Unlimited growth. The New Testament pattern for church organization and growth.
Now we're going to talk about the five biblical ministries. So let's review briefly
what we've talked about. We've talked about a lot in each lesson. I'm going to shrink it down and give you the
main things and move on.
All right. So just a little two minute review. First of all
the Bible shows us that the potential for church growth is unlimited.
We've talked about that. That's what we're shooting for when it comes to growth. Number
two, the Bible provides a pattern and an example to help us organize the
church in such a way that it is poised for unlimited growth.
So there needs to be a structure in place to support the
growth that we are anticipating.
Number three. The New Testament pattern can be summarized as
follows: Train the church to function effectively and
simultaneously in the five areas of biblical ministry in
order to promote unlimited growth. And then number four,
the relationship between ministry and growth is the following: The church grows
in proportion to its carryingout the five biblical
ministries. These are the main points that we covered in our last
session. A summary statement could be the following:
The church grows in proportion to its effectiveness in carrying out the five ministries
described in Acts chapter 2.
So the more effective you are, the better you are at carrying
out the five ministries. The more those five ministries are operating
simultaneously, the more growth you have. OK.
I want to show you a little video here.
And you might recognize...Anybody remember the Ed Sullivan Show? I'm old
enough to remember the Ed Sullivan Show and he always had this guy on. This guy was on like every
year, maybe twice a year.
I think you'll recognize him and I
show this video because in a visual way, it demonstrates the
idea of the ministry system. OK.
So here's the [video]...
So that's church work.
Isn't that church work? Isn't that how it works? Getting things going.
Get those plates up. Did you notice how many plates he had?
No. 5. Yeah.
Up in the air there, he had five going, spinning right? Getting them going.
Then he would drop things. It's the same thing, you get a ministry going and
another one going. Things are going great.
All of a sudden the coordinator for all the adult classes is
moving to Oklahoma City. Oh my. I'm missing two teachers. I got to find a
new coordinator. Oh, that plate is starting to wobble up there. Whoops, got to give it a little...
That's church work.
It's not like you lock it...it's not like a computer you lock it all in,
hit the button and away it goes. No. Constantly, you're constantly
stimulating, encouraging, motivating all the different
areas of ministry, keeping them spinning.
Ongoing work. You can't stop or they just fall.
The point of this particular video was when all five
are spinning simultaneously or all the plates up there, or whatever they were,
when they're spinning simultaneously
that's when the guy gets the applause right? They don't applaud before.
Everybody's sitting there waiting and then finally when all the things are spinning and everything...
Tada! Then he gets his reward, he gets the applause. The point I'm
making is that when all the biblical ministries are spinning they're working.
Then the Lord begins to add, you get the synergy that begins to happen. I call
it synergy liftoff. All of a sudden it's got a life of its own. Things
start to happen that you didn't even plan for. People are doing stuff
in the name of the Lord in the church. You didn't even ask them to do it.
They're just doing it on their own. You're finding out that some sister has taken it upon herself
to do whatever, some sort of ministry. We had one young guy, I was there a year before I
found out that every Sunday afternoon he would take 3 or 4 communion kits and he'd go serve communion to
all those individuals who were sick and shut in in our congregation. Nobody knew he was doing that.
Just doing it on his own. That was his ministry.
So now that we understand the process, let's take a closer look at the
ministries themselves and what they really are according to the New Testament.
So in the second chapter of Acts, Luke describes five areas of ministry that
the church is responsible for or active in. So let me name them
as they appear in Acts chapter two. Let's see now.
So evangelism, education, fellowship,
worship and service. These are the
five areas of ministry that the church and here I use the word "must,"
must be active and effective in if it wants to grow. No matter
what you do in church work, it somehow fits into one of these five areas of ministry
that Luke describes in Acts chapter two.
And when I do this thing, you know, "name your ministries,"
somebody will usually say, "Oh yeah? What about youth ministry? What about it dude?What
about youth ministry? Isn't that the sixth ministry?" and I go, "No, youth ministry is under education
because what we're doing is we're teaching the youth about evangelism, we're teaching
the youth to obey the words of Christ, we're teaching the youth and helping them to
integrate into the church. We're teaching the youth how to serve
in the church. So youth ministry is very much a part of
education. Matter of fact, in our congregation Bobby back there is the
elder responsible for education, not only adult education, but also for the youth
minister and all that business because it comes under that area.
Alright, so let's take a look at each ministry a little more closely.
