Discovering your spiritual gifts of your church may be a good way to start your ministry. But it doesn’t mean that after discovering your spiritual gifts, you will then concentrate and only focussed on it. What I mean is this, for example, you found out that you have several elementary educators in your church which makes your church strong when it comes to Christian education of the children.
When we started to focus to only one or two spiritual gifts and we negligently do not give attention with our other ministries, our strongest spiritual gift will become our weakest. We have to understand that the church is a body of Christ. And the body of Christ is composed of many parts. Thus, we have to maintain the functionality of the church body parts balanced.
If only one or two ministries are only functioning, your church will eventually wear out and many will feel that it is too intoxicating to be in your church. Here are a list of ministries that your church should have. And I think each of these are really important and must be taken care of. Nothing should be left out, instead we are to maintain everything in here in balance.
Evangelism – it is witnessing for Jesus Christ. Telling your friends, relatives, and other non-believers about Jesus Christ. Under it is our mission programs both international and local.
Prayer – it is our intercession for our church and our brethrens.
Stewardship – it is taking good care of the material blessings of God to us.
Pastoral Care – it is counselling those people who needs it. Under this area are visitation, marital counselling, discipline counselling, and hospital ministries.
Teaching the Word – under this area are preaching, discipleship and christian education.
Fellowship – this area is responsible for cultivating a healthy loving relationship among the believers.
Organizing and Overseeing – this is the administrative part of your church. Most of the time, the pastor plays a great role in this part, yet big churches also have the administrator that works along side with the pastor. With them is the Church Council and Church Leaders. This area is responsible in empowering the leaders of the Church.
Building virtous character – this encourages the believers especially the new believers for godly change, holiness and loving obedience to the Lord.
Worship – it facilitate worship where everybody can participate.
Source: Reproducible Pastoral Training by Patrick O’Connor
FROM: http://www.thinkchristian.net/index.php/page/5/
Protestant loyalty: toothpaste vs. denomination
Posted February 16th @ 1:22 pm by Jerod Clark
This morning in the USA Today, I saw a headline that caught my eye. “U.S. Protestants more loyal to toothpaste brand than church?” Yes, it ended in a question mark as if the writer was thinking, “Say it ain’t so.”
The article cited a study done by an Arizona group which found:
16% of Protestants would only consider a single denomination
22% of Protestants would only use one brand of toothpaste
19% of Protestants would only use one type of toilet paper
The researchers concluded that denominations are facing the same problem as many consumer products. There are so many different choices, but in the end many people can’t see a difference between them. It’s sort of like going to the store to buy laundry detergent. There are a lot of brands, but they all clean your clothes.
A pop culture professor in the article said:
Those distinctions, which seemed so important as the various Protestant churches were identifying and evolving…are really not that important to the average churchgoer in the United States.
Finally, the article pointed to research done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which found that 44% of Americans have switched from one faith, or one denomination, to another.
All of this leads me to the question: Is the denominational name of a church losing importance?
Looking at my own life, I’m all over the Protestant denominational spectrum. I grew up United Methodist. I work for the Christian Reformed Church. And I attend an Evangelical Free church. When my wife and I were looking for a church, we cared more about the pastoral teaching and church mission than the denominational label. I’d never really heard of the EFCA, until we attended our church. That said, we also visited a huge church that appeared to be non-denominational, but was actually part of a denomination we aren’t theologically in line with. In that case, denomination mattered. We were out the door.
I can see the importance of the denomination in terms of support for it’s individual congregations and as a partner for doing ministry. But when it comes to picking which church to attend, does the denominational tie really matter? What do you think? After all, the big trend for churches now is to rename themselves to take out the denominational element.
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