The Trellis and the Vine

by Colin Marshall

We need to care for people and help them to flourish and grow in ministry, not squeeze them dry in the interests of keeping our programs running.

We should start with the people that God has given us, not our programs. We need to consider each person as a gift from Christ to our congregation, and equip them for ministry accordingly. So instead of thinking, “Who can fill this gap in our personnel?”, perhaps the question we need to consider is “What ministry could this member exercise?”

However, we don’t want to create the kind of ministry environment where the only way people can relate to one another is by discussing their problems. If ministry in our churches is based on reacting to the problems people raise, many will receive no attention because they are more reserved in sharing their problems. The goal is to move people forward in holy living and knowledge of God, whether they are facing problems or not; this is why we proclaim Christ, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28).

So ask yourself whether your ministries are reactive or proactive. If you are mostly reacting to people’s problems, you won’t have the energy to put into proactive training and growing new work. If you take a problem approach to ministry, people with the most critical needs will dominate your programs, and these needs will wear you out and exhaust you, and reduce the effectiveness of your other ministries.

this means that the two fundamental activities of Christian ministry are proclaiming (speaking the word) and praying (calling upon God to pour out his Spirit to make the word effective in people’s hearts).

The Great Commission, in other words, is not just for the Eleven. It’s the basic agenda for all disciples. To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker.

A central purpose of getting together, says the writer, is mutual encouragement; to spur one another on to love and good works as we wait for the day of Christ. How this can happen without us opening our mouths and speaking to each other is hard to understand.

We may all build (edify) in different ways, but we are all builders. We do not all have the same function, but we are all urged to abound in “the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58).

We have to conclude that a Christian with no passion for the lost is in serious need of self-examination and repentance.

This is why unity is so important in the congregation, and why complaining, grumbling and discord is so totally out of place. The wonderful passage about the other-person-centred humility of Christ in chapter 2 is, in context, a call for the Philippians to put aside selfish motives and petty rivalries so that they can strive together for the sake of the gospel, shining like beacons in the corrupt society around them:

However, at a profound level, all pastors and elders are also just partners. They do not have a different essence or status, or a fundamentally different task—as if they are the real ‘players’, and the rest of the congregation are spectators or support crew. A pastor or elder is a vine-worker who has been given a particular responsibility to care for and equip the people for their partnership in the gospel.

It begins as someone is instrumental in bringing someone else to new birth. It is long term and loving. It includes passing on knowledge, wisdom and practical instruction. It involves modelling and imitation. It forms not only beliefs and abilities, but also character and lifestyle. This is a very useful metaphor to keep in our minds as we think about training. Training is parenting. It’s loving someone enough to want to see him or her grow and flourish, and being prepared to put in the long-term, faithful work that will (in God’s mercy) see that happen. The relational nature of training means that the best training will often occur by osmosis rather than formal instruction. It will be caught as much as it is taught. Trainees will end up resembling their trainers, much as children turn out like their parents.

Secondly, this means that we must be willing to lose people from our own congregation if that is better for the growth of the gospel. We must be happy to send members off to other places so that the gospel may grow there as well.

And be warned: this will happen if you take gospel growth and training seriously. If you pour your time into people, and mentor and train them, the consequence will often be that some of your best people—in whom you have invested countless hours—will leave you. They will go to the mission field. They will join a church-planting team in another part of your city. They will take a job in a different part of the country because the gospel need is so great there. They will undertake further training, perhaps at theological college or seminary. A commitment to the growth of the gospel will mean that we train people towards maturity not for the benefit of our own churches or fellowships but for the benefit of Christ’s kingdom.

Then follows the lifelong process of growth as a Christian disciple—growing in the knowledge of God and the godly character that flows from that knowledge.

In all of these circumstances—in both good times and bad—the formula for growth is the same: the ministry of the word and Spirit. As the Bible’s truth is prayerfully spoken and applied and heard, and as the Spirit works within, growth occurs.

To grow like Christ is to grow in love and a desire to serve and minister to others. We are using the word ‘training’ to describe the growth of all Christians in conviction, character and competency, so that in love they might minister to others by prayerfully bringing the word of God to them—whether to non-Christians in outreach, new Christians in follow-up, or all other Christians in daily growth. If every Christian is a potential vine-worker (see chapter 4), then ‘training’ is that stage of Christian growth in which people are equipped and mobilized and resourced and encouraged to do that work.

Firstly, while all Christians can and should be trained as vine-workers, not all will be gifted to minister in exactly the same way or to the same extent. Some will be preachers and teachers, others will be Bible study leaders, some will be very good at reaching out to non-Christians and answering their questions, others will focus on meeting one to one with new Christians and following them up, and still others will be fathers or mothers teaching their children. There are a myriad of contexts and opportunities for vine work, and each Christian will have his or her God-given part to play.

