MINISTRY BUILDS UP THE BODY OF CHRIST
The idea of "ministry" is woven throughout the Bible, especially the New Testamant. It is the "secret ingredient" that builds up the Body of Christ, His Bride – the Church. If we wonder why churches aren't flourishing but instead are languishing and shrinking, the answer is found in a lack of training people to do ministry. Ministry is what drives the Church, making it grow!
All too often, pastors and staff are focused on securing the external, visible structure of their churches: budgets, buildings, and bills to pay. Church council meetings are mostly about whether the offerings are matching the budgeted income, whether the building and grounds are being adequately maintained, and salaries for the pastor and staff are being paid on time. But what's happening with ministry and outreach? Visiting the sick and disabled, providing support for orphans and widow(er)s, reaching out to the community are given short shrift – perhaps a collection of canned foods once or twice a year. Those churches aren't growing, they're just "marching in place" going nowhere.
From the foreword of my book: "What is the purpose of the Church? This book, The Ministry Driven Church, [will] forcefully demonstrate that ministry is the purpose, the missing key in the formula for rapid multiplication of churches. Ministry in all its diverse meanings ties together the manifold aspects of a living, healthy and growing church. Many modern books on small groups, evangelism, missions, discipleship and church growth rely upon new methods, techniques and technology.
"This is not entirely mistaken, but they run the risk of ignoring the foundational truths of the New Testament for the sake of novelty. This work tries to adhere very closely to the New Testament teachings on 'ministering to the building up of the Body of Christ.' It utilizes the inspired Word of God as the primary bibliographical source, and taps into other sources, old and new, only as secondary witnesses to God’s unchanging truth in Scripture."
The key phrase "ministering to the building up of the Body of Christ" is found in Ephesians 4:11-13 – "He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers to equip the saints to do the work of ministering to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature, perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
Note carefully the context of this phrase: Christ provides apostolic leadership: pastors, preachers, and evangelists to equip the saints to do the work. Christ didn't give us the pastors, preachers, and evangelists to do all the work themselves! Their job is to equip and train "the saints" – that's every Christian, laypeople and ordained alike – to do the work of ministry! We are all "called to be saints" as St. Paul wrote in several of his letters in the New Testament.
When Barnabas and Saul – the future Apostle Paul – went to Antioch (see Acts 11: 20-26), they found a bunch of Gentile disciples, folllowers of Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah – they translated that as "Yesous, the Khristos" and from them we get the term "Khristianin" in Greek, or "Christian." But read verse 26 carefully: "the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." What were they called at first, before they were called "Christians"? They were disciples! So a disciple is a Christian, and a Christian is a disciple. Period.
You don't first become a Christian, and then later decide if you want to "get really religious" and become a disciple. No! If you are a Christian, you must be a disciple, a follower of what Christ did and taught His disciples to do. Christ didn't just tell them parable-stories and say, "Now, you memorize these stories so you can tell them to kids in Sunday School." What did Jesus do? He didn't just preach the Gospel, the Good News, He also fed the hungry multitudes He healed the sick, the blind, and the lame, He even raised the dead. Then he told His disciples – "Now it's your turn, you go out and do the same!" (Matthew 10 and Luke 10). This is what a disciple, a real Christian follower of the Khristos – the Christ, really is, or ought to become.
Pray that God will awaken the apostolic church leadership: to train and equip the saints-in-progress, the disciples (real Christians), to do the ministry of building up the Body of Christ, the Church. It's an unfinished task, so lets get to work!
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