Sunday, April 05, 2009

Becoming an Equipping Director

Ephesians 4:11-13 - "It was him who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 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."
This is the Scripture passage that our church has adopted to lead us in the direction of truly becoming the body of Christ. I have prayed about, thought through, researched, and discussed this very topic over the past 18 months leading me in a new direction in ministry. As a vocational minister I now see myself as an equipper (developer of people) rather than a doer (doer of tasks). This paradigm shift has brought with it a greater number of adult volunteers in our student ministry as well as new job description for me.
As I move forward in ministry, I'll be focusing more energy into creating a system that oversees the process of developing people to become who it is God has created them to be. I'll be doing this with a group of leaders in our local church. We'll be responsible for helping people discover what gifts God has given them to use to serve Him not just in the walls of our church, but in the community and the world.
This greatly excites me as I see many benefits that this will have...
  • Helps aid in the apathy that we see in our churches (although our church does have many who are serving using their gifts)
  • Fulfills people
  • Mobilizes the church
  • Takes the pressure off staff/pastors to "DO" everything because that's what we pay them to do
  • Develops people into stronger disciples of Jesus
  • Keeps new people from falling through the cracks
  • Shows that the church does care about who you are and not just what you can do for her
Pray that I'll be a leader who not only teaches this, but also practices it.

1 comment:

Mary Ann David said...

Todd-
Daniel & I love the idea of equiping minstery and would like to see more young adults (past High School age) in our church try to take a part. We would like to talk to you sometime about this in length.