I was called a "Blog Slacker" today! It hurts!

I have been very busy the past couple of weeks. I had some computer issues, now mostly solved. Last week I got slammed with having to preach on Sunday morning. Sometimes I wish that is all I had to do every week and other times I'm glad I am such a great "cruise director". So to please the person that insulted me so, here is my sermon from Sunday since he lives to far away to come and hear me. Love ya TPA!

"Giving Minsitry Away"

Meetings. We all love meetings, don’t we. Planning meetings. Committee meetings. Board meetings. Team meetings. It’s seems in the world and in the church we can be on meeting overload. Growing up in the Episcopal church I was very familiar with meetings. I use to imagine back then that if some of the adults I knew had gotten small pins the size of a dime to wear for every meeting they had attended they might not be able to walk around. “Hey Jim, where you going?” “To another meeting.” I thought the church was bad, and then between 1991 and 1998 I went to work for Eli Lilly and Company. I’m convinced that down in the basement of their corporate offices somewhere there is a “Meeting Quota Management Specialist.” “Robert, Mr. CEO here. Have we met this months meeting quota yet?” “Let me check sir, no, no sir it looks like we are 54 meetings behind for the month.” “Well by all means schedule some more!” I was talking to with a high level, 24 year Lilly veteran once about the issue of meetings. He said to me, “Roger, do you know how you can tell if a meeting was successful?” “No”, I said. “A meeting is only successfully,” he said, “if by the end of it you have scheduled another meeting.”

Looking back, I don’t think all that time in meetings at Lilly was wasted. I remember a specific time, where there had been a CEO change at the company. The new leader wanted the entire company to understand some of the business philosophies he felt would help take the company to the next level. During an all day meeting we learned that even though I didn’t have direct personal relationship with the customers that bought the drugs the company manufactured, that I was still a part of the “customer chain”. At that time I worked serving breakfast and lunch in the cafeterias to those working in the production end of the company. What we discussed in that meeting is that by our serving fast, healthy, nutritional meals to the production operators, they may be able to do their jobs in a more timely and efficient way, which helped distribution to get the drugs out to market quicker, which allowed the sales people in the field to promote that doctors prescribe the drugs, which the customer then bought. Although I wasn’t dealing directly with end consumer buying the drug, I still had a customer that I needed to serve. We learned the importance of viewing the next person in the supply chain as our end customer. We also learned that no single person can ever be all the links I that chain. The CEO couldn’t be the production operator, the lab technician, the marketing director and the sales person all at the same time. For him to serve the end customer of the pharmaceuticals we produced, he would have to give major responsibilities away to others.

This wasn’t an innovative business tool he had created. It wasn’t even a new management fad the CEO obtained at some leadership seminar (another meeting). No, this form of leadership has been around for thousands upon thousands of years. It can be traced as far back as Moses struggling as the leader of a recently freed nation. He was working all day and all night hearing out his people’s grievances and needs. Seeing how hard he was working, his father-in-law Jethro, came to him said this, “Exodus 18:18-23”. Jethro gave Moses the first pyramid scheme. There was no way Moses could handle all the issues brought before him. Instead of dealing with the all the problems himself, Moses appointed 10 people to oversee 10 people to oversee 10 people and so on. Moses had to give ministry away to others. The disciples found themselves with the same leadership issue. “Acts 6:1-4” The church was growing by leaps and bounds, and the day to day needs of all those people, like providing them food, was falling through the cracks. The disciples had to appoint others to take care of this task so they could continue teaching. But understand this, they didn’t just go out and grab the first warm body they found. What does verse three say again, “Now look around among yourselves, brothers, and select seven men who are well respected and full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.” They didn’t want to give away the responsibility to just anyone, but they also didn’t say, “Go find people that can do the job just as good as we can.” They gave away the ministry to those that were respected in the community and that had wisdom. And as we heard this morning in our reading from the Gospel of Luke that Jesus too gave away His ministry, even while he was still on this earth.

It has seemed that during my fifteen years of ministry experience it has been inevitable that during almost every committee or team meeting the conversation will at some point turn to the fact that the ministry is in dire need of more volunteers. After some time had been spent on the topic someone will drop the conversation-stopping hatchet by saying, “Well, scripture says, the harvest is plenty but the workers are few.” And everyone else in the room will agree and move on. When you take that tiny snippet of scripture by itself it can be a damaging piece of self-fulfilling prophecy. Here we have Jesus, getting ready to send out 75 workers to harvest. Now you have to realize, Jesus had already sent out the twelve in chapter nine. As we know these twelve weren’t always getting what Jesus was saying. Let’s face it if Jesus disciples sat in Donald Trumps boardroom, they would all get fired at the same time. Jesus knew they were the cream of the crop because he had told them all you need is the faith of a small mustard seed to move a mountain. So Jesus was taking these twelve sub-par guys and adding sixty plus more just like them to the work force. These workers needed a pep talk from their boss. What they got however was much more than a pep talk. Jesus followed the hard-hitting reality that the workers were few with this, “therefore pray the Lord of the harvest send out laborers into His harvest.” It was His harvest. He was giving them more than a pep talk he was giving them the power of his name to get the job done.

