Ministry Team Planning

Owned by David Hina
Last updated: Jan 09, 2016


Goal in Ministry:  

  • From Scripture:  "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."  Matt 28:19-20
  • From Standards:  To this universal, visible church Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the age. For this purpose he makes these means effectual by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise.  WCF 25.3

Change in Direction:  Having prayed over the current plan for Ministry Teams, spoken with Mike Thompson and with Phillip Sealy (who currently has implemented them) about it, I'd recommend a significant change to the way we have been planning them.  Here are some of the potential problem areas as I currently see them with the way we've been planning to introduce them:

  • Communication.  It would require consistent, ongoing communication in order to make the ministry teams successful.  This type of communication seems difficult to achieve with our current makeup.
  • Type of communication.  The communication (email, phone, meetings) would initially be mostly administrative, rather than direct engagement in ministry.  It would be helpful to avoid this, if possible.
  • Overlap with existing structure.  A number of the tasks seem to overlap with things that are already handled by the session/pastor.
  • Potential for "another failed initiative."  The perception of many of the people could be that a number of initiatives have been attempted over the past few years, both to revitalize the church and provide avenues for ministry.  To instill confidence in the leadership, it would be best to ensure we have a successful strategy that maps directly to our mission to the extent possible.

Specific Goals:  As I see it, we want to achieve the following specific goals with the ministry teams, and it seems we should be able to still achieve these goals while avoiding some of the problem areas listed above.

  1. Engage the body of Providence in ongoing "Gospel-driven and Christ-centered ministry"
  2. Discover the gifts of members of the body, and engage the people in using those gifts for effective ministry.
  3. Discover the "people group" and the need that God primarily leads us to minister to.
  4. Perform ministry out of the context of discipleship.

Recommendation for New Direction:  Look for specific ways to engage groups of people directly in ministry, with each group focusing primarily on one avenue of ministry, each with a leader, each which we really plan to implement, and each which can be traced back to our primary mission.  The basic goals are the same as the ministry teams - gifts discovery, use of gifts for real ministry.  This would also still use the basic format of the ministry teams. 

What do we lose with this change in direction (and how to mitigate):

  1. Wider, collective input on the "ministry initiatives" that we involve ourselves in.  This is primarily done now by the ministry committee or the Elders.  With the Ministry Teams, the thought was to have everyone on a given team providing input into this process.