The Trellis and the Vine

by Colin Marshall

Perhaps the most striking disadvantage of this way of thinking about ministry is that it feeds upon and encourages the culture of ‘consumerism’ that is already rife in our culture. It perfectly fits the spirit of our age whereby we pay trained professionals to do everything for us rather than do it ourselves—whether cleaning our car, ironing our shirts, or walking our dog.

The tendency is for Christian life and fellowship to be reduced to an hour and a quarter on Sunday morning, with little or no relationship, and very little actual ministry taking place by the congregation themselves.

In this sort of church culture, it becomes very easy for the congregation to think of church almost entirely in terms of ‘what I get out of it’, and thus to slip easily into criticism...

In many respects, the ‘church growth movement’ of the 1970s and 80s was a direct response to the traditional Reformed-evangelical view of ministry and church life. People saw some of the disadvantages that we’ve outlined and began to think about how they could be addressed.

If the church was to grow, its ‘shopfront’ needed to be much more appealing to the ‘target market’. It sounds tawdry when put like this, but for many churches it was profoundly gospel-centred. It stemmed from a godly desire to remove unnecessary cultural obstacles to the hearing of God’s word, and to make sure that the only thing weird, offensive or strange about church was the gospel itself.

One of the key strengths and advantages of the church growth approach has been its promotion of congregational involvement. This is one of the key insights of the movement—that if you want someone to join your congregation and feel part of the place, they need to have something to do. 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.

The other key strength of the ‘church growth’ approach is its recognition that if a congregation is to grow numerically, more work will need to be put into the trellis. As the cliché goes, the pastor will have to spend less time ‘in the business’ and more time ‘on the business’.

Success has been achieved by providing a more attractive and broadly appealing ‘product’, but the result is not always more prayerful ministry of the word, and thus more real spiritual growth. Lots of people are involved and cared for and receiving help in their lives, but are people growing as disciples and in mission?

Willow Creek Community Church recently discovered this after 20 years at the forefront of the church growth movement. In a detailed survey of their members, the Willow Creek staff discovered that despite running one of the slickest and most well-organized churches in America—with superb structures, high-quality music and drama, and an impressive level of involvement of members in all manner of small groups and activities—personal spiritual growth as disciples was not happening.[1]

But crucially, the pastor is also a trainer. His job is not just to provide spiritual services, nor is it his job to do all of the ministry. His task is to teach and train his congregation, by his word and his life, to become disciple-making disciples of Jesus.

gospel maturity of those who attend. We are training people to be contributors and servants, not spectators

The congregation becomes a gathering of disciple-making disciples in the presence of their Lord—meeting with him, listening to his word, responding to him in repentance and worship and faith, and discipling one another.

Pastoral care, in this approach, is also founded on disciples being trained to care for and disciple other Christians.

Sunday sermons are necessary but not sufficient.

‘sermonettes produce Christianettes’.

The public preaching ministry is like a framework that sets the standard and agenda for all the other word ministries that take place. We do not want to see less emphasis on preaching or less effort go into preaching!

To say that sermons (in the sense of Bible expositions in our Sunday gatherings) are necessary but not sufficient is simply to stand on the theological truth that it is the word of the gospel that is sufficient, rather than any one particular form of its delivery. We might say that the speaking of the word of the gospel under the power of the Spirit is entirely sufficient—it’s just that on its own, the 25-minute sermonic form of it is not.

We say this because the New Testament compels us to. As we have already seen, 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.

When God has gifted all the members of the congregation to help grow disciples, why should we silence the contribution of all but one of them (the pastor), and ...

…while preaching… is one form of the ministry of the Word, many other forms are reflected in the Bible and in contemporary Christian church life. It is important to grasp this point clearly, or we shall try and make preaching carry a load which it cannot bear; that is, the burden of doing all that the Bible expects of every form of ministry of the Word.[3]

While individuals may be edified in so far as they are members of the congregation, there may well be other areas in which they need correction and training in righteousness which they will not obtain through the Sunday sermon, because by its very nature it is generalist in its application.[5]

Baxter’s remarkable ministry among the 800 families of the village of Kidderminster began in 1647, and transformed the parish.

The Reformed Pastor, published in 1656, consists of an extended exhortation to his fellow ministers to conduct a ministry that is not merely formal, but personal and local.

In calling for this reformation of ministry and church life, Baxter’s chief motive was the salvation of souls: “We are seeking to uphold the world, to save it from the curse of God, to perfect the creation, to attain the ends of Christ’s death, to save ourselves and others from damnation, to overcome the devil, and demolish his kingdom, to set up the kingdom of Christ, and to attain and help others to the kingdom of glory”.[7]

Baxter had come to believe, was the true cause and agenda for reformation of the church. It could not be achieved merely through structural changes:

In Baxter’s view, if the ministry was going to be reformed to focus on the conversion of souls, pastors had to devote extensive time to “the duty of personal catechizing and instructing the flock”. He saw personal work with people as having irreplaceable value, because it provided “the best opportunity to impress the truth upon their hearts, when we can speak to each individual’s particular necessity, and say to the sinner,

Public preaching was not enough, according to Baxter. In fact, he went so far as to say “I have no doubt that the Popish auricular confession is a sinful novelty… but our common neglect of personal instruction is much worse”![10]

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.[11]

He formed the ‘Worcester Association’ to promote the cause, members of which embraced the commitment to know personally each person in their charge—a challenging commitment even now, but revolutionary in Baxter’s time.

thoroughly biblical.

Paul says to the Ephesian elders that he “did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20).

four key challenges:

Evangelism is at the heart of pastoral ministry. Ministry is not about just dealing with immediate crises or problems, or about building numbers, or about reforming structures. It is fundamentally about preparing souls for death. • Ministers need not be tied to traditional structures but should use whatever ‘means’ (Baxter’s term) available to call people to repentance and salvation. For Baxter, this meant not being tied to the pulpit, but also going into people’s houses to instruct and exhort them. • We should focus not only on what we are teaching, but also on what the people are learning and applying. • In many respects, in our era of widespread education, there is even more scope to implement Baxter’s vision of personal catechizing. In many parts of the world, there is now a highly-educated laity who can not only learn well, but also very ably teach others. The personal house-to-house discipling can be done not only by the pastor, but also by the disciple-makers that the pastor trains.

One of the first steps in applying these challenges is to conduct an honest audit of all your congregational programs, activities and structures, and assess ...

Saying ‘yes’ to more personal ministry almost always means saying ‘no’ to something else.

Let’s return to our inspired but overwhelmed pastor. He wants his church to become a training centre, and he wants to equip his people as ‘vine-workers’, but at the same time he is swamped with work—preaching, committees, pastoral crises, and all the rest.

How is he going to start ministering personally to this sort of number?

God. All Christian ministry is like this. There are more people than we can ever get to. It doesn’t all depend on us, praise be to God!