Jesus’ earthly ministry maintained a single purpose and a dominant strategy. His purpose was to glorify the Father by establishing and expanding His kingdom. His method was to make disciples by investing in men who would join this kingdom and live radically committed to continuing its expansion. Following this example, Christian ministry operates along complementary, intertwined themes: worship and discipleship. Last time I focused on the first of these themes and this time I’ll focus on the second.

Some contemporary explanations of church ministry include discipleship as one of four or five aspects. However, setting discipleship beside service and evangelism misunderstands this term altogether. More than just one of many emphases for ministry, disciple-making is the single focus of ministry in the New Testament.

Near the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He called twelve men to follow Him. These men, commonly known as the disciples, walked with and learned from Jesus. He clarified and extended the call to countless others during his brief earthly ministry, but his focus would never shift elsewhere. Jesus never shifted from making disciples (or life-long followers) out of this small group of men.

In fact, a more accurate understanding of the New Testament realizes that teaching about subjects like Christian service and evangelism is a facet of discipleship. In other words, for a believer to learn how to use his gifts to edify the Church was part of developing as a disciple, not a separate category of his development. All New Testament exhortations are - in one way or another - for disciple-making

Jesus’ final commission to His closest disciples highlights this primary thrust for ministry.

But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20

Before examining the commission itself, notice the role of worship in this event. When Jesus’ closest disciples saw Him, they worshiped. Finally seeing Jesus in full deity, their reaction fulfilled His single purpose: they worshipped God.

On this foundation of placing ultimate value on God (as manifested in Jesus), the disciples learn their dominant strategy for all future ministry: to make disciples. Much can be written about this pregnant text, but the clear command from Jesus is a call to continue the ministry He started in them. He exhorts them to do what He had done with them.

Therefore, Christian ministry must be patterned after Jesus’ earthly ministry by pointing people to value God supremely and to follow Jesus absolutely. Ministry - and by ministry I mean everything from preaching to ministry coordination to outreach to administration to staff leadership to community involvement to small group Bible studies to pastoral counseling - must lead people to exalt God and follow Jesus.

From the daily web devotional published from his writings, we get a gem regarding leadership. As my friend Curt suggested, think of the contrast between his view and the contemporary ideas about leadership.

“I believe that it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The Church of the Firstborn is no place for the demagogue or the petty religious dictator. The true leader will have no wish to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing and altogether as ready to follow as to lead when the Spirit makes it plain to him that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.

It is undoubtedly true, as I have said so often, that the church is languishing not for leaders but for the right kind of leaders; for the wrong kind is worse than none at all. Better to stand still than to follow a blind man over a precipice. History will show that the church has prospered most when blessed with strong leaders and suffered the greatest decline when her leaders were weak and time serving. The sheep rarely go much farther than the Shepherd.”

Read the full entry on the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s website.

Our culture is obsessed with celebrity. And like most societal obsessions, the church follows suit. Many Christians are enamored with accomplishing something great for God. While the idea sounds honorable, often the impetus behind the effort is a desire for personal gain. The close of Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome serves as a tremendous reminder that the gospel has been carried through the centuries on the shoulders of ordinary people.

Christian history has its share of prominent men and women. Even the most cursory glance at the past, however, reveals that for every notable person thousands of men and women labored in obscurity.

Paul mentions a few of these men and women.

⁹Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. ¹⁰Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. ¹¹Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. ¹²Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. ¹³Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. ¹⁴Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. ¹⁵Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.

Romans 16:9-15 (ESV)

Recognize any of those names?

Most of us will not be remembered in two generations. These men and women appear in the best-selling book of all time and they are hardly household names. Yet Paul’s extraordinary missionary ministry owed a debt to these people for their ‘hard work.’

Where are the men and women in our churches who labor for the sake of His Name and not for the sake of their own? And if you are one of these ordinary men or women laboring in obscurity, please know that while your name might be forgotten by people it will not be forgotten by God.

⁴⁶An argument arose among them as to which of them was the greatest. ⁴⁷But Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side ⁴⁸and said to them, “Whoever receives this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. For he who is least among you all is the one who is great.”

⁴⁹John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” ⁵⁰But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.”

Luke 9:46-50 (ESV)

It’s amazing how quickly ministry can become about the minister. Pride is such a sneaky sin that even in the midst of ‘godly’ activity - and often especially in the midst of ‘godly’ activity - it creeps in.

As this passage from Luke 9 shows, the lure of self-centered ministry was often too much to resist for Jesus’ twelve disciples. Their pride is evident in two ways.

First, they wanted to be the greatest. They had access to the One who came to serve, they saw ministry as a ladder to climb to greatness. Sound familiar? An honest evaluation of our motives often reveals a desire to gain notoriety or at least praise from our ministry efforts. At this point ministry is about our glory, not God’s.

Second, they wanted to protect the exclusivity of their ‘calling.’ They wanted to stop people who were not part of their circle from engaging in their brand of ministry. Again, sound familiar? At some level we all like to think we’re participating in some unique type of ministry. At this point ministry is about our glory, not God’s.

