Aaron Shelton Philosophy of Ministry Dr. Patrick Mays Foundation of Ministry 12/09/10
Outline I. Mission A. Christian Beliefs B. Bible C. What Makes Up Mission? 1. Glorify God 2. Reach the Lost 3. Equip Followers D. Jesus 1. Fully God, Fully Man 2. Ministry E. Peter F. Paul II. Core Values A. Be Biblical B. For Everyone C. Shows Love D. Be Transformational E. Repentance and Forgiveness F. Fellowship G. Work on body and soul H. Train Missionaries
I. Messy III. Vision and Strategy A. Attend and Invite B. Connect C. Volunteer D. Invest
Shelton, 4 Mission! When I began to ponder on my Philosophy of Ministry there were many things that came to mind, like what is Christianity, who is Jesus, and what is this incarnational ministry? I realized that there is so much more to ministry than I had ever been taught in church. That Jesus, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit have so much more to do with our lives today. That the works of Jesus, Peter, and Paul are the perfect examples of what we are to do as Christians. But, to begin it all we need to look deeply into what ministry really is and how Jesus meant for it to be.! For starters, I would like to give a solid definition of what I believe as a Christian. I believe that we are a fallen people, that sin has had its grip on us for far too long and that we need to be saved. God sent his son Jesus as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. Jesus, fully God and fully man, who has power over death, gave his life willingly for mankind. Resurrection and eternal life in fellowship to God are embodied in Christ, only for those who believe in him. Through this relationship, life change happens and grace and love overflows from our hearts. With this abounding grace and love we are called to go fourth and seek the lost and broken and serve them the way Jesus served mankind.! The best and most simple place to look when we wish to discover the true meaning of mission is the Bible. I think this is highly overlooked as an amazing and
Shelton, 5 credible source in the church today to show what mission is, as people are often too lazy to read their Bibles. I wish to begin by looking into what the Old Testament has to say on ministry and worship. The word obodah is a word that describes work, or labor as a slave or servant involving God. Ministry is all about serving, we see this countless times in the Bible and through the examples of Jesus. We constantly see him in service to others. υπηρετηϛ (hupertes), the Greek word for serving with ones hands, is used constantly through the New Testament when either Jesus or the twelve are serving the church. This is showing us that our mission is to serve others and that we must be servant-leaders in our churches and communities. I believe this is one of the best ways to reach someone who is lost. In our Postmodern culture people are open to hear what you believe, but trying to get them to believe what you do is a much more difficult and grueling task. I see serving as one of those venues into the lives of the lost. I like to serve and have them see from the outside looking in, that there is something different about me and make them curious as to what makes me unique.! Through this service there are three things that make up our mission, the first is to glorify God. Second we need to reach out to the lost and hurting. As Proverbs 24:11 says, Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. And lastly, we need to equip those who are to follow us in our footsteps. Our whole goal on this earth is to bring glory to our creator, to show the
Shelton, 6 lost his healing power in grace and forgiveness and to show the church how to cary on the mission when we are gone.! To further our look into mission, I think the next appropriate step is to look at Jesus and the examples he has shown us about how to conduct ourselves and the church. Jesus came into this sinful world, as a missionary, and lead his Incarnational ministry. Jesus was fully man and fully God. There is no in-between, no half and half. Jesus is the 200% God man! Today people don t have a hard time accepting that a man can be fully God as well as fully man, but in the times of the Greco-Roman world, this was a concept that was beyond belief. In that time they believed in a spiritual world and a physical world, and there was no connection between the two. But if you look at John 1, right away he addresses this situation to the Greeks. λογος, or the Word is something that Greek philosophers knew very well. This was what they used to describe what brought the universe into order. John soon blows their minds, he speaks of the word becoming flesh and walking among man. Jesus, fully God, took on flesh and came down to save us. He is the bridge between the spiritual world and the physical world, and our intermediary to the Father on our behalf.! When Jesus arrived he began to connect with the people. He learned about their culture, their language, and began to rise as the perfect King he was. He lived the life of a normal person, he ate the same food and he prayed at the same Synagogue. He
