, other relevant books and papers, and search the Scriptures for fundamental guiding principles.
- Work together collegially, openly speaking thoughts, ideas and convictions without pushing a personal agenda, and listening seriously to one another. Mutual love and respect allows the synergistic principle to work, producing a ministry that is far more effective than any one person could design.
- Pray for the Spirit’s guidance in developing the ministry, and pray for one another.
The agenda for the MLG meetings should include five parts:
- Log-in (Each one tells the highs and lows of their lives.)
- Worship (Not long, not formal, but genuine)
- Nurture (Growth in ministry knowledge and spiritual life)
- Business (Ministry development)
- Fellowship (A time for snacking and small talk)
The tendency is for the group to do only business, but it is a mistake for people who design a ministry which delivers love and care to the congregation not to experience love and care from one another. Doing the business will be harmonious, joyful, and far more productive by including all five parts in most of the meetings. The following positions will need to be filled by individual members of the group: (1) Group Leader, (2) Ministry Leader, (3) Secretary, (4) Communications Coordinator, (5) Calling-forth Coordinator (recruiter), (6) Equipping Coordinator, (7) Koinonia Coordinator (fellowship), (8) Evaluation Coordinator.●
COMMENTS
in relation to Form a Ministry Leadership Group
Daniel M. Kigula(Uganda) says:
It was so difficult to identify my call and encounter my spiritual gifts that God created in me until the Lay Pastors Ministry established in Uganda.
My life started to grow spiritually when I and my senior pastor read the book “CAN PASTOR DO IT ALONE?” written by the LPM Founder Dr. Melvin J. Steinbron.
We all discovered that there is a mystery in this book for it is a church empowerment gear with a strategic plan of uplifting new ministers and liberation of pastors for applicable church management.
My spiritual gifts manifested after first ministering as Lay Pastor in my mother church, then latter I was ordained to be a senior Pastor at Christian Centre Kiryankuyege the headquarter of LPM Uganda. I appreciate Dr. Steinbron for seeing far and obeying God’s voice to start this effective ministry.■
Jongtae Kim(Korea) says:
The Lord, who is the head of the Church, has given various gifts to the Church. These are gifts from the Lord. Verse 7: To each one of us he has given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The church is the body of Christ and has many members, and the gifts are the members that make up the body. For example, we have arms, legs, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and so on, which have been set apart from day one. None of the parts of the human body are particularly precious or valuable, but all are important. When each of these parts fulfils its function, we can maintain a healthy body.
First, let’s look at what the text teaches about the role of the pastor. It says that the pastor is to perfect the saints. The original word for perfect means to equip (equip). Equipping for what? To equip the saints to serve God’s people and to do the work of building up the body of Christ. The Lord has entrusted the church with the task of teaching and nurturing the saints as God’s people. No one can live as a proper Christian without hearing or learning the Word of God. Therefore, pastors are to nurture and lead the saints to perfection. In 1 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy how he, as a church leader, should nurture his members. Jesus tells his disciples how they should lead the saints as good shepherds. The Bible clearly establishes pastors as church leaders, and they are responsible for leading the saints well. For this purpose, the Lord has given them authority. Spiritual authority. This authority is given to ministers. It is the power and guarantee that enables them to carry out their ministry of teaching, nurturing, leading, and caring for the Lord’s sheep, the people of God. This authority does not come from man; therefore, the church must respect the authority given to the minister. This is because he is sent to the Church by the Lord, the Head of the Church, before he is called by the Church, no matter how old or young he is.
What is the role of the laity? If we look at this text from the perspective of the saints, it means that each of the first saints is to equip himself for the work of God. They are not content to simply attend church, but to develop their gifts and prepare themselves to serve God’s work. This preparation is not just functional, but it grows the character and life of the believer. Verse 13 says, ‘Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. We should have a desire to continue to grow in faith and character, not to remain passive in the status quo.
Second, this preparation leads to service. Service can be divided into two categories: service within the Church and service outside the Church. Both are, of course, God’s work. In terms of service in the church, the Korean church has grown through the zeal and service of its members. They prayed hard, evangelised, gave, and served in various areas of the church to grow the church. If you look at any church in the world, you will not find a church where the members serve as hard as we do. The partnership between pastors and laity in the church is very good.■
Byeong, Melvin University, says:
Are you doing ministry with real team? or alone? What that mean to you!