For whose glory do you minister?

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

1 Corinthians 3:6-7 (ESV)

Church growth is an outflow not the aim. Our aim must always be planting and watering. Visible growth is sometimes God’s gift to faithful stewards. Other times visible growth is a gift to lousy stewards. And confusingly, visible growth sometimes comes in bizarre places under strange ministries. Regardless, growth is God’s to give and not ours to pursue.

Kingdom growth is our goal, but not our aim. Our goal or desire is for God to expand His rule and reign on earth. Our aim, however, is to fulfill our calling and to practice stewardship over our gifts. In other words, we focus on doing what we’re told for the purpose of seeing God accomplish this goal. We do not focus on manufacturing results.

This distinction, which rises from 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, is very important.

The call of God has never been to produce results.

• He didn’t ask Abraham to make a baby.
• He didn’t ask Moses to perform miracles or defeat Pharaoh or plan an escape.
• He didn’t ask Joshua to study military strategy or fight harder.
• He didn’t ask David to establish an empire.
• He didn’t ask Nehemiah to reestablish Jerusalem.
• He didn’t ask Isaiah to change people’s hearts.
• He didn’t ask the disciples to build the church.
• He didn’t ask the church to start a movement.
• He never commanded the church to grow.

Instead…

• He calls men and women to trust Him when the future is bleak.
• He calls men and women to obey His simple command even when it’s scary.
• He calls men and women to walk humbly down paths of power and prestige.
• He calls men and women to stay the course when opposition is strong.
• He calls men and women to preach faithfully when no one responds.
• He calls men and women to spread the good news to all people everywhere.
• He calls men and women to reflect Him in dark places.
• He invites men and women to live by faith and follow His voice.

Many people and churches have traded in their rightful calling for the pursuit of “successful ministry.” Whenever our decisions about ministry are based more on what is working than on faithfulness to the explicit call from Scripture, we have forsaken our aim in the name of our goal.

The tricky part is… the goal is not bad. It’s just not a very good aim. And we must maintain the distinction between our goal and our aim. God is responsible for meeting the goal of expanding His Kingdom. We are responsible for fulfilling our call to obedience by faith.

Which drives you:  growth or faithfulness?

Let’s make faithfulness our aim because pursuing growth will always eventually lead to forsaking our calling.

The pastor of a local church is required to fill many roles. His specific tasks are best understood through the filter of his overall calling: to shepherd God’s people under Christ. For many churches this role has changed significantly during the last 50 years. As many churches think and act more like businesses than a Body, many pastors think and act more like CEO’s than shepherds.

In The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson provides a helpful word of rebuke and challenge to these pastors and churches. Written 20 years ago, he offers three adjectives that should describe pastors.

First, a pastor must be unbusy. Modern ministry leads many to think the busy pastor is the best pastor. However, through discipline he must devote appropriate time to prayer and study so that when people need him, he is available.

“How can [a pastor] persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if [he has] to juggle [his] schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?” (17).

Second, a pastor must be subversive. Our calling is not to glory or fame. Too often pastors dedicate themselves to those tasks that produce immediate, measurable results. However, Christian ministry, at least the way Jesus modeled it, is built on personal investment in individuals that often produces slow, steady, maturation. For too many pastors, the goal is not to shepherd people toward maturity, but to garner acclaim.

“[A pastor is] undermining the kingdom of self and establishing the kingdom of God. [He is] being subversive” (27).

Third, a pastor must be apocalyptic. He must exhibit a healthy preoccupation with eternity. This mindset does not lead him to ignore the present, but to lead people in the present with a view of eternity. The people in our churches are living for today because our pastors fail to point them to eternity.

“With the vastness of the heavenly invasion and the urgency of the faith decision rolling into our consciousness like thunder and lightning, we cannot stand around on Sunday morning filling the time with pretentious small talk on how bad the world is or how wonderful this new stewardship campaign is going to be” (39).

Pastors, do these three words describe your ministry?

Churches, do you encourage your pastors toward this type of ministry?

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Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, Eardmans Publishing: Grand Rapids, 1989.

“For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

1 Corinthians 1:17 (ESV)

As Paul expresses his disappointment at divisions in the Corinthian church, he teaches an important truth about preaching. He reminds them that his purpose while in Corinth was to preach the gospel, not baptize (which was at the heart of their divisiveness).

The first part of this sentence might seem odd at first, but the second part of the sentence provides the explanation. At first glance you might be asking… “If baptism is an important part of New Testament Christianity, why would Paul brag about his minimal participation in the baptism of new believers?” His goal was not to diminish baptism as much as it was to elevate the gospel. He was emphasizing the priority of preaching the simple message of the gospel.

This verse presents two important truths to digest.

Preaching the gospel must be the primary task of gospel ministers. And by ‘gospel ministers’ I mean those men who are called by God and set apart by the church for the ministry of the Word as pastors, missionaries, church elders, and the like.

