I am a big believer in the importance of philosophy of ministry. If you’ve read much here at MarkHowellLive.com you already know that.
Still, whether you’re a seasoned veteran or brand new to my writing, you may not realize how deeply philosophy of ministry runs in my approach and how adopting this ministry practice could positively affect your own ministry development.
Here’s an example: I believe the team you’re building determines the size of your ministry. And I am making no distinction between staff and volunteers. The team you’re building may be entirely volunteers, it may be a staff team, or most likely it will be a mix of staff and volunteers.
Here’s what I mean. There are several aspects.
First, span of care determines the health and scalability of your ministry.
Carl George’s notion that “everyone needs to be cared for by someone but nobody can take care of more than (about) 10” is at the essence of my philosophy. When care is happening throughout the structure of your ministry it allows your ministry to grow larger. Adding groups without caring for leaders doesn’t lead to more groups and more people connected. It leads to a shuffling effect with the same basic number of people connected in the same basic number of groups. Every time you add a few new groups, a few of your older groups die.
Second, what you are making determines what is being made at the member level of your groups.
If it is true that whatever you want to happen in the lives of the members of your groups must happen first in the lives of the leaders (and I believe it is), that ought to be telling
you what
you must be doing in the lives of your leaders.
And—since span of care determines the health and scalability of your ministry—you should already be able to see how many (or how few) leaders you will be able to impact. In other words, you may
believe that what you are making determines what is being made at the member level but not be able to improve what you are making because your span of care is inadequate.
Third, the way you spend your time reveals your true convictions.
Saying you care about the players on the team you are building while spending your time on less important things demonstrates what you really believe. See also,
5 Stupid Things Small Group Pastors Need to Stop Doing.
This article originally appeared here.