On Pentecost Sunday we see Peter establish his evangelism
ministry as he begins preaching the gospel to the crowd gathered in Jerusalem
for the Pentecost feast. In verses 14 to 41 which include a
summary of Peter's sermon and the crowd's response to him, we see the basic elements of the
ministry of evangelism. I'm going to now go more into detail in this lesson
and share with you what these ministries really are.
And so the ministry of evangelism begins by preaching the gospel
to the lost. OK? Peter's summary point is
"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ ---
this Jesus whom you crucified. Telling the story of the death,
burial and resurrection of Jesus to those who don't know it.
Now there's a lot of ways to do this. And I'll explain some in a moment but suffice to say that
the bottom line is to somehow communicate this information as a first
priority. Also part of evangelism
is to encourage a response from the lost.
Let's see if I've got that scripture. Yes. "Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the
heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brethren, what shall we do?' And Peter said to them,
'Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And he continued, "'For the
promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to
Himself.' And it with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying, 'Be
saved from this perverse generation!'" So not only does he give them the
story, he urges a response from them. He encourages and
continues to exhort people to respond with repentance and baptism.
Peter did it by insisting they respond as soon as possible. We can do this
by repeating the message and providing opportunity and encouragement. And then the third
part, again still in evangelism ministry, baptizing repentant
believers. Verse 41. "So then those who had received his word were baptized; and that
day there were added about 3000 souls." What is the mystery here
exactly? What is the difficult thing to understand here about
the evangelism ministry? It is the first ministry
area. And it is the communication of the Gospel of Jesus to the
lost with the objective that they respond with faith, repentance, and baptism.
Now this explains in a brief way what evangelism tries to accomplish, but not the way
to accomplish it. There are a lot of ways or methods given to us the New Testament
to do evangelism or to be effective in evangelism ministry. Here are some.
There's confrontational evangelism, Peter Acts chapter 2. That's straight
forward preaching, public speaking.
This is my own personal approach to practice the ministry of evangelism.
As I say in college, my major was in missions and church planting organization, but my
minor was in mass communication and my interest for 35 years, I've been a
preacher for 35 years, my interest has always been the use of
media in the work of the church, always, from the very beginning I wanted to figure out how to use
media in the work of the church how to use media to preach the gospel to the lost.
The goal of course for me is to have a pulpit that has the widest reach possible.
That's my goal. Some individuals, they work in a real life
pulpit in a congregation and they serve in that way. My pulpit is an
electronic pulpit. I want to reach a much wider audience and so that's why we
use the Internet. There's all kinds of ways to evangelize:
newspapers, pamphlets, meetings, all kinds of things.
Alright, another style of evangelism is
intellectual evangelism. Acts Chapter 17. Paul at Athens.
Christian writers, scholars, debaters, who proclaim in books and in other ways.
They explain the gospel. They provide proof of its authenticity in comparison to other religions and
philosophies. That's evangelism.
Where do you think preachers get a lot of their ideas? They get a lot of their ideas from books written by really smart guys.
That's a form of evangelism. Another type, testimonial evangelism.
The demoniac in Luke Chapter 8. After he was healed, what happened? He goes back.
The Lord sends him back and then when the Lord comes back to that area there are large crowds. How did the
large crowds find out? Well the demoniac went and told them, "Look what the Lord did for me."
It's one thing we don't do in the churches of Christ. We don't like that word.
Give us your testimony, give us your witness, sounds too evangelical. But yet, that's a very
biblical thing. A very powerful thing.
Last in the last quarter on Wednesday night I asked 13 different men in our
congregation to do a short devo and their devo was about
"give us your testimony." How did you come to Christ or what did he
do for you that was meaningful in your life? 13 guys, not preachers or
necessarily Bible school teachers or anything like that. I went out of my way to pick guys who were never in the pulpit and
never in the classroom, and yet their testimony, their witness was a powerful
thing. Every Wednesday night something different, something unique.
Testimonial evangelism, sharing with others what God has done for you.
Interpersonal evangelism. Matthew, Luke verse 5. What Jesus did
with Matthew. He went and ate at Matthew's house, got involved in his life. Today we call
it friendship evangelism. That's one way to evangelize. Invitational
evangelism. The Samaritan woman in John 4.
Inviting people to Bible class or devotionals or worship so they can hear the
gospel and be with Christians. You know the Samaritan woman invited the villagers to
come and hear Jesus.
