A New Model of Ministry

I am struck by the way God has developed a brand new way to spread the gospel and good works to people around the world. Right before our eyes we are seeing God bring about a radical rearrangement in the structure, types of ministries and personnel doing the ministry.

For many years I have fought against the unbiblical notion that the only people that were supposed to do ministry were those "Paid to be Christians." Now we are seeing that model being altered so much that in a few years we will question why it was ever so popular.

Back when I was in high school many of the students worked in the Bell Telephone offices placing calls. It was estimated that in a few years there would be so many calls that every woman in America would be working for AT&T. Now we laugh at such nonsense because computer switches do 99% of all those jobs.

A few years ago there was a big push for more people to attend seminary and many scholars were suggesting that we needed many more good seminaries to keep up with the increasing population growth. Now we see that in the same way that computers have replaced women answering calls and placing them to the right person, new media, new people and new approaches are rapidly replacing the need for paid clergy and therefore graduate education for those clergy.

A couple of years ago, a couple of young guys were discussing the possibility of uploading videos onto the web like still photos. Only one year ago they figured the problem out and started a little company called, "Youtube". A few weeks ago Google paid almost 2.0 Billion Dollars for it and it is only a baby. Creativity and lay initiative built it nd now ordinary people are uploading tens of thousands of their home grown videos on Youtube.

The phenomenon is the result of what is called "Social Networking" and it is the wave of today and tomorrow. It is the plan that Jesus laid out in the beginning and which was so successful that Constantine was forced to recognize Christianity as the official religion of the realm. (That recognition stopped the networking and built a bureaucracy instead. The church has been trying to recover ever since. Perhaps the healing of the church's structure is before us now.)

Do you know what Wikipedia is? The online encyclopedia has more pages and entries a than almost anything developed by wealthy corporations and it is written entirely by volunteers.

After Katrina tens of thousands of volunteer Christians loaded trucks, cars and campers and took off for the Gulf Coast. They used their time, energy, talents and money to assist strangers rebuild their homes and businesses and churches.

Just imagine the incredible work done by Habitat for Humanity. The volunteers from churches and schools built thousands of homes annually for people too poor to afford their own home. Free men and women experiencing the joy of doing good things for God and people.

Almost every church I know sends volunteer groups regularly to build homes, churches and medical clinics to poor countries around the world. The total amount of goods, services and money is in the billions of dollars annually.

Some Christians are actually creating ongoing missionary efforts and creating agencies to carry our works of mercy, medicine, healing and evangelism. One such group can be found on the web at http://www.romanianhandicappedmin.org/index.html The Romanian Handicapped Ministry was begun by two of my friends and colleagues from Equipping Ministries International while on a teaching trip to Sweden.

About 14 years ago I set up a ministry called Teleios Russia and recruited a Medical Doctor, Galina Chentsova, to head it. You can read about it at www.liferoute.ru

This is the new model of ministry, evangelism and church growth. We hear a lot about big bureaucratic churches and organizations on the "Religious Right" but the politics and work they do is less that .01% of all the good things done by individual congregations and volunteers from those churches small and large. The future belongs to small bands of creative Christians who are more interested in living a life of freedom and service than sitting day after week in a big sanctuary hearing the same stale stories about Moses and Samuel.

Millions of ordinary people volunteer annually from churches small and large. The help out in inner city missions, take food to the poor, do Servant Evangelism, help single moms, etc. I know of no congregation that does not have people helping the needy. It is going to dramatically increase over the next few years.

The 70-80 million Baby Boomers will lead the charge of this New Reformation, New Awakening and New Models of Ministry. They have the skills, experiences, motivation, finances and time so what is holding them back? Someone to give them permission. OK, here it is: GO FOR IT!

Do you want to learn more about Social Networking? Take a look at a new way of writing a book: http://www.wethinkthebook.net/book/home.aspx

What are you going to do?