Minister Where the Ministry Is

While serving in my first paid staff I served under a great man of God who enabled some shifts in my philosophy of ministry.  One of those shifts was the concept of Ministering where the ministry was. That is to say that one should not get bogged down in a format to the point that is missing out on opportunities to reach people for Christ.

This is a plague on many churches that are either stuck in  tradition or sold on a “model”.   Too many times we force things that we think should work but don’t work in our situation. For example, if you have a youth ministry that meets on Sunday night but have more youth coming to your Wednesday night function that wasn’t meant for them then you need to shift your efforts to Wednesday night.  This may seem simple but think about how mind blowing  and earth shaking this would be in  most churches.  To take a long standing beloved program and eliminate it in favor of something new on a completely different night would make many church members take up arms.   This is an unfortunate reality but a reality we must deal with. The fact of the matter is that many churches let decades pass before they make changes. In the end many people slip through the cracks and fail to be ministered to. This kind of tragedy is one that the church has far to long turned a blind eye to and is why Sunday attendance and church membership is slipping at an alarming rate.

When you get right down to it there is no Biblical mandate for when we minister only THAT we minister. So find where your ministry is and get going.