Transcription
What do you think of when you think of philosophers? Coming up, you got a college professor, maybe a beer, the bull tie, the wild crazy hair. Is that you as a pastor? Probably not. But you know the philosophy of ministry is absolutely critical, and your ability to develop it and move it through the culture of your church is absolutely critical. How do you develop a philosophy of ministry? You've come to the right place, because that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today. Here we go.
You know, I've known these two churches over the years, both great churches, but they really went to different directions in terms of the application of their ministries going forward. One was a church that had a philosophy of ministry that was very clear; they were not legalistic in their approach to ministry; they were very focused, and they were intent on accomplishing the mission. The other church was all over the map, and their philosophy of ministry was really whatever the trend of the day was. So they were here, then they were there; they were all over the place. Needless to say, the church with the more focused and clear philosophy of ministry experienced much more growth, and frankly, the spiritual component of the church was much greater because of that focus. And that is very, very real, and that's exactly what we're gonna talk with you about today in the discussion of the philosophy of ministry. Yeah, we want to talk about how to develop a philosophy of ministry, and so we're gonna jump in real quick. But actually, before we do, I want to just mention today's a very special day because we have launched a brand, a brand new course for churches specifically on the area of kids' ministry.
And so this is applicable for kids' ministry pastors, or if you have a leader in the church, Google leads the kids' ministry, as well as here as a volunteer. We launched today a 44-video course called The Kids Ministry Track. It's part of our Church University online education for pastors. These are more full-blown courses, kind of like basically like a class, but it's all online that they can get access to all the videos, the discussion guides, the content, and resources that are a part of it to help the kids' ministry really go to the next level; help you to reach the kids, this next generation of kids, especially given the challenges we face today, literally with so much, so much vying for their attention, and their time, and their focus. And how can we make the kids' ministry one of the highlights of their week? We want the kids' ministry to be the number one thing those kids want to be involved with. In this Kids Ministry Track is going to help you get there, absolutely. So go to ChurchUniversity.com, and you can click there to see the details of the course today. Of course, we'd love to have you check it out and enroll in it if that works for you. Absolutely. So with that being the case, hey, we want to jump back into the philosophy of ministry. There's really five parts on how to develop a philosophy of ministry, and so Dick, why don't you kick this off for us?
Well, yeah, great Jonathan. You know, the other five parts we're going to talk about, so you keep this straight if you're taking notes. The first four are really in the purview of the pastor and the board, and the last one is in the purview of the pastor and the staff, or the pastor and his or her key volunteers or laypeople, their team. But the very first one is one that we don't talk about much because it's just part of who we are, and that's the worldview. What is your church's worldview? Now, you know, somebody may say, "Well, I don't know," Here's a worldview: A worldview is, "People matter to God." That's it. That's as one kind of a worldview. Now, I'm gonna bet you don't go in on Sunday morning to say, "Hey, do you know people matter to God? Do you know?" Because it's, it's we all know that, that's all. But it's a worldview, and because people matter to God, then the rest of the things happen. But love in a family: This is my son, I'm his dad. You know, while we would express love to each other every morning, we're not getting up and saying, "I love you," or that to our spouse or children or grandchildren, because it's, it's a known inside our family; that's a worldview inside our family. So your church has a worldview, and responsibilities of the pastor, the board, to be able to articulate that worldview certainly within the context of the board. Yeah, that's good.
Second part of how to develop a philosophy of ministry is the mission. So we have a mission, and and the church, big Church, big C, we have a mission to reach the lost. I mean, I'll reach spiritually lost people, right? And so your local church, your this, you know, your body that you're leading is going to have a mission, something along those lines, to reach spiritually lost people. Now, the way you word it, you know, it might be different, but as you and the board, as the pastor and the board are working this, working on this, and you're developing this mission, this is your why. Why is it we're doing what we're doing? Why is it that we meet every week? Why is it that we're offering these ministries? Why is it that we do this tactic and this method and strategy and this and that? Well, why is it? We need to, we need to, as as the, as a pastor and board, come together; we needed to develop this mission. If we haven't articulated it, what are we trying to accomplish? And obviously, like I said, it usually flows something along the lines of reaching spiritual lost people, which is what the, the thing that we are called to do as a church, but really articulating that is, is very helpful. Exactly. Exactly.