At least two applications emerge for our churches. First, any man who aspires to this calling and does not love to “preach the gospel” must reevaluate what exactly he feels called to do. Second, any church that encourages or allows her pastor to veer from this task as his primary focus must revaluate her understanding of the role of ‘pastor.’

Preaching that depends on eloquent wisdom removes the cross’ power. The gospel plus anything (wisdom, creativity, novelty, etc.) makes the gospel less about the cross and more about the something else. When a ’sermon’ springs from a creative element or a contemporary idea or the preacher’s intuition then what we hear is not powerful to save. Because when the cross is not the central element of the message, our message is simply not the gospel.

At first these talks might seem effective at drawing a crowd or “Christianizing” a community, but we must not trade immediate effectiveness for eternally significance. The Bible is clear: only the gospel (grounded in the cross) is powerful to transform lives!

So we’re left with a question… If the goal of Christian ministry is life transformation, why do our sermons contain so much ‘wisdom’ and so little ‘gospel’?

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 1:18 (ESV)

While the high tide of the seeker-sensitive movement is fading, many churches seem infatuated with attracting unbelievers through “relevant” preaching. They look like desperate salesmen trying to lure unbelievers inside with advice about contemporary issues. While I applaud their apparent evangelistic motivation, I fear they misunderstand the biblical concept of “relevant” preaching.

What does it say about “preaching” when thousands of unbelievers flock to hear the sermon? This verse leaves only two options. Either we are witnessing a remarkable movement of God or we are not preaching “relevant” sermons. The masses may visit occasionally and appreciate our zeal, but over the long-term they will either embrace Christ or grow tired of hearing the gospel. To the lost this message is ridiculous.

“Relevant” preaching is NOT using biblical passages to inform people about issues of great significance to them. Despite the cultural timeliness of offering financial principles in the midst of a waning economy, we cannot accept this as “relevant” preaching. Even though marriage in our generation is a complete joke to vast segments of the population, we must not confuse marriage advice with “relevant” preaching. While better employees would improve workplace environments, we must not receive tips for success as “relevant” preaching.

At the most basic level “relevant” preaching produces sermons that expose the meaning and real-world significance of a biblical passage. I am not arguing for disconnected biblical lectures or theological treatises as often our sermons will address issues like finances and marriage. However, for preaching to be “relevant” it must allow God’s word to reveal the truth people NEED to hear, which is only found in the gospel.

When preaching consistently and straightforwardly presents the gospel, unbelievers will either respond in faith or consider it foolish for two reasons.

First, the gospel rightly preached attacks human ability. It calls people weak and powerless. It tells people they are hopeless God-haters. It calls us to surrender and selflessness. People who are separated from God want no part of this message.

Second, the gospel rightly preached attacks human wisdom. It calls people stupid and unwise. It points to our inability to comprehend the greatest mystery of life. It calls our smartest thoughts dumb. It contradicts our sense of intelligence.

The message of Jesus Christ crucified for sin is ridiculous to the world. So if the world consistently applauds our preaching it must not be very relevant after all?

From a twentieth-century book that will certainly remain a classic until Christ returns, the following quote seems remarkably relevant.

Before you read it may be helpful to know…

• This paragraph is taken from a book written in 1948.
• The emphasis added through the italics is mine.

To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins - egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion - are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders, even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.

A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 1993, 42-43.

I am not informed enough to comment on the levels of self-promotion among the church leaders in the 1940’s, but I find it hard to believe our generation has not surpassed them. The front window of any “Christian” bookstore illustrates the rising emphasis among Christian speakers, authors, and artists to employ marketing strategies to promote themselves by promoting their next tour or newest book or upcoming album.

Do you even notice the undercurrent of self-promotion?

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A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) was one of the great pastors and authors of the twentieth century. He who served several churches including more than 30 years at Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, Illinois and authored several books including, The Pursuit of God, which was first published in 1948.

by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger

Many churches today have more in common with shopping malls than the communities described in the New Testament. While a number of factors contribute to the growing number of church cafés, rock-climbing walls, and bookstores, these trends reveal a philosophical and theological shift. That is, churches are concentrating less on nurturing spiritual formation and more on providing buffets of religious programming.

The strategies for church growth of the last two decades - including the seeker-sensitive, Purpose-Driven, and multi-campus models - are leaving indelible marks on modern Christendom. Despite some enormous and positive contributions by these movements, they have fueled the growing fascination with bigger, busier ministries. Yet, as Simple Church shows, cluttered ministry is exhausting and not necessarily more effective.

After studying 400 American churches, Rainer and Geiger interrupt the madness by highlighting a simple, biblical approach to local church ministry. Against the backdrop of church models that create busier Christians, this book calls “Christians to make a clear return to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus.” Their research revealed that some of the most effective churches in America offer only targeted ministry programming.

After defining a simple church as “a congregation designed around a straight-forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth” they offer four words that help simple churches remain more effective than busy churches.

While not perfect this book offers a much-needed call for churches to stop substituting ministry pollution for the basic work of making disciples.