Shelton, 7 was tempted by satin and he remained pure in his walk. He suffered hurt and pain and ultimately death just as we do and will. And in the midst of all of this he didn t turn away from us and cast us out, he didn t conform to the patterns of this world, he accepted and met us where we are and started working from there. He often showed people the flaws of the church at the time and pointed out weaknesses in religious customs when he saw it was impeding people s walk with God. He lead by example, showing people love and compassion, healing the sick and lame, he came and met people where they were at, and accepted them where they were. Before Jesus ascended he gave one final commandment, a commandment that every Christian is responsible for, 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. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matt. 28: 19-20)! The next revolutionary leader is Peter, he took the words of Christ and ran with it. He defends Christ's declaration of being the messiah and backs him up, revealing that Jesus did fulfill the role of the Son of God. He showed that Jesus followed all the Old Testament prophecy and affirms the readers faith in Christ. After, he shows that Jesus is the son of God, he calls for repentance. He calls people to experience life change and to turn from their sinful ways. He then proceeds to tell us that we are forgiven and that Jesus died for our sins. He shows us that we have been given the Holy Spirit and a
Shelton, 8 new heart and life in Jesus. He invites us into the body and to celebrate as followers of Christ. This is the model of ministry that we need to follow.! For mission we can also look into the life and ways that Paul ministered. Paul, being the next major missionary aside from Jesus, played an enormous role in the early church. Paul was called to not only preach to the Jews but to the Gentiles as well, he traveled all over the world reaching and preaching to the lost. And how did he do it? He took the time to get to know people, to analyze each and every community that he came across and learn their ways, learn their beliefs, and teach them the gospel accordingly. Paul was overly animate in spreading the word even when people threatened to kill him and beat him up over it. Yet he was always preaching and in his last days he preached from his home when he was under house arrest. He had a love for Christ and for people and this abounded from his life. He was a man that build disciples and formed communities that loved one another. Our model of the church today needs to resemble this. To go out into the world, the community and to first observe the society and preach the gospel in a way they will understand it. Core Values! When looking into what core values we as a church need to adopt and follow we can find a whole list of what we must do. To start off, our church needs to follow what
Shelton, 9 the bible says. It is one of the few things on this earth that we can trust and lead our people with. We need to read it within its context and lead with the scriptures and defend the church against attacks with it. As 2 Corinthians 4:5 says, For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake, God has equipped us with his own words, we shouldn t need anything else. We also need to be a church for everyone. Acts 15 speaks of how we are all fully God s people in our culture.¹ No one is more or less deserving of Christ s love and compassion. We must be a church of love as well. Showing the love that Jesus did will only attract more and more people. Jesus knew the hearts of his people and knew they were hurting and longing for something more in their lives, and I believe that we must begin by showing that love. Next, we need to go into the culture and reach the lost. Our church needs to be able to be transformational in our society. We need to be able to adapt and change with the society around us and not find ourselves sinking into the edifice complex, bunkering down and trying to wait out the storm. Snyder in his book, Radical Renewal,² talks about our God being a God of newness and it is necessary for us to adopt new wineskins when the time is right. He spoke about the institutional church being one of the biggest roadblocks in our society today and the fact that we are just now beginning to change to meet the needs of the people doesn t mean we should stop when the numbers of the church become ideal. We need to keep up and at times, when all else fails, scrap what we have and start anew. Next, we need to not only preach repentance and forgiveness but practice it. There is great power in
Shelton, 10 repentance and forgiveness and our Christian journey can not begin without first asking for forgiveness and repenting for our sins. I believe true healing begins here and without a church consistently preaching and practicing repentance and forgiveness, the healing will not happen. Next, we need to be a church with fellowship. Our church must be in vertical and horizontal fellowship. We must be vertically in fellowship with our God and King. He must be in charge our our lives and our relationship should be continually growing in him. We also must have a horizontal relationship with others around us. Our fellowship with each other should be similar to how Jesus had fellowship with his disciples. This fellowship is foretaste of what heaven will be like and our relationships with each other will bring great healing. This can be either helped or hindered by the church. In fellowship we will be able to start working on they body and soul of each individual brother and sister. We must be able to, through the love and grace of Jesus, transform the soul and the body into a Christ-like servant. With this our society will slowly change and transform into what Jesus wants our lives to look like. Next, our church must train missionaries. When the time is right, we need to be able to reach out from beyond our front door and spread the word on a global basis. There are many ways of doing this such as supporting organizations or supporting your own local missionary or send a team for a trip. Through this the church should be able to help spread the word of God to all nations. Lastly, the church has to be messy!