The third part of developing a philosophy of ministry is core values. Core values is that which is central to you; it's, it's central to what's important to you. You, you might have the, the actual thing that's happening, but you might have an ideal of what you aspire to. So a core value is, again, it's, it's central. Discipleship is a core value; worship is a core value; prayer is a core value. And normally you're not going to have a zillion core values. I've seen churches with five core values, seven core values, maybe ten at the tops, but you're gonna have a very defiant, and those three that I just mentioned—discipleship, worship, prayer—those are core values. Reaching spiritually lost people, the evangelism component, maybe. I've seen churches that have a style of preaching: Expository preaching, preaching from the word is a core value. Children and youth might be. So these are samples of core values you could have, and it's the role of the pastor, the board, to develop these core values and to protect these core values as they move forward. Then flowing out of that, you have goals. Now, goals would be different from core values in that goals would be something you intend to see happen that would fulfill a core value. So the, suppose your, your, your core value—let's talk discipleship. Core value of discipleship, and back in the day we would know that adult discipleship used to happen in the form of Sunday school, and then it shifted; it began to start happening to in the context of life groups. Yeah. Well, you might set a goal to say, "Okay, we used to have four adult Sunday School classes, but now we want to develop 12 or 15 life groups." That's a goal to accomplish a core value or to drive to the core value. A goal is forward thinking, and and it's not backwards; it's not to what we used to do, but it's how do we move forward. Setting goals is critical for the pastor and the board as they move forward. Yeah, that's good.
So the fifth piece. Yeah, the fifth one I want to mention is strategy. This is the practice; this is the, this is the methods, the tactics, the things that you do to accomplish those goals. And so, you know, when, when you're adhering to your worldview and your mission, your core values, you're looking at the goals that you have to have a strategy, and this is where really the, the pastor, the staff, if you have paid staff, or if it's, if it's non-paid staff, it's the key leadership. Yeah, yeah. This is where they come into play, and they really are implementing the strategy of what you're doing to be able to move the ministry forward. And so the methods and the tactics, the strategies, these things can change over time, because what worked at one point might change as society changes, and so we need to constantly be evolving those. Those strategies can change all they want; the, the, the mission will never change, and and so I think it's important to have that distinction as we develop this philosophy of ministry is to know, to hold those strategies loosely; maybe that might be a way to say it, because that's going to change and evolve over time, though. But the, the mission and what we're trying to accomplish, what will never change. That's a good point there. We go. Yeah, you know, I think an important thing to remember as you've taken notes on these five, these five things is that those first four things, if I can just go ahead and recap that in the, in the context of philosophy of ministry, the development of worldview, the development of mission, core values, and goals, those are all of the purview of the pastor and the board. Then you've got the fifth piece, which is the development of strategy; that's the purview of the pastor and his or her team. And so you, the pastor, of course, is in both worlds. You know, if I were drawing this, as I have on some occasions where I draw a line across, you have four things above and one thing below, when the pastor and board stay in the four things above, and the staff and the pastor stay in the one thing below, you'll see the greatest opportunity for the fulfillment of the philosophy, via its philosophy of ministry. It's when you get now the pastor's in all those, but when you get people dabbling over the lines, that's where conflict comes up, and that's where the philosophy of ministry starts getting muddled. So stay tuned to worldview, mission, core values, and goals with the pastor and board, and then strategy in the purview of the team. So there you go, Jonathan, and wrap this thing up.
Oh, that's great. That is the wrap-up, but I mean, we want to talk again about the launch today. Yep. Yeah, make sure if you need to invest or you want to invest in the kids' ministry program at your church, one of the greatest ways to do that is to just resource your kids' pastor, your kids' ministry leaders, and you can do that by signing up for the Kids Ministry Track, which is part of our Church University online education for pastors. You go to ChurchUniversity.com; you'll see the link there to check out the Kids Ministry Track. It launched today, now, and looks like yeah, it's gonna be great. We hope to have you check that out, and then as well, make sure to subscribe if you have not subscribed on YouTube or on the podcast platform you are listening to this episode, and we would certainly love to have you rate and review this podcast episode, so that way you are helping us get feedback, and you are helping other people see and get the word out to them as well. So thank you so much for being with us today. We'll look forward to seeing you next time. Hey Jonathan, here real quick before you go: Everything in your ministry rises and falls on your leadership, so investing in your leadership is essential to staying healthy and growing the ministry, and that's why I want to invite you to join us inside the Leaders.Church membership. This online streaming service for pastors gives you access to more than 300 videos plus training material to level up your leadership and improve your ministry skills. If you'd like to do that, I want to invite you to go to Leaders.Church/boost. Again, that's Leaders.Church/boost. Well, thanks again for joining us on the Church Tips podcast. We'll look forward to seeing you next time. [Music]