Here’s another self-fulfilling prophecy the church uses sometimes. I don’t know how long this one has been around but I suspect it’s been around for a while. “20% of the people do 80% of the work.” This prophecy tends to be true a majority of the time. But if the harvest truly is the Lord’s why is this true? Who is to blame? Is it the 20% doers fault or the 80% watchers fault? For three years Renee and I were a part of fast growth church start on the northwest side of Indianapolis. This church grew from zero to 500 in five years. Renee and I would often come home from leadership meetings where the 20% doers would complain about the other 80% not doing anything and we would ask each other, “As someone in the 20% what are we doing or not doing that would help the other 80% to get involved.” There are several things the 20% can do to help mobilize, see I just used a word from our churches purpose statement, proof by the way I have been paying attention in those meetings, to help mobilize that other 80%. Here are just a few.

1)Ask – I know this sounds simple, but the 20% needs to ask for help. As the 20% some times we can be misguided that it is easier to do things our self than it would be to ask for help. We disregard asking people for help because we believe no one will. I remember growing up around my father learning the value of asking questions. My father says, “You never know what you’ll get until you ask for it.” I would go shopping with my dad as a young boy and watch him, as the sales people would come up to ask him if he needed any help, my father would quickly reply, “Any of these toothbrushes on sale today?” Or, “Are any of these tools free?” Now most of the time this approach didn’t work. But every once and awhile my dad would hit the jackpot. “Nothing free today Mr. Williams, but I was just about put a 50% off tag on those screwdrivers over there.” One of the best ways we can mobilize others is to ask them to join us in ministry.
2)Mentor – We often here, “It takes time to show someone else how to do all the jobs I do for this ministry.” Or, “If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.” I know to often I find myself falling into this mindset. But that kind of leadership is no leadership at all. Paul best describes mentoring when he is instructing Timothy on how to be a good leader. Paul wrote to Timothy. “2 Timothy 2:2.” This past month during the ISTEP testing, I had several juniors from the high school “job shadow” me during school hours. I’m sure they had thought a day with the youth pastor was most likely going to be a blow-off. All right so we did have some fun, but we also did some work. I took two of these young men to the laser tag facility we are using next weekend during our Mission:Possible event. I didn’t leave them in the car; I took them inside with me so they could see me interact with the sales person. They witnessed the style in which I would ask the gentleman questions. They had a chance to walk through the decision making process for the pricing of the event. And more importantly they watched my personal interaction as Christian leader with someone from outside the church. Neither of those students may wind up in full time youth ministry, but I took them with me so they could see how important it was as a Christian to be kind and courteous during a business transaction. Jesus had also mentored his workers right before he sent them out. Feeding the five thousand, casting out demons and teaching were all done by Jesus in front of seventy-five, to prepare them for the work he would later ask them to do. I don’t care if you sharpen the pencils for the pews, who have you asked, ahhhh ask, asked to come along side you so that you can teach them how to do your task so at some point you may give that ministry away?
3)Say no – It’s okay to say no! If you are in the 20% of doers it’s okay for you to say no when someone asks you to do something. As leaders in ministry we need to stop asking the same people over and over again to help us. Let’s be honest half the time we ask those people to do something, it’s only because we know they will automatically say, “yes”. The reality of the prophecy “20% of the people do 80% of work” is that if we allow this to continue we will have or are going to burn out those people that can’t say no. How many times have you heard this from an over worked church volunteer, “I just need a break.” Well if you haven’t said no to anything in the past five years I bet you do need a break. God demands we be good stewards of all the resources he gives us. That applies to the resource of laborers for harvest just as much as it does to our money. The purpose statement for our church does not say, “Make, Mature and Martyr Disciples.” No, it says, “Make, Mature and Mobilize Disciples.” Listen if I ever ask you to do something for our student ministry and you feel like you have to say no, it’s okay! I will not take it personally. If saying no to helping chaperon a middle school over night means you would have more time to spend with your family, say no. If saying no to helping on Sunday night with youth group means you get to rest a couple of more hours after a long weekend before going back to work on Monday, say no. You cannot be mobilized for the Lord’s harvest if you are out of Gas.

So what if you are one of those that fall into the 80%. How can you get yourself involved in Kingdom building work?

1)Ask – Don’t be afraid to ask if someone else needs help. One of the statements I hear a lot in ministry is, “Well Julie always does that Sunday mornings and I don’t want to step on her toes.” Listen close; Julie is dying for someone to ask her if she needs help. I know it may be hard for some, but you can’t always sit around waiting to be asked for your involvement. Take some initiative. If you believe God is calling you to certain ministry go to the leader of that ministry and ask how you can help. If you ask me if there is anything you can do for our student ministry here at Trinity Park I’m going to find something for you to do.
2)Mentor – Ask people questions about how ministry happens or how an event works. I was talking to Nat Baker the other day and he asked me if adults would have to pay their own way on our summer trips for students next year. I told him no they wouldn’t because we incorporate the cost of adult chaperons into the price the students pay for the trip. He said how do you do that, so I should him. I pulled out a budget work sheet I created and walk him through how I figure up the cost of the events and the price we charge the students. It behooved me to show Nate how budgeting a trip worked. If I mentor Nate in planning trips, I can give away a small piece of my ministry to him, which will free me to do other things for students and their parents.
3)Say yes – It’s simple, it’s fun and it’s free! You may say yes to four or five things before you find the place where you have the most passion to serve, so that means you may have to take some risks. How do you know your going to enjoy carving up a bar-b-qued pig until you try? This strategy for involvement is also a great way to enable you to say no. If you have tried multiple ministries and found the one God is calling you to, when someone asks you to get involved in something else you can now say, “You know what I tried that, and I have found that God has called me to do this other ministry instead.”

No matter which percentage you fall in as participant in this church you have a responsibility in the mobilizing of disciples. Whether it’s mobilizing yourself or someone else.