Shelton, 11! it turns out that what disqualifies you and me from spirituality the mess of! our lives and our crippledness is what most qualifies us to be chosen by! Jesus Some of us actually believe that until we choose the correct way to live,! we aren t chooseable, that until we clean up the mess, Jesus won t have! anything to do with us. The opposite is true. Until we admit we are a mess, Jesus! won t have anything to do with us (Mike Yaconelli, 37) No church is perfect and ministry is far from easy, there will be bumps in the road and mistakes made but the church must keep going, for ministry is a never-ending task that requires lots of time. Vision and Strategy! I believe the vision of the modern church is to save as many as they can and to engage the believers in their congregation in growth in their walk with Christ. Personal life change needs to happen in order for any growth to occur. It isn t possible to just become a Christian and remain living a sin engulfed lifestyle. In my home church I really like how they approach ministry. They start off with four simple steps, which they call Lifesigns.³ The first Lifesign is attend and invite. You must start attending church regularly so you may become equipped for your spiritual battle in our society. You need to begin learning the bible and hearing practical and useful applications of God s word in your life today. Out of this you need to invite others to join you and spread the word of
Shelton, 12 how God has changed your life. The church makes this easier by passing out invite cards at the end of each service that you can give to people with all the church s information and service times. I personally enjoy leaving them with the waitstaff at restaurants. The next Lifesign is to connect. This is best done in small groups, there is so much power behind studying Gods word in small groups and becoming close and personal with those people. For REAL life change to happen you must be able to become completely transparent with those people and share your hurts, pains, joys, and victories with your group. Many peoples lives are fragmented, which causes them to seek out community in small groups. There they regain the intimacy that they once experienced in their families when everyone remained in the same neighborhood for most of their lives (Long, 141) Here people can come broken and hurt and be accepted and have encouragement for their walk with Christ. This is where the true healing begins. And when people slip up and make mistakes, this small group will be here to help them back up on their feet, not judging them for what happened, and get them back on track. Sin is sin, one is no worse than the other, and I believe in these small groups true acceptance can be brought fourth for true healing. The third Lifesign is to volunteer. As followers of Christ we are called to serve in the church and community. We must remember υπηρετηϛ, service with ones hands. Our American society is so self centered and that is not at all how Christ was, or wants us to be. We have to break the chains of laziness and pride and come fourth with just ourselves to offer. There is always something for someone to do in the church, whether it is
Shelton, 13 welcoming people, brewing coffee, or watching some kids for a hour, God has blessed each and every one of us with a gift through the Holy Spirit. The last Lifesign is to invest in the church. People must give in order to keep the church functioning and serving the community. Without investment the church will become dormant and engulfed in self concern, not willing to go out on a limb to expand, and will slowly wither away and die.! In conclusion, ministry is a difficult task that requires work and persistence. We must follow the examples that Jesus, Paul, and Peter gave us for our ministry. We must also be able to adapt to the constantly changing culture around us and continue to reach the lost and hurting and bring the true healing that only comes with a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Works Cited! ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2008. Print.! Yaconelli, Michael. Messy Spirituality. 2nd. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007. Print.! Long, Jimmy. Emerging Hope. 2nd. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004. Print. Adapted from: 1.! ESV Study Bible. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Bibles, 2008. Print. 2.! Snyder, Howard. Radical Renewal. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1996. Print. 3.! Real Life Fellowship. Corpus Christi, TX. www.reallifefellowship.org