Don't miss these three significant lessons that Covid taught the church

 

Nothing happens in this world

 that does not first pass by the hand of God

 and which He does not use to build His church!

There are three lessons that Covid taught the church that should not be missed. In fact, if your church misses these three lessons you will be poorer for it and may see your ministry decline. If you are waiting for things to come back to normal and assume that this normal is what was, I suspect you will be deeply disappointed. The new normal will not look like the past normal. 

Covid has brought home lessons and has accelerated change. We need to learn the lessons it has taught us. If we learn these lessons we will see greater ministry impact. If not, not.

The first lesson is that the church is not our campus or our building but God's people. Don't miss that. For years in the west, we have taught our people that church is the building and the campus, and we built some great facilities. There is nothing wrong with these facilities. What is wrong is the concept that the church is the facility. Having not been able to be in that facility for almost a year, we have had to find new ways of doing ministry. God has taught us that the facility is not the church, but that God's people are the church.

In fact, this definition of the church, which is the New Testament definition, is the church distributed throughout the community, which is how God designed the church. In this season we have told our people to be the church where they live and work. That is different than the concept that to be the church you need to be at the physical church location. 

This cannot change! Jesus gave us the opportunity to learn this lesson and our people should not be allowed to unlearn it. The church is not the building. The church is God's people. This is one of the most fundamental realignments of the church that Covid has brought us. It is a gift and needs to be reinforced. 

The corollary to this, and the second lesson, is that ministry is not the purview of church staff but of all of God's people. This is after all the theology of the New Testament. but in the west we often hire staff to do ministry rather than releasing everyone in ministry. In this season, we have had to encourage everyone to be the church in their place of work and in their neighborhood. 

Again, this is a lesson that we must capitalize on. The reason the church has so little influence in society is that God's people have not seen themselves as the ultimate owners of ministry (that is what paid staff do). In many cases, post Covid, church staffs will be smaller and that is perhaps a good thing as it forces ministry back to those who were to originally carry it out - all of God's people.

A third lesson is that in this season we have had to find innovative and new ways to do ministry, engage people and share the Good News. This cannot change moving forward. Covid has sped up changes that were already happening and our ministry environment is very different than it was previously. Traditional paradigms will not reach many of the younger generations so we must innovate if we are going to engage them with the gospel. Those who resist innovation and change and new ways of engaging people with the gospel will see their Gospel influence decline.

In some respects, Covid was a gift to the church. Don't waste the gift.

If we saw ministry in the United States through missionary eyes we would do things differently

We need a fresh look at ministry in the United States. In fact, we need to see the ministry challenges here through the eyes of a missionary. Here are some of the ways that missionaries look at ministry and the contexts where they work which could change the picture of how we approach ministry in significant ways.

Missionaries do not assume that there is one way to approach ministry. In fact, they are usually very flexible in how they see their context looking first at where there are pockets of people who are open to the gospel and secondly to the methodologies and strategies that might be effective if tried. In other words, most missionaries are not locked into a single paradigm of ministry but need to be highly flexible and entrepreneurial in their approach.

Because of the exploding populations of the world, missionaries are often focused on how to move from addition models of ministry to multiplication models. In the United States we often hire people to do ministry for us rather than truly having to equip others to do meaningful ministry with us. Internationally that is not an option, nor is it Biblical which explicitly teaches an equipping model whether it is Jesus, Paul or Paul's teaching (Ephesians 4:11-12). One of the critical factors in changing the equation of ministry in the United States is that all believers think of themselves as Kingdom entrepreneurs who are called to bring the gospel into all places where God places them and where they have influence.

Nor are missionaries content to think that the only people qualified for significant leadership have a formal theological degree or are full time. We believe that while formal theological education has a significant place for church leaders (pastors) that there are many creative ways to delivering the necessary theological skills and education and that God can use all kinds of individuals who are bi-vocational and part time. It is only in the west where the majority of churches have full time pastors with formal theological degrees and it was not common in the early church as well.

Further, most mission activity is about relational ministry rather than programs. Programs generally (not always) say, bring people here to the church and we will introduce them to Jesus. Relationship based ministry generally says we will go to where people are who don't know Jesus and develop friendships and relationships that can open doors to conversations about Christ and where non-believers can see what our lives look like as we follow Jesus.

In addition, missionaries pay great attention to the large cities in their region as the cities are where people gather and are the centers of influence. In other words while not all ministry internationally is focused on the city a great deal of it is. In the United States we have generally left the city for the comfortable suburbs, leaving great gaps in the large cities of our nation. Internationally we are drawn to the cities like magnets and the opposite is often the case in the United States.

