Ross calls it “ministry in thirds” and he encourages ministry budgets to reflect equal attention to all three as pillars of lifelong discipleship. Why?
Because these things are needed to reach the goal of making disciples. They are necessary. They aren’t icing on the cake or options you can add to enhance the main thing. They are the main thing.
That leaves us with a couple of important questions we must ask ourselves.
- First, are these the main discipleship pillars in our ministry? Are they even there at all?
- Second, if these are not the main things, what are? What gets our time, energy, attention, and money?
- Third, have the tools that we use become the goal rather than a means to reach the goal?
- And finally, most importantly, what in fact is our goal? Or more accurately, what are the results we are looking for? More people in our programs? More kids at our events? The biggest turnout? The coolest stage design? The coolest youth group? The most young families?
In the case of ministry to children, youth, and families, our goal and our results should be one and the same—making disciples. Helping people of all ages and stages to better follow Jesus together.
If we start with the results and work our way back to what we need to put in place and then consider what tools we can use to get there, we may find that our ministry looks far different than it does today. Our measurements of success may change and our markers of growth might be altered. We may take a much much longer view on faith formation and a much much deeper view of community. But if the results look like lifelong disciples, we have most certainly hit our goal.
The last few years have been hard on our churches and in many cases, our community has experienced significant disruption. If that’s been your experience, consider downloading the Connect Generations Ministry Assessment tool from ReFocus Ministry. It offers churches the opportunity to identify the bridges and barriers to discipleship and mentorship in their community. Connect Generations is a research-based self-assessment that can be done by a church in less than a week that offers specific insight into the barriers and bridges to connect generations. And it includes a personalized chart with identifiable strengths and weaknesses as well as a FREE follow-up coaching session to create a plan for the future.
This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.
