The central ministry focus of an organization is the one thing that is must do day in and day out - the most important thing it does to help it fulfill its mission. The central ministry focus is the organization's most critical activity or perspective that has the greatest impact on missional success of the organization.
The question we must ask is this: Given our particular mission, what is the most important thing we need to focus on with a laser-like intensity to maximize our opportunity to fulfill our mission.
How one answers that question has huge implications for the effectiveness of one's ministry. The answer to this question ought to help your organization have the greatest impact on its mission and maximize its ministry opportunity.
The central ministry focus is the one thing that everyone in the organization must be committed to doing all the time. For many ministries - including churches - this will be about equipping and releasing people into ministry. You need to to ask, "What is the one thing that all of us must be committed to doing and that, if done consistently and well, will ensure that we maximize our ministry opportunity.
For the ministry I lead, the central ministry focus is to develop, empower and release healthy mission personnel and healthy national leaders. The more we focus on this the more effective we will be.
I believe that the central ministry focus for the church is found in Ephesians 4:12-13 where Paul says that the job of church leaders is "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
The key to our ministry, according to Paul, is the developing, empowering and releasing of the whole body for ministry rather than simply doing the ministry ourselves. Our ministry in large part is to release others into ministry themselves.
If every congregation lived out Ephesians 4:12 in developing, empowering and releasing people into active, life0-changing ministry in accordance with how God had gifted them the local church would be the revolutionary force God designed it to be. There are churches that live this out, but way too few.
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