As a matter of fact, this is one of the ways that we use the most. I said one way
we don't use is testimony, but one way we do use a lot is
invitational. And then, one other one, service oriented
evangelism. Dorcas in Acts Chapter 9 for example. Dorcas
impressed her community for Christ with acts of benevolence in the name of Jesus.
We have all kinds of good works that we do in the community I know of many that you do.
In your community providing food and clothing and other things, giving a testimony.
Now not everybody can preach from the pulpit or befriend strangers, but each can find a way to share the
gospel with the lost in order to bring the saving blood of Christ
to individuals as they enter the waters of baptism. So the first area of ministry
is the ministry of evangelism. Its objective is clear, to
share the gospel with the lost with a view that they repent and are baptized in the name
of Jesus Christ.
Ok here's my question. Are you consciously doing this in your community?
Does that guy across the street there, have you managed to communicate to him in some way
his or her lostness?
Because if you haven't done that, then that plate is not spinning here in Ponca City.
See what I'm saying? There has to be a conscious effort to actually
communicate the information of the gospel to people who don't know it.
And if we're not doing that in some way then we don't have a ministry of evangelism.
If we're doing it only once a year at a gospel meeting, for example, well we're doing it, but that
plates up there but it's kind of wobbly. It's not spinning.
See what I'm saying? OK education, let's talk about that.
Education Ministry.
"They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching." Once people become Christians through
baptism, the work of teaching them to know all of Jesus'
teachings and to obey them begins. The teaching ministry of the church can
be accomplished in a variety of ways because we see a variety of teaching methods in the New
Testament as well. For example, they taught the disciples throughout the week in the
temple area and in homes, Acts 2:42 and 46. We see them teaching in the
temple, Acts 1:15 to 26 while they were in the upper room at that time.
They taught on the Lord's day when they gathered for communion. Paul, Acts chapter 24:7.
They taught in public meeting places throughout the week and Sunday. Again, Paul, the
school of Tyrannus was in Acts Chapter 19. So there's no
specific command as to where or how they were to be taught, only what they were to
be taught in Matthew 28 verse 20. So what were they supposed to be taught?
The teaching of Jesus had to be taught.
Not psychology, not religious opinion.
The Bible is the primary subject for learning in the church. Come on folks.
You only got them for 40 minutes, once a week.
and so if your Bible class once a week for 40 minutes is just talking
about pop psychology, feel good stuff, something you got
out of a book other than the Bible.
People in Bible class ought to be learning about the Bible.
The Bible. What it is, what it says, what it does,
what it's about. The Bible.
And the objective of the teaching is that students learn to obey the word. Let us
teach you how to put into practice the words of Christ.
And we must also train disciples to teach others so that they continue this
cycle. Now with each generation there are new tools and methods that are developed to fulfill
our kind of educational goals. For example, Bible class that was
developed to enable a more effective way of teaching different groups within the church: the young, the
old, the marrieds, those not married, unmarried.
We now use a variety of media tools like overhead, not anymore, but we do use computers
now, photocopiers, all the modern technology
to teach. Jesus used the technology of his time.
He used word pictures and parables, He did miracles in order to teach.
We also take advantage of different people's skills to vary our approach to
different groups and ages. We use music, we use puppets, we use all kinds of things but
the objective is always the same: to teach people the words of Christ, to teach about the words and how
to obey the words. These are permitted because the New Testament doesn't
tell us how or when or where to teach, this is left to our judgment.
It needs to be done decently and orderly of course but the New Testament
tells us to teach the disciples to obey all of Jesus's words, how we do it, that's up
to us. Number three, the fellowship
ministry. There's such a logical progression here.
It says, "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship."
People are converted through the preaching of the gospel. Converts are taught in the
teachings and the commands of Christ. Then they are integrated into the
congregation of believers. As it does with many other
important concepts, the New Testament uses like a special word to describe this integration
it uses the word fellowship, some translate the word into communion.
It's a word that means more than just becoming part of a group. It means actually
sharing what the other person or persons in the group have.
For example, it's the difference between being inside my house
or being inside my house for a meal. So the delivery
person comes inside my house to bring the pizza.
He's inside my house for a moment
but then he leaves. The people inside my house eating the pizza,
those people I have fellowship with. You see what I'm saying? There's a difference there.
Fellowship is also the word used to describe what Christians
experience when they share Christ. He's what we share. What do you think we have in
common? We don't have anything in common.
