More Morsels of Truth from ESF Winter Conference

I really enjoyed the conference on church growth at Dryden. It was not your typical Willow Creek or Saddleback church growth conference either! It was guys who are doing ministry in real life small churches throughout NY state. Real ministries of less than 200 members in communities of less than 2000. (Dave Whiting excepted -- Rochester). Each man said it in his own way, but each put a disclaimer on their messages -- "I am not an expert". While I appreciate their humility and sense of perspective, their caveats leave me wondering who will be the model? Who will set the standard or blaze a trail of excellence and say "Thus far hath God brought me -- By His grace I stand". I want to have lots of great men who are serving well surrounding me as a great cloud of witnesses. (ala Hebrews 12:1)

I have tried to boil these seven sessions (each with a man of God who clearly shared his passion in the areas of church growth and health) down to a couple of great thoughts that impacted me or that I want to try and improve in my ministry. What a tough job. But here is the second installment of that attempt:

1. The danger in church growth seminars is that we try to apply someone else’s techniques to our situation. Our standard for leadership is that of Christ. The good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep. (not His death on the cross, his daily sacrifice for the good of the disciples) *Even to the point of suffering wrongly. [Paul P]

2. Our contentment must be found in investing your self into someone else. A church exists to build people in Christ. If we strive for bigger/better we are chasing a fleeting dream. It will never big enough or good enough.

3. We may have slipped into “acceptable modes of fleshliness”. Is my sacrifice to be [accepted, noticed, thanked, successful, an authority]? Or is my personal sacrifice to be of service to God? [Paul P]

4. Get rid of fear -- there is no place for it in our ministry! We are not going to do it perfectly, so don't let perfectionistic tendencies stymy action! [Paul P]

5. Have they (the people in the church, YG, SS class, etc.) seen an attitude of self-sacrifice in me? Have I modeled Christ before my flock? Or have I embellished my sacrifice for personal gain (ala Annanias and Sapphira)? The best sacrifice is modeled after the perfect love of 1 Corinthians 13. If I sacrifice my body, but have not love I am like a clanging cymbal! Romans 12:1-2 says that I am committed to sacrifice! [Paul P]

6. We must avoid falling into the trap of giving up on preaching. There are five reasons why we need a healthy diet of expositional preaching in our churches:
a) preaching Scriptures leads people to salvation [1 Timothy 3:15];
b) preaching Scriptures leads people to maturity [3:16-17];
c) God has commanded us to preach! [4:1-2];
d) the Scriptures are a supernatural book [Hebrew 4:12];
e) the Scriptures are exalted by God [Psalm 138:2] [Dave W]

7. Preach truth not preference; do not blur the lines. [Dave W]

8. Being boring is not just sad – it’s sinful. [Dave W]
By the way, Dave was not boring! He mastered the use of Powerpoint in sermon presentation. He did a cool thing with the Scriptures too. He used white letters to singnify the parts that he would read and included phrases of emphasis in yellow for the congregation to read in unison. It worked really well.

9. The goal of great preaching is transformation not just more information. God never says, “I just wanted you to know that”. [Dave W]

10. We must preach Christ, for His glory (not mine). [2 Cor. 4:5] [Dave W]

11. Young people do not have a choice – they grow! Will you direct that growth and steer them toward godliness? Or will you allow someone else to shape them? We can’t sit back and wait for the “worst to happen”. The enemy is busy, so we must be busy! [Russ A]

12. If we help young people grow mentally, physically, and spiritually without helping them grow socially, that growth is useless. [Russ A]
I think that what Russ was getting at was a lack of application in the real world for our young people. We are very good at increasing their Bible aptitude and often not very good at helping them grasp the concept rather than the facts. A favor with God is great and necessary; but a favor with men is critical to ministry. After all, most people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

13. The goal of youth group is not to give more information; it is to apply the truths. Their midweek sesssion are called “Lab Time”. They discuss the message from Sunday, prayer requests, additional passages that bear on the topic, etc. [Russ A]

14. Using Luke 14:15-35 as a backdrop, are we missing out on the banquet of spiritual harvest? Some of the "banquet stealers" are:
a. The “if only” mindset = if only we had this or that we could do minnistry more effectively
b. Excuses = material goods, work, relationships come first before ministry
c. Overlooked opportunities
d. Unmet expectations = it didn't match what I wanted to see happen, let's quit [LD M]

15. Consider Acts 2:41ff as an outreach text. The communion of the disciples also must have included a common purpose. They pooled their resources to reach their world! They lived consistently before others and attracted others to Christ. [LD M]

16. Two people out of 100 members is not community outreach! Simply throwing open the doors and calling “Y’all come” is not community outreach! Community outreach is going inot the highways and bi-ways and compelling them to come in! [LD M]

Wow! Once again, a full day of thinking about ministry to people. Most of the stuff shared is not rocket science. Most of the stuff is not new. But most of the stuff was helpful. I really wished that the deacons and trustees would have been ther to hear some of it. The tapes will not do justice to the sessions. There is great beauty in iron sharpening iron. May I be sharper now than I ever was before!

Keep your edge,
Mike