Your church has what it takes to make a difference in its community.  In the last 17 years, I have worked as a youth pastor, singles pastor, associate pastor, campus ministry intern, and missionary.  I want to share a few principles that will help leaders empower their congregations to minister more effectively.

1. We as spiritual leaders can better enable others in the church by Teaching them to delight in God.  David declares in Ps 34:8, “O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”  David went on to say in Ps 37, “Delight yourself in the Lord; and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  There’s nothing God desires more than for his people to delight in him.  He wants his glory spread to all nations, and that will not happen apart from true joy flowing from the hearts of his followers.  Do we as leaders frequently bubble forth into joyful song as the Psalmist so often did?  “Praise the Lord!  Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his loving-kindness is everlasting” (Ps 106:1).  If we overflow with songs of joy, then our congregations will likely catch that same passion.

2. We as spiritual leaders can better enable others in the church by Helping them see that they are ministers too.  They are ministers as much as we are, and if they don’t understand that, we’ll be doing all the work while they watch.  First Corinthians 12:1-31, Rom 12:3-8, Eph 4:11-13, and 1 Pet 4:10-11 tell us that all believers have gifts and a ministry.  Are we helping them discover those gifts?  Some churches function to highlight only the staffs’ gifts.  As leaders we want to help believers use their own gifts to reach people for Christ.  Put your people in charge of a ministry and let them run with it.

3. We as spiritual leaders can better enable others in the church by Freeing up their schedules to minister.  Maybe we can take away some of the unnecessary demands: “Be at Monday’s bake sale…Tuesday’s business meeting…Wednesday’s service…Thursday’s prayer time…and Friday’s missions dinner.”  No wonder some churches have problems recruiting volunteers.  If we promote healthy families in our sermons, we can’t also demand that people attend every function of the church. The mentality, that we have to attend church a certain number of times a week, is similar to the idea that Jesus attacked in Mt 15:1-14 and 23:1-15 when he condemned the Pharisees because of their tradition.  Tradition is ok as long as it is not a basis for a person’s righteousness.

4. We as spiritual leaders can better enable others in the church by Cultivating a “Go to the lost” mentality, not a “Y’all come” mentality.  The “Y’all come” mentality is the mindset that everyone we reach for Christ has to eventually show up at our church building.  The “Y’all come” idea isn’t biblical.  Inviting non-Christians to a church service is fine, but the biblical mindset is this—Christ wants us to go to the lost so all people can worship him.  I’m not talking about trying to rally more people to our visitations, because many church visitations are nothing more than another form of the “Y’all come” mentality.  Maybe we should focus less on the scheduled events of our churches and put more emphasis on Christians reaching others for Christ apart from our church services.  In other words, enable our people to start their own home-groups with their friends and neighbors who need Christ.  If our people aren’t ready to do this, we have an obligation to prepare them to minister.

If our people had to choose between going to dinner on Sunday night with a lost couple to share Christ with them or showing up at our church service, which would we rather them do?  Many leaders would say, bring the lost family to the church and then go to dinner afterwards.  But that is the “Y’all come” mentality.  If we, the people of God are the church, then we, the church, can go to the lost without requiring that they come to our church buildings.  After all, the kingdom of God is within us, not confined to church buildings.  (Admittedly, at a church with multiple services, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem since it would be easier to worship and then get together for a meal).

As we equip our people to minister, then they can start home-groups or even house-churches.  Starting a church doesn’t require money, a piano, a pastor, or an official church building.  It only takes a couple of believers to form a church.  What would happen to our communities if we enabled the people on our pews to start home Bible-study groups with their lost neighbors?  Before long, those groups would be churches because many of those lost people would become believers.  And they would become a church that is sending out others to start churches, who repeat the process.  Some of these groups could be assimilated into our existing churches, but others would become separate congregations.  And that’s ok.

Conclusion
Many well-intentioned church leaders have inadvertently promoted the idea that the church is something we do, something we attend, a building we go to, rather than something we are.  Methodology alone won’t guarantee spirituality, but some of our traditionally held methods may be hindering God’s Spirit in our congregations.  

If your church has fallen into this pattern, there’s still hope.  If your congregation has true followers of Christ and you are a godly leader preaching the Bible to them, then the Spirit is working there.  With God’s power, the church you serve has what it takes to make a difference not only in your community but in the world.  

This article was originally published at www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=8551 in August of 2005.