I grew up speaking French with an Italian dad. I was raised Catholic. I
was a schoolteacher. I come from Canada. We don't have anything in common as
far as that's concerned. What do we have in common? We share Christ. Why? Why is this
African-American sister, what does she have in common with me? We're different cultures, we're different
colors, we're different genders. We probably have much different background. What is it that
we have to share? We have Christ. We share Christ.
And I don't know her, but I'm already closer to her than people who are related to me by blood.
Why? Because I don't share Christ with them, but I do share Christ with her.
See what I'm saying?
Fellowship is also the word to describe what Christians, as I say,
experience, they share Christ. It's the sharing of Him that
places our relations and our interactions in church on a much higher level than our
ordinary friendships and family relationships with those who are not Christians.
Let's face it, regardless of who they are my relationship with other Christians is
fellowship because we both share Christ and conversely
regardless of who they are or how close they are I cannot have fellowship with one
who is not a Christian.
I can be friends with them. I can love them. I can even be married to them, but I
cannot have fellowship with them.
I use my mother as an example. She's been gone now, she's passed away many, many years.
My mother was not a religious person, she had no interest and so on and so forth. I love my
mother. I respected my mother. My mother was a single mom. My dad died when I was very
young. I was an only child so she had to work hard to raise me. I appreciated her. The
one thing her and I never shared was Christ.
So my mom and I we never had fellowship.
We never had it.
We never talked about the Lord. We never talked about the Word. Never. We talked about everything else: the
grandkids, the kids, the weather, the politics, health, all that stuff.
Money, jokes, TV, favorite actors.
Never Jesus.
Never Jesus. So regardless of who they are or how close they
are you cannot have fellowship with someone who does not share Christ with you.
In Acts 2:43 and 44 It says, "Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and
signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all
things in common; And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread
from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of
heart," Here we see the joy and the extent of the sharing being expressed by
these new Christians. They shared the excitement of seeing the power of God
at work. They shared a new sense of community as ones who had
left an old life behind and begun a new one with fellow believers. They shared
their time and lives together along with the joy of their newfound faith.
And so the pattern of fellowship established by the early church provides a good example for us to
follow today as Christians. The ministry therefore of
fellowship is the effort to facilitate and enable Christians to
participate in and enjoy each other's lives and faith in
Christ. It is not just about pizza.
It's not just about eating chicken after church on Sunday. That's the
vehicle, but it's not the destination. The destination is that while we eat,
we have fellowship. We are sharing our faith. People from different
backgrounds, different cultures, different schedules, we need to work at sharing our
time, our faith, our service, our meals, our lives together with Christ.
And that requires organization, it requires effort and it requires planning and so
on. That's the ministry of fellowship.
And so the ministry of fellowship has as its primary goal the creation of
opportunities for Christians to come together and share Christ whether it be
in social gatherings, service projects or times for reflection and
thanksgiving. If Christians don't take the time to bond with other
Christians in fellowship they become vulnerable to attack through temptation and
isolation. That's why fellowship is so so very important.
Aright, stay with me. Number four, worship.
In 42, Acts 2:42c, it says, "They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles'
teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer." So the
next ministry we see in sequence is the ministry of worship. So in Acts,
Luke describes it briefly with reference to prayer and communion, the breaking of bread meant
a meal or communion depending on the context. So now Luke only
mentions what the disciples began to do as they were initially converted. Later on
we see that the Christian public worship included five
basic elements, so here he simply alludes to the time of worship.
Later on we find out what is it that they did when they gather publicly to worship.
Private worship is much more inclusive and flexible. Why?
Because everything we have is offered to God. Romans Chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Right? We
offer to God our entire selves, our entire lives as a living
sacrifice; so if you're a jogger, you can run for Christ and offer that for Christ.
I like to play golf
and before I tee off, I say "Lord, you know whether it's good or bad it doesn't
matter, I'm alive. I'm breathing in the fresh air. I'm looking at this beautiful
place here and I have the time and the resources and the ability to enjoy this
sport. Thank you so much. It doesn't matter if I play well or not. You've blessed me
and I'm playing to your honor and to your glory."
That sounds a little too charismatic to you?
Too bad because I'm going to keep doing it OK?
And then when we play as a foursome, I have some golf buddies there, they're all members of
the church and we play Monday, it's my day off, so we play on Mondays. And then on the
18th hole when we get to the 18th hole, everybody gets out of their carts. Grown men, we
hold hands, make a circle and take turns to offer a
prayer of thanksgiving.
