Several of you are in churches that have attempted to organize in such a way to make it easier to equip people for ministry. This past Spring, my wife, Rhonda, and I were able to take a cruise to the Bahamas as a result of answering some survey questions. Our church encouraged us to go (no, they didn't want to get rid of us :) ). While we were in Fort Lauderdale, we were able to go to the campus of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, where the late Dr. D. James Kennedy was pastor for many years. Dr. Kennedy developed an evangelism program that equipped his people to do the work of evangelism. His program, and book of the same title, is "Evangelism Explosion." His church campus had a bookstore that included his biography, which I purchased. I have just recently got around to reading it.
When he first invited several pastors to attend his church to find out what his church was doing, he had a vision to send them out into homes with people who had already been through his program. He asked at church, one night, "who do you think will go with the pastors when they are here to show them how this program works?" After an awkward pause, it dawned upon his congregation that he expected them to go with the pastors. They were quite intimidated at that thought at the beginning, realizing that many of the pastors had been to seminary or had years of experience in the Christian life. Finally, they agreed.
There were many testimonies from pastors and laypeople alike about what a blessing the experience was. Early in the week, the pastor just observed, by the end of the week, he was to take the lead in the eveangelistic presentation. This organizational technique came about, out of necessity becuase Pastor Kennedy could not go with all the groups. Interest from other pastors was the trend that drove this church to organize for this equipping ministry.
What trends drive our ministries toward equipping others? Dr. Kennedy's emphaisis was on evangelism. Our emphasis is on a wide range of ministries. Perhaps we have it figured out how to challenge people to discover their own ministries. How, then, do we make it possible for them to start those ministries within our church context?
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