John Ortberg at Lifeserve Conference

If we really want to help someone grow we will have to help them in a way that fits their wiring. Our great model for this is God Himself, for He always knows just what each person needs.

He had Abraham take a walk,
Elijah take a nap,
Joshua take a lap,
Adam take the rap.

He gave Moses a forty-year time out,
He gave David a harp and a dance,
He gave Paul a pen and a scroll.

He wrestled with Jacob,
argued with Job,
whispered to Elijah,
warned Cain,
and comforted Hagar.

He gave Aaron an altar,
Miriam a song,
Gideon a fleece,
Peter a name,
and Elisha a mantle.

Jesus was stern with the rich young ruler,
tender with the woman caught in adultery,
challenging with the disciples,
blistering with the scribes,
gentle with the children,
and gracious with the thief on the cross.

God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.

Turning the Page

For our family this summer has provided a number of ends, beginnings, and transitions. One of the biggest was my mom and dad's move from Leoti to Mulvane. It's been a great 8 years for them out in Western Kansas serving God in the midst of a community who embraced my family as one of their own. Melissa, Owen, and I went out for their last Sunday for an emotional 2-hour praise and worship service filled with music, prayer, Scripture reading, and remiscing of what God has done in the lives of many over the past 8 years. Wow, talk about real praise and worship! I was reminded that worship is not about just singing songs, but really giving everything to God. I was privileged to be a part of an awesome worship experience. Praise God!

On a more personal note I continue to transition into the equipping director at the church I serve and find it as challenging and fulfilling as I presumed it would be. Balancing youth ministry and equipping ministry is going to take me further than I can go. Only God will be able to take us to where He wants us as long as we'll get out of the way and let Him.

What are your latest beginnings and ends? Where is God transitioning you?

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.

Equipping (a review)

Saturday's workshop with Vernon and Charlene Armitage went better than I expected. You always wonder how church members are going to react to something that will bring about change to the church. Those in attendance that day (mostly staff and people on church ministry teams) were very receptive to the Biblical mandate of Ephesians 4. I'm excited to see how God will work in our church.

Equipping

I've been looking forward to tomorrow for quite some time now. Our church has invited Vernon and Charlene Armitage from Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Liberty, MO down for a workshop regarding equipping ministry. Our church has been exploring what it means to be a church who equips all our members to live out the ministry that God has designed them to do. We've gone through a couple books including Me to We and The Equipping Church to learn more about what equipping looks like in the local church. We've also assembled an equipping exploration team made up of different demographics to discern whether or not God has called FUMC to become an equipping church, which I believe he has called us all to be.

For tomorrow's workshop we've invited all our staff as well as anybody who is on ministry teams. We hope to cast more of a vision to leaders in our church about how to be DOPS (developers of people) instead of DOTS (doers of tasks). I look forward to a fruitful morning with good discussion and honest reflection with members of our church. Pray that we would do that right thing as we move forward in the city of Salina.