Plumbline #5: “The best ministry ideas are in the congregation.”
If Plumbline #4 is true, then we can expect that the Spirit of God will put the best ministry ideas within the hearts of the congregation, not just the minds of church staff members.
Church members must be taught to think this way and we (the pastors of the church) ought to take a servant role toward our members, equipping and empowering them to lead out in ministry. They are not “cogs” in our ministry machines; we are servants to theirs.
A practical way we have tried to foster this at our church is by distinguishing between three different relationships we have toward various ministries—those we own, those we catalyze and those we bless.
To “own” a ministry means we staff and resource it directly.
Those we “bless” are those we know our members are engaged in, but as an institution we have little interaction with them other than the occasional encouragement.
But the third category, “catalyze,” is where we put most of our energy.
When we catalyze something, we identify members with ideas and ask them to lead us. We come alongside them, adding our resources, networking power, etc. We serve them. And that means sometimes they don’t do things exactly the way I would prefer.
But in the long run, an empowered church catalyzed to do ministry will do more gospel-good in the community than if the church owns and staffs all its own ministries.
We as pastors have to get beyond recruiting volunteers to serve in our weekend ministry machine. Simply staffing our ministries with volunteers severely limits the potential of the people of God.
We need to not merely be recruiting volunteers, but raising up leaders. Rather than asking people merely to get on board our ministry bus, we want to get on theirs.
