The Trellis and the Vine

by Colin Marshall

Perhaps it’s because trellis work is easier and less personally threatening. Vine work is personal and requires much prayer. It requires us to depend on God, and to open our mouths and speak God’s word in some way to another person. By nature (by sinful nature, that is) we shy away from this.

visible

Pride

Thus the goal of Christian ministry is quite simple, and in a sense measurable: are we making and nurturing genuine disciples of Christ?

This should also be the goal of any new and existing ministry. To that end a careful evaluation of current ministries and frankly their ongoing support whether financial or or otherwise should be carefully measured against this goal.

The danger of having such willing volunteers is that we use them, exploit them and forget to train them. Then they burn out, their ministry is curtailed, and we find that we have failed to develop their Christian life and ministry potential.

We are easily consumed by keeping ministry programs running.

“What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” - Eisenhower

We must be exporters of trained people instead of hoarders of trained people.

Hoarding trained people is selfish and short sighted of God’s plan to reach the world for His glory. It’s not enough to just hope that they don’t leave, but we need to encourage them to! As we encourage growth and leadership, sending high potential people into more challenging/more faith requiring roles is good for gospel expansion and for personal growth.

This is classic for leaders who take the “monkey” from someone. The best response to a person like this is to start asking questions. What type of ministry interests you? What are your spiritual gifts? Where do you see yourself serving and why? Getting people to self discover the answers to these questions keeps the ball in their court. Then as leaders we are free to guide, mentor them through those conversations and connect them with ministries where their gifts match their desire. This will make them more effective in their ministry and gives them confidence and ownership in their decision. If we just start trying to plug them into a ministry, they may not be strong enough to say “no” and grudgingly go along, all the while being mediocre at best in their role.

The second implication is that the growth God is looking for in our world is growth in people.

The third momentous implication is that this people-growth happens only through the power of God’s Spirit as he applies his word to people’s hearts.

a Christian brings a truth from God’s word to someone else, praying that God would make that word bear fruit through the inward working of his Spirit.

The call to discipleship is thus a call to confess our allegiance to Jesus in the face of a hostile world; to serve him and his mission, whatever the cost.

Not everyone is a ‘teacher’ or a ‘prophet’, and the way we bring encouragement and edification to the gathering will vary according to God’s gifting. But everyone should be pursuing the same goal, which is to edify the congregation in love;

Nowhere does it say that it is OK to just be a consumer of the gifts, to sit idly by why someone else does all of the edifying and encouragement.

The Christian without a missionary heart is an anomaly. The missionary heart will be seen in all kinds of ways: in prayers for the lost, in making sure our behaviour offends no-one, in gospel conversations with friends (at dinner parties!), and in making every effort to save some. We are slaves without rights, even though we are free (cf. 2 Cor 4:5; Phil 2:7).

The gospel itself demands that we stand with our leaders and preachers in profound unity, teamwork and solidarity—not because of their personalities or gifts, but because of our common partnership in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There aren’t two classes of Christians—the partners and the spectators. We’re all in it together.

In the New Testament, training is much more about Christian thinking and living than about particular skills or competencies.

Paul uses the language of ‘training’ to refer to a lifelong process whereby Timothy and his congregation are taught by Scripture to reject false religion, and to conform their hearts and their lives to sound doctrine.

Transformation

right understanding of the gospel always leads to a changed life.

1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 relate to character and lifestyle. It’s not as if we are to model perfection—that would be impossible.

Unguarded, spontaneous words and actions expose the heart of the trainee—the good, the bad and the ugly.

The nature and goal of training can be very usefully summarized by three Cs. Through personal relationship, prayer, teaching, modelling and practical instruction, we want to see people grow in: conviction—their knowledge of God and understanding of the Bible character—the godly character and life that accords with sound doctrine competency—the ability to prayerfully speak God’s word to others in a variety of ways.

They need the example of seeing it done; and they need the personal instruction and mentoring and prayer that addresses the spiritual issues at the heart of becoming an ‘encourager’.

consequence will often be that some of your best people—in whom you have invested countless hours—will leave you.

This happens in business as well and there are two ways to react to this - disappointment that they are leaving you (inward only focus) or celebrate with them that the gospel is transforming lives (outward focus).

someone

How does our church do this? MCs? What if it looked more like the one on one relationships and mentoring they describe here? Asking people who are seasoned in their faith to meet regularly with a new believer in the vein of discipleship. If we welcome them, put them in a MC that may or may not have the people committed or focus this person needs, ask them to “get involved” with a ministry - are they then “busy doing church” or are they really growing in their faith? Do our systems set people up for growth or to perpetuate a task oriented faith?

Church growth research told us that if you found someone a role or job or opportunity for personal involvement in some ministry within the first six months of them being at your church, then your chances of retaining that person as a long-term member massively improved.

They are “retained” but does this approach drive growth?

but the structure itself will not make it happen.

God expects all Christians to be disciple-makers by prayerfully speaking the word of God to others—in whatever way and to whatever extent that their gifting and circumstances allow.

The Bible doesn’t speak of people being ‘called’ to be a doctor or a lawyer or a missionary or a pastor. God calls us to himself, to be Christian.

talent scouts.

Do we wait as a church until there is a need or do we actively review, discuss and groom talent like we do in business? Talent Management 1. Ministry history 2. Desire 3. Education and occupation 4. Skills or spiritual gifts 9-box model. Does the church do this with talent with paid and not paid.

in most of the churches we know and visit, the problem is that there is not nearly enough one-to-one personal work happening.

Training is personal and relational, and it takes time. It involves sharing not just skills, but also knowledge and character. It involves imitation and modelling.

Similar to how I have my top, right guys slotted at work. They are with me in prep for bigger things, they get feedback and I ask them for it regularly, they are given increasing amounts of responsibility, etc.

Remember: you are not grooming people to fill gaps in

your church program, but training co-workers around whom you will build ministry according to their particular gifts and opportunities.