There is another key difference. Internationally we understand that no one group can reach any city or region by themselves. We are forced internationally to work with other denominations to reach the cities and regions in which we work. We know we need one another. We call this a Bride over Brand approach in ReachGlobal where the priority is in multiplying the church and the spread of the gospel over our theological differences. If the United States is going to be reached effectively we need to see our fellow churches and denominations (who are evangelical) as partners and colleagues rather than competitors and a threat. This is a major difference in how we think about ministry.

Internationally we also know that for those who have no felt need for God that when people experience the love of Jesus in very tangible ways that they become open to experiencing the truth of Jesus. In other words, while we start with programming and church activities in the United States we often start with the practical love of Jesus and meeting real needs internationally. 

Here is the truth. All of us can become myopic and locked into paradigms when all we see is our own context. It is when we move out of our context that we are able to look back in and see things that we did not previously see. This is why we need to see our own ministry through missionary eyes. If we were missionaries here how would we see our context, the opportunities, the ministry options, the populations that are open to the gospel, our cities and our opportunities to see ministry in a deeply wholistic way.

All of T.J. Addington's books including his latest, Deep Influence,  are available from the author for the lowest prices and a $2.00 per book discount on orders of ten or more.

Why I am leaving the "ministry"

A fascinating post about professional ministry in America

Why I am leaving the "Ministry"

The best ministry is relational.

It is easy to forget in a day of unprecedented technology - email, blogs, twitter and the like that the best ministry is relational - face to face. It may take longer but it is certainly more effective.

Think of the difference between Old Testament days when God communicated in various ways but rarely face to face to the incarnation when God, in the form of the Son, Jesus, came and dwelt among us. It was that deeply relational connection with Jesus over three years that prepared the disciples for their future ministry.

In our driven and out of control schedules we often miss the importance of relationship or even of face to face communication. Even in my world of having staff around the world Skype makes it possible to talk face to face where one can see one another, look into one another's eyes and read one another's faces. 

God is a personal God and we are in a personal ministry of representing Him. Given the choice choose personal communication and face to face over emails and impersonal communication.  

Ambition, money, power and ministry

Ministry not only attracts those who have a deep passion for God and the spread of the Gospel but it can also attract those who have personal and selfish ambition, are driven by money or power and who find ministry platforms a convenient means of realizing their ambitions.

Why choose a ministry platform? Because it is relatively easy to hide behind a facade of spirituality and ministry. It is just another platform to use for their own purposes and believers are not always as discerning as they ought to be.

There are signs of those who are more about ambition, money and power than they are about humble service.

World changers
I am always cautious about Christian leaders who are going to "change the world." Now I am a guy who loves great vision and we are praying that God would allow us to impact 100 million people with the gospel in ReachGlobal. But that is going to happen through indigenous movements in specific areas of the world as God works. No one can "change the world." Jesus will when He returns but grandiose claims are often more about the personal ambition of the one making them than they are about Jesus. I can impact corners of the world through the Holy Spirit. I cannot change the world.

Power brokers
I am always cautious about Christian leaders who broker power, are unaccountable to others and who make major ministry decisions by themselves rather than through team. Power is a dangerous thing and does not leave one unscathed. The healthiest leaders surround themselves with accountability through boards, team and live with great personal humility demonstrated through service to others rather than through power. When I don't see that I am very cautious. The more power one exercises autonomously the more dangerous it is to them and to others.

When it becomes about money
I deeply believe in Christian stewardship and live that out. When, however, ministry becomes more about money than anything else, where there is an emphasis on what money can do or when a leader has not used money with integrity beware. I have had a situation recently where I did an online ministry seminar for an individual before I did my due diligence by checking him out on the web. After all, many prominent names were attached to his "ministry."

When I Googled him I found that he was under several federal charges (regarding money) and was in litigation with a number of churches who charge him with defrauding them of half a million dollars. In addition he has a string of unpaid bills. It is a long list of financial issues. Yet his ministry is all about raising one billion dollars for ministry and he advertises himself as one who can help ministry find those dollars. Of course he will not take my content down because he is making money on it.

In another case in a church I am familiar with the theme became more and more about money and the pressure to give went up and up. Eventually the leader left and has since declared bankruptcy. 

Personal ambition, power and money are warning signs to beware because they can hide behind spiritual language and be lived out in the name of ministry. The ministry veneer does not make them OK.

The truth of the matter is that we often allow behaviors in ministry that would never be tolerated in the secular workplace and the sad thing is that those behaviors are often coated with a veneer of spiritual language that others find it hard to press back on. Bad behavior is bad behavior but it is worse behavior when it is coated in a spiritual facade because one is using the Holy to cover the unholy.

We are far too reluctant to confront unholy behavior in ministry settings under the guise of "grace." Grace, however does not allow sinful behavior. Rather it forgives sinful behavior when it has been confronted or acknowledged.

Jesus told us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Wisdom is about recognizing what is spiritual and what is hiding behind a mask of spirituality. It is also about being aware of our own motivations in ministry because none of us are immune to what can happen when left to ourselves.