Lord, what a fantastic day you've given us. Please help Ron with his chipping.
And tell Bobby not to cheat. You know what I'm saying? I mean you know I'm talking about, but that's
not a joke, we do that. We do that because we're just so filled with thanksgiving
for what he's given us, this simple sport, the simple moment, how blessed
we are. I'm the most blessed of men.
Most Blessed of men.
So private worship is very flexible. You understand? I mean if
somebody likes to play the piano at home, they're playing the piano. Lord, I'm playing the piano
to your honor. Yeah sure.
Whatever I do, I do it decently, orderly.
Something that's good and clean. Obviously that passes that kind of test but I do it
to your honor and glory. Public worship. OK, that's a different story. Public worship, we have
we have some guidelines. We have a pattern here for public worship that God
gives us. And I think we're pretty familiar with that.
I'll just go over them very, very quickly. We take the communion of course. Acts
chapter 2 verse 42, First Corinthians 11:23 and 26. I'm not going to read all those
passages simply to establish this is the Biblical idea
of what we do publicly, corporately. We also offer
prayer Acts 2:42c. We sing praises. Again
this lesson is not going to be on the use or not the use of instruments of music. I think we can prove
that from the Bible.
But the singing of praises to God is part of our public worship isn't it?
Act 2:47, Ephesians 5:19. The teaching of God's word, whether
from the pulpit or the classroom. Acts 2:42, Acts 21:7. And then of course
giving to support the church. First Corinthians 16:2 and Acts 2:45
So in the New Testament these are the only activities
taught or practiced in Christian public worship. No parades.
No special traditions. No rituals of any kind other than baptism.
Baptism and the breaking of bread are the only "rituals" if you wish
that are in the Bible, in the New Testament
for Christians to practice right?
No bands, no parades, no smoke, no candles, no things like that. Those are all human additions.
That was the whole point of the restoration movement. Let's clear the deck let's get rid of that stuff. It's getting in the
way. Let's just keep what the Scriptures tell us. I told you yesterday, we have such a
great idea. We have the right idea. Someone says, "Why do you say that the church
of Christ they're always fighting evil?" I tell them because we've got the right target. We're
shooting at the right thing. We have the right instruments to shoot at. Sometimes we don't hit it,
sometimes we miss it completely but at least we're aiming at the right thing.
And so as a church, the New Testament church, we follow these guidelines in
preparing our public worship to God when we meet. Of course as the church
grows in numbers it requires a certain organization to make sure that the communion
elements are on hand and prepared, people are selected and trained to serve as prayer leaders
and worship leaders and so on and so forth, teachers. This organization,
this effort to practice these elements in accordance with the Bible, require time and effort of a lot of
people and this effort to prepare a public worship service,
that is Biblical and relevant and orderly and effective,
this is the work of those who are part of the worship ministry. OK?
So for worship to be meaningful, which means that it truly honors God and blesses
the worshipper, a lot of details have to be taken care of.
Making sure that all the details are taken care of from providing a nursery to hearing
devices to those who need them and everything in between,
that's the work of the worship minister. Some people think, "I'm the worship minister" within
a lot of churches that means that's the guy that organizes the three or four, 10
people up front that form some sort of chorus to sing. Well,
that's a very limited idea of what a worship minister is. There's a lot more to worship
than just the singing part.
OK? All right last thing. The service ministry verse 45.
"and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might
have need." So in verse 45 we see the natural
outcome of the cycle. Watch and I'm going to put it together. Sinners forgiven for
sins who are taught Christ's word and begin to share their new life with other
believers and worship God, the natural outcome
of this is love, love for God and love for one another. So a
concrete example of this love is seen in verse 45. What are they doing in Jerusalem?
Well, they're starting to serve each other using.
Luke doesn't mention specifics. He simply says that they pool their resources in order
to take care of any needs that came up. This activity pleased
God, Matthew 5:16, but it impressed the community as well.
Because once people learn of the love of Christ through the gospel and respond to that love in
obedience, once they begin to experience the love of Christian brethren and share in thankful
worship and praise to the God who is love there is only one place for you to go and what is that?
That's to return that love by serving other people. How many times has it happened to you that a
new Christian after a couple of months comes up to you if you're a minister or an elder, deacon whatever and says, "Is there
something I can do?