If growing the vine is about growing people, we need to help each person grow, starting from where they are at this very moment. There needs to be inefficient, individual people ministry, as well as the more efficient ministries that take place in larger groups. This is the sort of individualized ministry that Paul envisages in 1 Thessalonians 5:

TRAINING IS THE ENGINE of gospel growth. Under God, the way to get more gospel growth happening is to train more and more mature, godly Christians to be vine-workers—that is, to see more people equipped, resourced and encouraged to speak the word prayerfully to other people, whether in outreach, follow-up or Christian growth. Unfortunately, in most churches and for most pastors, hardly any effort goes into training. It’s basically seen as the pastor’s job to do the gospel growth, and since that is virtually impossible at a personal or individual level, it is all done at the general and large-group level. And before long, the management and running of events, groups, meetings and structures consumes the pastor’s time and the church member’s week.

conduct a ministry that is not merely formal, but personal and local.

I have found that some ignorant persons, who have been so long unprofitable hearers, have got more knowledge and remorse in half an hour’s close discourse, than they did from ten years public preaching. I know that preaching the gospel publicly is the most excellent means, because we speak to many at once. But it is usually far more effectual to preach it privately to a particular sinner.

Paul’s ministry was collegial. There is a brotherliness and unity to it that stems from their common status as fellow workers—not just with each other, but also with God:

The important principle is that a pastor should not and cannot attempt the task of ministering to a congregation on his own. We need co-workers.

Christian ministry is inescapably relational, and some people are just not gifted relationally.

It’s much better to keep your team small, tight, unified and effective than to pull people on board who aren’t ready or right.

And as more and more Christians are trained to minister to others, the number and variety of ministries will quickly get out of hand. People will be starting things, taking initiative, meeting with people, dreaming up new ideas. Growth is like this. It creates a kind of chaos, like a vine that constantly outgrows the trellis by sending tendrils out in all directions.

There are not two classes of disciples—we are all both disciples and disciple-makers. All Christians are called to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus to death; to give up their lives to his honour and service.

It is really of minimal significance whether I work with my hands to earn my living as a disciple-making disciple, or others support me because of the demands of the kind of disciple-making that I do. The important thing is that we are all disciple-makers together.

Whoever you recruit, one hard truth must be faced: recruiting people for ministry, training them as apprentices, and sending them off to Bible college will result in a steady departure of your best and most gifted church members. This is a challenge to your gospel heart. What are you more interested in: the growth of your particular congregation, or the growth of the kingdom of God? Are you committed to church growth or to gospel growth? Do you want more numbers in the pew now, or more labourers for the harvest over the next 50 years?

The marvellous thing about generosity is that God loves it, and blesses it. In our experience, those churches that don’t try to hold on to their people, but continually train them and generously export them off into further training and ministry elsewhere, are the churches that God showers with more and more new people to train.

Christian ministry is really not very complicated. It is simply the making and nurturing of genuine followers of the Lord Jesus Christ through prayerful, Spirit-backed proclamation of the word of God. It’s disciple-making.

The goal of all Christian ministry, in all its forms, is disciple-making.

If this disciple-making vision is correct, then an integral part of making disciples is teaching and training every disciple to make other disciples. This training is not simply the imparting of certain skills or techniques. It involves nurturing and teaching people in their understanding and knowledge (their convictions), in their godliness and way of life (their character), and in their abilities and practical experience of ministering to others (their competence). This sort of training is more like parenthood than the classroom. It’s relational and personal, and involves modelling and imitation. For most congregations and ministries, thinking about training in this way will require a number of significant ‘mind-shifts’ about ministry—from running programs and events to focusing on and training people; from using people to growing people; from maintaining structures to training new disciple-makers.

If the goal of all our ministry is disciple-making, then many churches (and their pastors) will need to do some re-thinking about what they are seeking to achieve in their regular Sunday gatherings, and how that relates to other ministry activities during the rest of the week. This may mean starting new things, but very often it will mean closing down structures or programs that no longer effectively serve the goal of disciple-making. It may mean clearing out some of the regular activities and events so that congregation members actually have time to do some disciple-making—to meet with non-Christian friends, to get together one to one with newcomers at church, and so on. It may mean a revolution in the way the church staff see their ministry—not as service-providers, or managers, but as trainers.

The principle is: do a deep work in the lives of a few. This is your band of brothers and sisters who would die together for the sake of the gospel; those with whom you will share your life and ministry in the expectation that they will learn to evangelize, teach and train others.

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. Some of these people will start new ventures in outreach or Christian growth—things you or they haven’t yet imagined or thought possible.

However, the possibilities for training and growth in most congregations are endless, and endlessly exciting. And you will need to think through for yourself the possibly radical changes that need to happen.