11 Ministry Mind-shifts

These headers are from Chapter 2 of The Trellis and The Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne.

1. From running programs to building people
2. From running events to changing people
3. From using people to growing people
4. From filling gaps to training new workers
5. From solving problems to helping people make progress
6. From clinging to ordained ministry to developing team leadership
7. From focusing on church polity to forging ministry partnerships
8. From relying on training institutions to establishing local training
9. From focusing on immediate pressures to aiming for long-term expansion
10. From engaging in management to engaging in ministry
11. From seeking church growth to desiring gospel growth

The book is worth picking up if you have ever wondered why American churches look so much different from what the Bible says about church.

Is someone in school? (2)

This is follow-up to a previous post.  From a pastoral perspective, I want to answer two questions.

Why is it important to be a perpetual student?

Some quick answers based on personal experience:

• You don’t want to be “that guy” who has been in the ministry twenty years and is still quoting a seminary professor.
• You should desire something better than being a pastor who develops new materials for the first 5-10 years of ministry, and then reuses that material for the next 20 years.
• The Bible itself doesn’t change, but that does not rule out advances in biblical studies and theology or developments in culture.
• When you do not have the posture of a student, you lose the curiosity and humility essential to effective teaching.
• People who are poor students are more likely to get defensive when their ideas are challenged.  Have seen this way too many times in “old” pastors.

What are you studying?

This category could also accurately be called, “What were the gaps in your seminary education?”:

• Biblical theology: what is the unifying theme of Scripture and how does that work out in each genre/book?  how does the gospel flow through the Bible?  what is the progress of redemptive history?
• Worship: No, I do not mean music.  how might a gathering be led to hear and respond to God?  what are the elements and options for effectively leading in this way?  how to include contemporary and historical resources?
• Culture: Why is it that so many pastors are concerned with culture, yet seminaries don’t even offer a basic survey?  anything related to missiology – how can we be missionaries within our culture?  what are the elements and movements within Western cultures?  how can we be biblically faithful without being separatist weirdos?
• Secular material:  I used to read U.S. News and World Report, but it has turned into a mish-mash of national ranking reports of various institutions (hospitals, colleges, etc.), advertisement space that seems to reproduce with each issue, and pro-Israel rants in the op-ed finale.  My current periodicals are New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly, which I find sharpen my thinking and allow me to interact with secular thought.

If you are a pastor or thinker, what are you studying or looking into?  Do you think it matters if Christians are perpetual students?