serving

If their “attitude” is poor, should you tell them to just stop serving?

Well yes, it really depends on what you mean by having a “poor attitude”.

But extremes aside, if someone’s attitude is just “off” or “a bit grumpy” about being part of a ministry… what should you do? Tell them to stop serving until their attitude is right? Or, tell them to just righten-up their attitude?

I think there’s two lenses to consider this question… is there a human aspect? Is there a gospel aspect?

It could just be that life is all too much at the moment, and they’re stuffed. They might just be tired. That is, they might have a good gospel attitude (if you asked them) but they’re just not aware of how they are responding or how they’re appearing and speaking to other people. That means you’re in a position to offer wise counsel about how to plan to serve (avoid late night tv the night before, etc.) and how to smile and talk to people while they’re serving. You’re helping them do what they already think is a good thing to do… just better… without the apparent chip on their shoulder.

But, it could be that they don’t want to serve Jesus and his people, or they feel like that role is beneath them. They might think they shouldn’t really have to serve and that Christian service should be like the self-serve check-outs at the shops… sure you have to try a bit hard, but there’s certain perks to it?!? They might not think their life is Jesus’ possession.

Even in many of these circumstances, I’d want to suggest they keep serving while you work through it with them.

Because serving isn’t something Christians choose to do… it’s part of our DNA… we follow a servant king. Telling someone to stop serving is like telling a fish to stop swimming because they find the water too warm.

If possible have them keep on swimming, keep on serving and all the while, keep helping them feel the privilege of serving their saviour.

Reblog – Encourage informal ministry or formal ministry?

Both of these are good and vital to a growing church.

Informal ministry is simple good gospel deeds; they go under the radar, usually only seen by one or two. It’s things like prayer, meals, phone calls, catching up, helping, sharing life together.

Formal ministry is organised and/or appointed; it’s running the youth group, leading the growthgroup, putting a plan together for welcoming new people, organising the camp away. These people bear a weight of responsibility appointed by others (cf Acts 6).

If you cut all the formal ministry, and only had informal ministry… you might appear to be a loving community… but how would you know if everyone is getting informally loved? You’d need to appoint someone to be responsible for that! You need leaders, you need organisers, you need these roles in order to love many people.

If you push everyone into formal ministry only, people won’t have time for the messy business of life and helping people in the unplanned hard bits of life. You’ll miss out on loving people really well.

So surely we should endorse both… we should encourage people to look for ways to express Jesus’ love informally, take initiative and love others without asking for permission. And we should encourage people to work out how to serve “the body” with their gifts from God in formal ways, for the sake of many.

If you recruit on the basis of need you will usually get “average”

It is common for Christians to make a call for people to get involved or sign up to serve or even to give because there is a great need.
And there is a great need!
However, if the need is the only basis you ever use for that call you will usually get only average responses. When things are simply “needs” they only need simplistic solutions. Stop gaps. Temporary fixes.
However, when you call people to be involved in something massive, something’s that will matter and make a difference, you might get fewer people, but you will get more invested people.
It’s the difference between, “hey, we really really need Sunday school teachers or else the class can’t run” and “hey, there are 10 kids you are like sponges every Sunday, and you could be one of the people they thank God for putting in their life when they are 60 years old.”

Long & wordy offers unwittingly communicate immense workload

If you’re going to ask someone to take on a responsibility, make it short. Not the responsibility… but the “ask”.
If you make the “ask” long and wordy, it will communicate that this task you’re offering them is so huge, so massive, so immense, that you have to take a long time to ask them. Instead, make it short.
“Hey Bill, could you lead a growth group night in a few weeks?”
Don’t say anything else. Just stop there. Let them answer. If they say no, that’s fine, all the words in the world probably wouldn’t have changed their mind anyway.
If they say, “Maybe” you can ask them what their concerns are, and you can address those concerns.
If they say yes, you can then go through the details they need to know.

If you make the ask BIG, then you’ll only freak them out by the apparent BIGNESS of the task.

A map to help people find their way into serving…

One of my responsibilities is to help pastor everyone at our church to have servant hearts and find their way into serving in formal ways at HBC. We recently sat down and realised that the types of roles we would like (and need) people to jump into aren’t always that obvious.
Either they don’t know it’s an option, or they don’t realise we need people to step up.
We also realised that people probably didn’t have an idea that there were levels of responsibilities, and we needed people to keep stepping up into greater levels of leadership.
So we put out a one-pager that we can put in front of people and say, “hey, can I talk to you about where you might fit now, and where you might fit in the next few years…”
See it here. What do you think?

Should you serve if you don’t have the skills?

