Quick Exercise #2: The Importance of Ministry Worth Multiplying Circle

Take that list of activities that you created at the start of the evening.

Ask for volunteer.

There is a great opportunity to tutor at risk kids after school, using any curriculum I want. I can even use the scriptures for character studies but I need someone to help me, are you in?

First – any opportunity that I’m offered I’m first going to my list of stuff that I’m already involved in and I’m asking myself – is this opportunity WORTH fitting into my life? Either cramming it into an already packed life OR by saying NO to something else. WORTH is relatively defined.

I’m also going to evaluate my list of activities with this question – is this WORTH doing?

Second – as a leader – I want to make sure I define WORTH like God has defined WORTH. This is a love, live and serve opportunity. This is a Great Commandment/Great Commission opportunity.

My job as a leader is NOT to guilt people into showing up or participating. That won’t last and it’s not of God. My job is to be a champion of what God is doing. To point out the already there eternal value and worth of the opportunity.

Quick Exercise #3 – Take a ministry you are in and walk thru 3 circles answering key questions.

Example: Men’s Fraternity
Circle 1 – focus is to disciple men into being spiritual leaders who love, live and serve. YES, worth it.

Circle 2 – Need a key PROVEN leader for director/champion position. Same vision, passion for discipleship. Deep Christ-follower, self-starter, available to do it, teachable, high character, honest, not perfect, vulnerable.

Found the guy – now ready to start.

Circle 3 — Process proven to work
Other churches have their trophies, we don’t…yet. We have process we want to try, run with it and evaluate as we go.

Nor do we have a process to replace Director…yet. We will need to address this if this is going to make it beyond just one season. Every ministry needs to wrestle with that question otherwise focus becomes the program and filling slots.

4 Foundational Multiplication Principles

1. Make micro decisions with macro viewpoint of does this advance God’s Kingdom?

2. Call people NORTH. Even yourself.
Ask more of people than where they are. Don’t ever demand more of those around you than yourself. Keep Love, Live, Serve in the forefront.

3. Something is better than nothing.
It’s easier to steer than start. GO! Starting somewhere and changing it later is better than doing nothing until you have the perfect plan. We know what doing nothing produces – nothing.

4. Invest in PEOPLE, not the program.
Programs have shelf life. Our job isn’t to keep the program running. Our calling is to make disciples who love, live, and serve.

Open Questions, Comments, and Thoughts

Which circle should we start with? Depends. All three need to be developed and dealt with but program and condition of culture will have a HUGE role in determining which circle to tackle first.

Key entry points into ministries is PEOPLE (relationship) and MINISTRY (program) but long term investment will only happen if all three are developed.

PROCESS is the most neglected circle in most churches. They spend time and energy running around to fill slots instead of developing people. Must change in order to be a multiplying church.

Part 4 of Vision Devo series.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Live Connected is perhaps the most difficult of the three (love, live, and serve). It’s the easiest to misunderstand and hardest to actually do.

There are two common misunderstandings of what “live connected” means. The first is a small group dedicated to the gaining of knowledge. Bible study, Sunday school, and most small groups are of this variety. We study the scriptures, we look and listen for insights and we will talk about how it COULD apply in real life. The other misunderstanding is a group dedicated to accomplishing a task. Ministry teams – youth, children, worship, tech team – any group that has an event or specific task to accomplish.

It’s possible to live connected with each of these two groups but most of the time it doesn’t happen. Why? Because to live connected is messy. It’s allowing other people access to our lives in a way that gives them the right and responsibility to speak truth to us and to love on us for the purpose of life change, to look more like Jesus. That’s the key difference between live connected and just a bible study or serving together. Life change, vulnerability, authenticity – these are necessary for live connected.

Take a look at your current small group experience. Is the purpose of that group life change? To challenge and love each other towards Christ-likeness? Or is it just the pursuit of more Bible knowledge? Or the accomplishment of a task? There’s nothing WRONG with those two other options. It’s just that those alone will not result in life change.

Why is live connected even necessary? Because we won’t naturally strive for life change on our own…at least long term. We need encouragement, a model, and even accountability for this to happen. We can’t “love our neighbor as ourselves” without others. Jesus modeled this for us.

It’s part of our mantra because we know that it will be impossible for us to be who God wants us to be without the ministry of others in our life. Impossible.

Prayer from Granger Community Church on Vimeo.

You can bet we’ll be using this soon at Western Hills….what a message.

Part of this is because there are pastors and ministries that this subject is ALL they talk about. Every sermon or bible study points to us giving money to the church – namely their ministry. Gold plated altars, slick back hair, $1000 suits all reinforce the thought that religious leaders just want your money — they are no different than the used car salesman. Work their angle to get your dough. One uses cars, the other uses spirituality.

But part of it is because I often find myself trying to do exactly what scriptures says that is impossible to do – worshiping both God and money. WHAT??? “Grant worships MONEY!!” No, I’d never admit that BUT…let me give an example of how subtle and sneaky the worship of money is.

Answer this question – are you successful?

What was your first answer? Why did you give that answer? Was one of your first thoughts of how much money you make or don’t make? What you do and do NOT have? At times – that is how I answer the question. Not out loud, of course. I mean, I can’t be having people really know how stupid and shallow I am at times. But to myself — sometimes…yeah, that’s exactly how I answer it — by my income and stuff.

We define “success” by what we think is most important in our life — our “god”, if you will. And when I’m not careful or thoughtful, my default position easily becomes how much money I don’t have.

There is another way to answer the question but it requires a bit of discipline and thought – two things I’m not always good at. Am I successful? I’ve got incredible kids who at this moment seem very much tender and open to the things of God. I’ve got the best (in quality) extended family in the world. There is close to 20 years of life change stories because of our work with dear people who have become family. There are countless lives who will now spend eternity with Jesus because of our investment in Kingdom things. Right now, I’m watching two men of God grow into DEEP men of God and they are RADICALLY allowing the Spirit change them.

It doesn’t make me any less uncomfortable…as was pretty apparent this past Sunday. But — hopefully what will come through is this: I’m a fellow learner on this journey on becoming rich the way God wants us to be rich – generous, living below our means, having margin so that we are able to be generous.

Does this job ever get easier? (Please don’t answer that question, I already know the answer…)

Here is his blog and this is his latest post. Just go read it and start following his blog. I promise you will be challenged both personally AND in your understanding of worship.

If you don’t know Rowland, let me give you a short introduction. He’s the most talented worship leader I’ve ever worked with. This talent causes both elation and frustration for those who work with him. There is no way around this and I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s what drives us deeper in our understanding of God, deeper in our worship of Him. It’s what helps create memorable worship experiences that become spiritual markers for people.

I promise you this – if you start reading Rowland (and let’s pray he continues to write for a while…), you will be challenged. And let’s be honest, we need this.

His post today is outstanding. Check him out.