I want to do something." Well do you think they got nothing to do? They got dead
time? Nobody's got dead time. Even retired people don't have any dead time right?
You wonder how you managed to go to work all those years. So what I'm saying is that
when somebody says, "Is there anything I can do?" What they're saying to is, "I'm
overflowing with love and I got to give it to somebody.
Tell me to do something. Wash the floor, deliver some food please. I got to
love. I got to love somebody."
That's service. And so the service ministry of the church is quite
varied but the objective of this ministry is motivated by the same
spirit that moved the early Christians to pool their resources in the service of other
people. That motivation is to express the love of Christ to others
as it was expressed to Him. Now the service ministry is broken down and I'm going to explain to
you a little later on how it's broken down in the ministry system. OK.
So now you have a brief description of each biblical ministry as it appears in the book
of Acts: evangelism, education, fellowship, worship and service.
Alright, one more piece here. I've also told you that this
passage also contained the relationship between ministry and church growth and here it is
again. When the church is active in ministry the Lord will
cause it to grow. Acts 2:47b. "And the
Lord was adding to their numbered day by day those who are being saved." Note that the very
last sentence in the passage ties everything together as I mentioned before.
They were busy preaching to the lost and baptizing repentant believers. They focused on
teaching the disciples to obey all the words of Christ. They provided encouragement
and opportunity for fellowship and worship and this led to the natural outpouring of love
seen in Christian service and what was the outcome? Jesus
added to the number. This is why the objective is ministry not
growth. We minister. He adds. Don't worry about the
adding part. You just worry about the ministry part. So here's the crux of the matter.
If you want your congregation to grow you must effectively minister in
every single area. The more effective and integrated the ministry
the more dynamic the growth. In the most
simple of terms, organized ministry
equals unlimited growth. OK. Now that you have the
theory I need five volunteers.
Those who are awake can volunteer. I need five volunteers. Can
I see some hands please? Not just me. Oh of course, yes. Come forward.
Sheesh.
Yes of course. Yeah. Lisa you too. Now we've got girls. Now let's get the boys
up here. Oh you've got your hand up back there? You just stretching?
Come on up. That's three. Any other brave souls? Come
on, don't worry about public humiliation. There's nothing to worry about. Come
forward. One, two, three, four, five.
Alrighty. One, two, three, four, five.
Now here's the plate, remember the plate? Remember this plate here?
So the plate here will, see what I'm saying? So the plate here, right? You've
got to balance it right? It's like ministry. It's not that easy, right? Hang on a second.
I'll get it. I'll get it. I'll get it.
There we go. Come on baby, don't fight me.
There we go. See that? A little applause please.
I said when you get it spinning then you get the applause. OK
So here's yours.
Here's yours with the little knob. OK. OK. I want you
to all stand in line in front of me.
And one more. OK stand in line. Not too close now because you're going to bump into each other. You stand a
little further apart over here.
Over here. Come on, come on. A little further over here.
Over here. I'll get you. I'll have to get you all in the shot here. Come over here. Now when I say
go, I want you to get those five plates ready. One, two, three, go. Get them all spinning.
Go easy now, go easy.
OK we got two, we got three, we got four. We got four. We got three.
we got four. Oh come on John. Four, three, two.
Keep spinning. Give me a little tap every once in a while. The trick is keep it straight.
So the question is, how many elders do we need to get the plate spinning?
Well, alright. Good enough. Thank you. Thank you.
Just put that stuff down over there.
Alright. The last thing I want to say then, we will take another break before we
will take a little longer break. Thank you very much volunteers.
Now the reason I did that aside from publicly humiliating some of the members here
is to give you a warning. OK? To give you a warning.
I mean what I'm saying to you, there's nothing radically new about it.
Ministry equals growth.
I mean really, that's pretty simple stuff and that there are five ministries in
the book of Acts and if we do those five and do them well the Lord will add to the
church. Pretty easy to understand.
However, it's not as easy as it looks to
do. The guy in the video, he had hose things spinning up
there and away we go you know, but when you actually try to get five of these little plates
spinning at the same time, it's not that easy. It's the same thing in church
work. It's not that easy to get all of these five ministries actually functioning
effectively and simultaneously,
but as I said before that's the goal.
At least if you know what you're shooting for, you know how well you're doing or
not well you're doing and I guarantee you that the excitement that
you will actually feel when you sense that the church is getting this
lift here because things are popping, things are happening will be worth the effort.