Category Archives: Ministry Focus & Equipping

To make serving, with everybody doing their part, engrained in who we are as a Church, takes a culture shift. We get there by building an awareness of God’s design for the growth and health of the Body as seen in His commands about serving. We accept the challenge of equipping people to do their parts, understanding that it takes time and patience to get there. With the groundwork laid, we then need to put a course of action in place that will facilitate everybody doing their parts.

The Right Course of Action Could Depend on Your Setting

How easy it is to look at what other churches are doing and follow suit. A cookie cutter approach fails to take important factors into consideration.

1) Where you are

The readiness of people makes such a difference in any kind of change. You need to know where people are in order to take them to the next step. If you try to go from A to Z all at once, your efforts are bound to fail. As seen in Proverbs 27:23, you need to “Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds.”

2) What you already have in place

Sometimes you can build on what you’re already doing. Sometimes you must initiate a new strategy. The specific action steps may vary depending on where you’re beginning and what’s already in place.

Key Factors That Need to Be a Part of Any Course of Action to Promote a Culture Shift

We need to make it an ongoing emphasis and effort, more than a shot in the arm. — People need constant reminders, through various means, that God designed the Church to function in a certain way that brings health and growth to the Body. We can so easily get distracted. We can so quickly forget.

We need to provide tools or a pathway for getting there to sustain this directive in order to make it part of the church’s culture. This could include, but not be limited to:

• ongoing teaching on God’s design for everybody doing their part — It can be part of Sunday School teaching, small groups, new members classes, sermons, provision of reading materials, talking about it verbally and in writing on any variety of platforms.

Resource: Everybody Has a Part Curriculum

• help identifying spiritual gifts so people discover their best fit in ministry — Seeing how God has divinely empowered us for serving produces confidence.

Resource: Everybody Has a Part Spiritual Gifts Tests Resource

• recruiting based on spiritual gifting — How we recruit is important in demonstrating the value we place on serving.

Resource: Ministry Handbook: Spiritual Gifts in Use

• highlighting how people can serve through ministry fairs, pamphlets, or some other means — Knowing what ministries are available, connecting people responsible for overseeing the ministries, and learning how they can plug in to the different ministries, brings it to them rather than waiting on people to come to you.

Articles:

• Ministry Fairs: Goals – Why Have Them
• Ministry Fairs: Planning – How to Plan Them
• Ministry Fairs: Ideas – What to Include

We lay a good foundation for changing people’s attitudes, thinking, and actions toward serving by helping them understand why it’s so important. We help them understand that ultimately they’re accountable to the Lord in following His design, not us. We would hope that would be sufficient to motivate people to do their part. Yet, in many cases making it part of your church’s culture still alludes you.

Why it’s such a Challenge to Shift the Way People Feel About Serving

• We’re dealing with people’s previous perceptions. We must model a new way of being the church for them.

• We’re dealing with people’s priorities. We must bear with them as they rearrange what they’ve viewed as more important to align with God’s.

• We’re dealing with people’s hearts. We must be patient as God does a work in them to move them from self-centeredness to selflessness.

Accept the Challenge that Comes with making a Culture Shift

We need to accept the challenge to equip or disciple people, to function purposefully, even when it seems inconvenience or uncomfortable. — So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up … (Eph. 4:11-14) To “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24) requires knowing and following the right course of action to get people there … the topic of the next post.

We need to accept the challenge to keep the focus on Christ, who is the Head, not on ourselves. It’s about submitting to Him and His ways, not our own agendas. It’s about depending on Him to sustain us, not our own strength. — Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:15-16)

We need to accept the challenge to persevere, however long it takes. We live in a world of instant gratification. Culture shifts, however, take time. — Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. (Gal. 6:9)

For our churches to get to the point where everybody does their parts will take a culture shift — an ongoing change in the way we think and feel about serving along with actions toward it. Part of the shift involves understanding why it is so important.

Important Because Serving One Another is Based on God

• based on God’s knowledge of how we can best function as a church, to be healthy and to grow (Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12)
• based on God’s heart for us to demonstrate love for Him and others through serving them (Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:13)
• based on God’s will for us to administer His love and grace to one another (1 Pet. 4:8-11)

Culture Shift Based on God’s Commands About Serving

According to God, doing our part isn’t optional. Here are just a couple commands God gives in His Word about serving:

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. (Gal. 5:13)

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. (1 Pet. 4:10)

We must take people beyond a request from ministry leaders to do their part. While the vision for this culture shift from church leaders may initially seem to get people moving, it’s insufficient to keep them going. They need to realize that this expectation comes from a higher authority to whom we’re all accountable — the Lord of lords and King of kings, the Almighty Sovereign God.

Perhaps the starting point may be to help people gain a better grasp of who God is so they understand not only His sovereignty to command us to function a certain way but also His grace and love upon which He exercises His rights. Because God knows best and has our good in His heart, it only makes sense that we follow His commands.

God’s blueprint design for church health and growth is that everybody does their part.

From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph. 4:16)

Yet, many churches fall short of this reality. We struggle with recruiting people to do the work of God in the church. Some may even question if it’s a valid goal. God would answer “yes” or He wouldn’t have commanded it.

What’s it going to take to line up with His design? — a culture shift. When something becomes part of our culture, it becomes engrained in the way we operate. People recognize it as an expectation when joining with us and anticipate such engagement as the norm.

We must realize, however, that something doesn’t become part of our church’s culture just because we will it to be so. It takes a shift in our attitudes and the way we think as well as our actions. Affecting the culture takes time and patience. The steps to begin may seem simple but they must be consistently applied.

Steps Toward a Culture Shift in Functioning According to God’s Design for Everybody to Do Their Part

The following steps could apply to any situation in which the church needs a culture shift. Click on the links to look at each of the steps in light of the need for everybody to do their part.

1) Understand God’s commands.

2) Accept the challenge.

3) Develop a course of action.

Seek God’s Help Each Step of the Way in Promoting a Culture Shift in Your Church

Of utmost importance is that we recognize that God must enable us as we do each step.

1) God, through His Spirit, is the One who makes it possible for us to understand His Word.

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:14)

2) God is the One who prepares our hearts to accept the challenge.

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil. 2:13)

3) God is the One who will get us on the right course.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Prov. 3:5-6)