#layministry

[letmeillustrate]

You go to see them, and you say, "Well, what is your church doing?" "Well, we bless God, we are doing a great deal; we have a Sabbath-school, with so many children; our minister preaches so many times, and so many members have been added to the churches. The sick are visited; the poor are relieved." And you stop them, and say, "Well, friend, I am glad to hear that you are doing so much; but which work is it that you take? Do you teach in the Sabbath school?" "No." "Do you preach in the street?" "No." "Do you visit the sick?" "No." "Do you assist in the discipline of the church?" "No." "Do you contribute to the poor?" "No." "Yet I thought you said you were doing so much. Stand out, sir, if you please, you are doing nothing at all." —Charles Spurgeon; cited in Chang, Spurgeon the Pastor, 199.

[letmeillustrate]

Why People Choose Small Churches And How To Help Them Stay

Why do people choose small churches? It’s more than size. Discover what truly draws them in and how you can help them stay, serve, and grow

[letmeillustrate]

[theologyisaverb]

Women in Lay Ministry: An Invitation to Lead

Women in Lay Ministry: An Invitation to Lead

The following article appeared in the University of Notre Dame’s Institute of Church Life Journal a year ago on May 23, 2016.

Since it was written, God has continued to move me towards new roles and responsibilities within the life of the church. Lay ministry is indeed a graced vocation, one that not everyone is called to but one that can go unheeded in the fast pace of our society, and amidst…

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[letmeillustrate]

Who were the 16th-century Calvinist missionaries of Brazil? In this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Stephen Nichols tells the fascinating history of the

[letmeillustrate]

You gain credibility and authority in your career by demonstrating your capacity to take other people's problems off their shoulders and give them back solutions. The pattern begins early in school as children receive positive reinforcement for finding the answers, and continues throughout life as you become an increasingly responsible adult. All of this is a virtue, until you find yourself facing adaptive pressures for which you cannot deliver solutions. At these times, all of your habits, pride, and sense of competence get thrown out of kilter because the situation calls for mobilizing the work of others rather than knowing the way yourself. By trying to solve adaptive challenges for people, at best you will reconfigure it as a technical problem and create some short-term relief. But the issue will not have gone away. It will surface again.

Heifetz and Linsky, Leadership on the Line, 123.

[letmeillustrate]

When a person or a small group of people embodies an issue and carries it prominently within the organization as a token, then the organization as a whole never has to take on the issue.

Heifetz and Linsky, Leadership on the Line, 32.

[letmeillustrate]

Every Member Models of ministry are biblical, but assuming that pastors shouldn’t run most aspects of liturgy (especially at the cost of quality) assumes that ministry only happens on Sunday.