General care and particular care: What is that mean? This is also one of key concepts of lay pastor’s ministry. This is just like evangelizing and being an evangelist. Most of the church saying about evangelizing to be out there, but many people neglect and think it but not seriously, why? It is just too ordinary announcement so they think that’s not their job to do, maybe other’s they conclude saying nobody is going to do that or just a few.
Just like that, same happens in the lay pastoral care situation. In short, people care for others generally, just say “hello,” “how are you doing.” Of course many Christian is doing well in this level and they are very kind of people, very polite to others, but they are not interested in other person’s real life. Of course today’s society is very ego-centered, so churches are effective by those outer phenomenons. Anyway, most off people are doing general care. In some sense it is not real care, it is just interested in something surface.
Most of schools tend to teach only on the general care, and they are interested in getting the degree on that area, so real caring is far from their mind. CPE, as you know, trying to focus on the personal care, but it is limited into some particular unit, for instance hospital, correctional center, or nursing home, so on, and they just use those centers as training spot but not real caring.
That’s why Melvin developed lay pastoral care, which means individual care and also not short term care just as Stephen ministries but long-term care and longevity. Individual care is very important, of course some do group care very well, but in some case it’s not care but kind of leadership or management. Some people are doing discipleship making very strongly and they think they care for people, but I think that’s not care, just manage people, because most of discipleship ministry is consisted with 10 to 12 people in a group, so it not possible for one leader to care for 10-12 people, it is just management or we call it ‘general care’
What is particular care? It should be not more than 3-4 people to one caregiver. It’s not possible to care more than those numbers. And through the individual care, caregiver may grow themselves. Because they look at the person very closely. From far outside they could not see the person very well, so when they see and look at into their real lives, they see more in details. And our motto, slogan is “love with skin on,” and it gives us meaningful. People need this kind of care, so if we look at Melvin’s first book we can find a lot of real caring stories. I am saying that individual people can do this care but we need more systematic approach if the church wants to be more effective and make synergy it.■
ADDITIONAL COMMENT
by BYEONG
Collaboration of God and Human: “God uses people” is not wrong. On the other hand, it is also true that “human efforts alone should not be enough, but there should be God’s full intervention.”
The achievement of every ministry in church history is a collaboration between God and man. Man cannot accomplish anything without God. On the other hand, there is a saying that God helps only when humans do it. That’s the proposition of the second half of Psalm 1 and 3 (1:3c): “Everything he does will be prosperous.” Whatever they do prosperous.(NIV) Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.(KJV) In all that he does, he prospers.(RSV)
One reliable annotator interprets the meaning of this text as “God is only prosperous us when we do something.”
Is this true in the practice of ministry? That’s right! But some people think, “Everything is done by God, and for us, we just have to wait and pray.” Not all of them, but there are some cases where they think like this, and they postpone everything only to God. (“I’m putting it off”) Maybe it’s a very good belief. It’s worth bragging about.
The problem is when things don’t go well, but they give up too easily and quickly, saying, “I don’t think it’s God’s will.” And try another ministry and end it with the same process and conclusion.
I’m going to talk about two things here. The idea that everything is done by God, that humans are useless. Another is that when difficulties arise, it is too easy to conclude that it is not God’s will.
The first may be an excuse. I’m saying this out of concern that a lot of people might get caught in this trap.
In the second case, it is a pity that they may not grow up by giving up too easily and stay at a childlike level.
The first kind is beyond me if you have that kind of faith. In the second case, You can’t grow without suffering. It grows in the process of overcoming and solving difficulties, not just talking about difficulties themselves. Difficulties are often said to strengthen faith. But that’s not what I’m saying here.
It refers to giving up too easily because it is difficult when given a ministry. We’ve heard a lot that if there’s a problem, there’s always an answer. And that’s the truth.
You can achieve a sense of accomplishment and growth only when you complete the given ministry and the ministry you are in charge of. It seems often overlooked that many people desperately want self-development and self-growth, but have to overcome these steps necessary to do so.