Some Christians will “humbly” say they can’t do this or they can’t take on that because they feel they don’t have the required skills. This presents an opportunity to pastor them:

  • Jesus designed them with gifts to serve the body – maybe they do have those gifts – they just don’t know it yet?
  • Jesus uses people to get his work done. It’s not your work, it’s Jesus’ work.
  • People are too important to not let some things happen. Love for people drives us to do things we don’t feel equipped to do.
  • Do parents feel equipped to be parents? No!
  • This is an opportunity to trust God more than your trust your skills.
  • Does this display a human-centric view of service and Christianity? Does God need you to be good-enough to serve him? No!
  • Are you potentially afraid of what might happen? If it goes badly? If it goes well?

Limiting your ministry to “with my spouse” only

On one hand, married couples have a great ability to focus and influence and care and endorse. I love married couples who do team ministry. It’s great. There are certain seasons of life where this can happen more and others where it happens less.

But, it’s not always “best”. And it shouldn’t be a limiting factor in working out what you and your spouse are going to formally do with church. Why? It turns something that’s meant to be other-person-centred into something that is only thought about “on my terms”. Be very wary if you hear yourself say something like, “that’s not something we could consider because we can’t do it together.” That’s bad. In fact, I don’t even think it should be in the top 5 questions you ask to consider a particular ministry responsibility.

The married couples I’ve seen do ministry for the long term are those that encourage each other in their individual giftedness, rather than limit their serving to their overlapping giftedness. So, think about how you can encourage your spouse to serve Jesus in ways that you never could. Jesus made them for that… and Jesus gave your spouse a great helper to help them… you.

Reblog: What separates us from the secular managers…

…is motivations.
The secular world only cares about motivation; they want motivated people. People with drive and self-persuasion.
But Christians don’t want just motivated people. We want people with specific, godly motivations.

As an example, you could work for something like WorldVision for any number of motivations. They wouldn’t really care what those motivations are – just that you’re motivated.
But just to help do the washing up at church… If you don’t have “responding to Jesus’ love” as part of your motivations, I don’t really want you joining in.

Reblog: Do you know why there’s a roster?

Do you have a good reason for using a roster to run your church meetings? Not just any reason, but a good reason? Some churches (I suspect) have very bad reasons.

“So that everyone gets to have a go.” Is that a good reason or a bad reason? 1Cor 12 would suggest that not everyone is suited to “having a go”. In fact, I’d argue that letting anyone have a go goes against the point of 1Cor 12.

“Because it makes people feel good when they get a go.” I’m all for people feeling good, but are they doing it at the expense of the congregation? Are they doing it with good motives or do they just want to feel good?

Christian service is meant to be Jesus shaped. It’s self-humbling for the sake of other people. If you’re going to have a roster, fill it with people who want to serve because they’re willing to put in the hard yards for the sake of the people they’re serving. Don’t get the people who just want a turn, or who like how it feels for them. Love them by saying no.

Why you should move people from front-of-house via back-of-house

Different sorts of people put their hand up to be “out the front” at church. And, to some extent, the very fact they’ve put their hand up for that might be a reason to raise some eyebrows – but that’s unfair.

Still, you don’t want to end up with people out the front of your church like this… @CelebWorshipLdr (“It’s always awkward when you do a hard-hitting upbeat song, and no one claps for you after. #worship“)

Our idea has been to implement a pathway for new people… front-of-house via back-of-house.

The idea is that music team members learn the behind the scenes skills and processes first. They prove themselves able to turn up early and on time. They show their faithfulness in doing it for other people. They display their humility in being unseen and rarely acknowledged. They develop an understanding of the sound-tech needs and pressures. They get the idea that the band and the sound team are not two teams… they are one team; like the forwards and the backs in a rugby team.

Once again, everything in ministry comes back to rugby.

Take other-person-centred holidays

What are holidays for? Well the answer to that depends on your answer to the question, “What are you for?”

See, if you think that you exist for your own joy, fun, happiness… then holidays and time off is when you finannly get to be who you are. And work, family-life, normal-life is the regular inturruption to you being who you are.

But if you exist for God… if you are a forgiven servant of Jesus… if you are meant to be like Jesus – the servant of all – more and more every day… then work, family-life, normal-life is who you are. They are your spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1-2).

So why would you ever take holidays from that?!?! Why would you take holidays from being who you are?!?!

So you can keep doing it. So your body doesn’t break down while serving others. So your marriage doesn’t break down. So your kids are reminded they have a dad who loves them.

Take holidays for them. Take holidays for other people. Take holidays so you can be who you are – a slave of Christ to other people – for the long haul.

Quote

No one brags about subverting a community they care about, because your peers will ostracize you (and why would you hurt a group that you are part of?). No, we feed the community first, then we take our share.

On the other hand, we often return a rental car unwashed, or turn a blind eye to someone sneaking into the movies, or fail to report a mistake in our favor by the credit card company. That’s because those institutions are apart from us, not a part of us.

Such wisdom you wish Christians had… from Seth Godin