Ministry Disciplines in the 21st Century…

December 20, 2006 | 1:00 AM

There are two ministry disciplines that were emphasized by the interviewed: the decentralization of the church and pastoral roles. The decentralization of the church can be seen in two forms. One way is in small group ministry. Jason Dukes, Todd McGehee, and Richard Kennedy all acknowledged their church’s use of small groups, indicating that they are in use across denominational lines. McGehee, specifically, brought up Neil Cole’s Life Transformation Groups. Cole, a church planter in California, says in his book The Organic Church,

This is a group of two or three people who meet weekly to challenge one another to live an authentic spiritual life. Members of these non-coed groups have a high degree of accountability to one another in how they have walked with the Lord each week, which involves mutual confession of sins as well as reading a large volume of Scripture repetitively. This is the context in which we multiply disciples, which must come before we multiply churches.

These small groups are “the focus of proper education of young people and the grouping of adults… to meet the needs of the family and the local church.”

The second form of decentralization comes in the form of house churches. Wolfgang Simson, a twelve-year veteran of the DAWN Movement and author of the book Houses that Change the World, explains in his article, “15 Theses,” the dynamics of church-community ministries in the international setting. “The church is changing back from being a Come-structure to being again a Go-structure. As one result, the Church needs to stop trying to bring people ‘into the church,’ and start bringing the Church to the people.”
Derek Webster, an American church planter in Europe, explains, “The biggest hurdle that the traditional church has is the conception that church is where we go rather than who we are.” For Webster, house churches force the church to leave the confines of a central building and go to the community where the people live.

The issue of pastoral roles is addressed in three ways. First, Jason Dukes says that it is important for the pastor to be a shepherd, not a manager of tasks. Second, the role of the pastor is to be a spiritual former. McGehee elaborates on the role of the pastor in ministry:

Relational ministry that includes meeting people where they are with the needs they have and ministering out of our strengths directly to the needs. It also includes purposeful and yet not manipulative relationship building. We need to ask ourselves what is spiritual growth and how to we facilitate it happening in the lives of regular people. We are busy, overly individualistic, overly materialistic, and all too often poor managers of our time, energy and resources. With this being the case, how do we do spiritual growth in our 21st century North American lifestyle? It is an issue we struggle with constantly.

Finally, the role of the pastor is to be an effective communicator of the ways of God; he must be a mouthpiece of God. Jason Davis emphasizes the role of the pastor as a communicator. “I am working a lot on my communication skills as we transition away from the initial stages of church planting and I have an increased role as communicator and pastor.”