What are your ministry priorities? Over the course of this year I have served as adjunct faculty at three seminaries. One exercise I have used concerns Ministry Priorities. I identify ten typical ministry priorities as follows:
Worship
Prayer
Teaching/Preaching
Discipleship/Education
Fellowship
Evangelism
Pastoral Care
Missions
Community Service/Outreach
Giving/Tithing
Of course there might be others if you were to design the list, but in general these are priorities of a typical church. I ask students to rank these ministry priorities in their order of importance. You can imagine the consternation this generates. Aren't all ministry priorities of equal importance? Who's to say what ministries are more important than others?
These are not the questions that should be asked. The question should be, "Based on what criterion?" If we are to rank these ministry priorities as to their order of importance, what grid or measuring stick should we use? Church leaders tend to use a default criterion such as history, tradition, or convention, along the lines of "we've always done it this way." I would argue that the true criterion for gauging ministry priorities should be God's vision for a particular church in a particular community. Further, I would argue that God's vision for a particular church in a particular community has much to do with outreach and evangelism, as in "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," (Luke 19:10); as in "Go and make disciples," (Matthew 28:19), as in "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few," (Matthew 9:37).
Back to seminary classes: so I ask these students to rank these ministry priorities according to their importance. As a final treatment, I ask students to analyze the ministries of their churches in two ways. First, rank the order of these ministry priorities according to what the church says about its priorities. Second, rank the order of these ministry priorities according to what the church actually does about its priorities. Then they are to compare the two lists and note any gaps between what is said and what is done.
Guess what? In almost every case, regardless of how high the priorities of Missions, Community Service/Outreach and Evangelism are listed in the says list, they fall toward the bottom in the does list. The only priority that ranks consistently lower than these in the does list is Giving/Tithing.
Isn't it interesting that most American churches are seeing very little fruit in evangelism and are struggling financially!
Worship
Prayer
Teaching/Preaching
Discipleship/Education
Fellowship
Evangelism
Pastoral Care
Missions
Community Service/Outreach
Giving/Tithing
Of course there might be others if you were to design the list, but in general these are priorities of a typical church. I ask students to rank these ministry priorities in their order of importance. You can imagine the consternation this generates. Aren't all ministry priorities of equal importance? Who's to say what ministries are more important than others?
These are not the questions that should be asked. The question should be, "Based on what criterion?" If we are to rank these ministry priorities as to their order of importance, what grid or measuring stick should we use? Church leaders tend to use a default criterion such as history, tradition, or convention, along the lines of "we've always done it this way." I would argue that the true criterion for gauging ministry priorities should be God's vision for a particular church in a particular community. Further, I would argue that God's vision for a particular church in a particular community has much to do with outreach and evangelism, as in "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost," (Luke 19:10); as in "Go and make disciples," (Matthew 28:19), as in "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few," (Matthew 9:37).
Back to seminary classes: so I ask these students to rank these ministry priorities according to their importance. As a final treatment, I ask students to analyze the ministries of their churches in two ways. First, rank the order of these ministry priorities according to what the church says about its priorities. Second, rank the order of these ministry priorities according to what the church actually does about its priorities. Then they are to compare the two lists and note any gaps between what is said and what is done.
Guess what? In almost every case, regardless of how high the priorities of Missions, Community Service/Outreach and Evangelism are listed in the says list, they fall toward the bottom in the does list. The only priority that ranks consistently lower than these in the does list is Giving/Tithing.
Isn't it interesting that most American churches are seeing very little fruit in evangelism and are struggling financially!
