A couple months ago I heard a message from Pastor Seth Goodson about the importance of growing your ministry both deep and wide through a series of steps that move people from broken to empowered. Pastor Seth is the Generations Pastor (he oversees the children, youth, and young adults ministry) at Elim Gospel Church where BASIC is headquartered in Lima, NY. I strongly felt that this concept could be applied to college ministry, so for this week I asked Pastor Seth to write a guest blog on this topic.
With churches and ministries in America becoming mega churches and mega ministries it is easy for us to see numbers as the goal. Now, before we get started here you must realize that I am all about the numbers because every number has a story and a future. God is all about numbers; He wrote a whole book on it. Focusing on your numbers is like watching your speedometer to determine how much gas you have left. You may be moving, but you will soon run out of gas. Real success is when people are growing spiritually, and as a result the lost are being found and numerical growth will happen.
To be a ministry that is both wide and deep you must commit to the right order. If you decide to grow numerically first, you will just be a nursery where no one can feed themselves and you become burned out. You will be constantly looking for more leaders, and instead of birthing leaders you look to buy leaders. Looking to buy leaders could look like finding a volunteer who really doesn’t want to be there, hiring a new ministry leader, new office assistant, etc. Whatever it looks like to you, the bottom line is they don’t carry the DNA of your ministry.
When you focus on growing deep, wide begins to happen. It’s actually easier to grow wide than deep; you can have enough pizza parties, you can play enough games, you can do enough stupid human tricks to attract people. To build a deep ministry is to build people. When you build people you actually build people who can build people -meaning you are no longer the only one doing the feeding.
I believe there are three areas that are crucial to building people. The first is helping people move from broken to healed. What areas in their lives need healing: past hurts, rejections, or disappointments? When someone is hurting they see everything through that lens, so no matter what you are giving them there is a wall of hurt stopping them from moving forward. It can’t be ignored and it can’t be walked around it has to be walked through. This may come in a message that you teach that deals with wounds, or it may come from teaching them the basics of reading their Bible or how to pray. This may even require counseling, but whatever it is there has to be a commitment to seeing people get healed.
The second is critical when the first occurs. It is moving people from captivity to freedom. The reason this is critical is that you may see someone get healed, but then continue going back to the same situations and needing healing again. Freedom comes when we recognize a stronghold or belief system that we have that does not line up with the Word of God. Mindsets can be like the autopilot of a plane. You may not even know you are believing something, but once it gets revealed and we repent (change of thinking) of that mindset we can now walk in freedom. A new mindset is like buying a new car. Until you buy that car, you have never seen it before, but once you buy it, it seems like everyone has it. When you gain a new insight you start seeing it everywhere. You see it when you read your Bible or you hear it in every sermon. This happened to me as I began to discover the grace of God. I used to read the Bible like a legalist, but once I received a new way of thinking I started seeing it everywhere.
The third step is empowering people. Teaching people to walk in their giftings is critical to seeing your ministry grow. When we begin to empower people, we begin to see growth numerically. You empower the evangelist, he wins the lost; you empower the apostle, she raises leaders; the pastors, they pastor the sheep. You actually do what God has called you to: “Prepare God’s people for the works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” (Eph 4:12)
The problem with following these steps is it isn’t fast growth, at least at first. It actually requires us to take our time and build slow. This means patience and a focus on what your real vision is: people. Are we building a big ministry or big people? Anything that truly lasts the test of time takes time.
The greatest key to this is growing yourself and passing it on. It is critical to keep growing yourself. See, we all have brokenness in our lives and areas of bondage. As we continually allow God to work on those areas of our lives, we move into greater levels of power. I know the old adage says, “It’s better caught than taught.” I agree, but I believe it is better caught and taught. Pass on what God is teaching you to a few key leaders who you train to pass it on to those around them. Your job isn’t to move everyone from broken to empowered, but help a few move, and empower them to help others move.
Will you join the movement of building a big ministry of big people? Who are five people you can begin to teach what God is doing in you?