In the next few months we will be starting a new ministry in Bock, MN. This post is about finding people who want to lead and serve in various ministries. This church will not be for everybody. It will be using a new prototype (or tool) to be the church. The traditional church model has a place, yet this model is an attempt to reach those who may never enter back into a traditional church.
In this church model, every person (who has been called to) will be empowered to serve in the call God has revealed to their lives. This will be accomplished through mentorship and church multiplication. If called to preach the Word, we will come along side you and prepare you to do that through a mentorship relationship with another pastor before we send you off with others to start a new work.
Here are some of the positions that we could really use as we start the Fellowship in Bock. Normally, these positions would be filled as people in the church grew into them, but since this is a new work, we are looking for some seasoned Christians to help us begin.
Servant of Prayer: We need a person who has a deep passion for prayer. This person will be the head of all prayer ministries in the fellowship. They will work to develop a team of people dedicated to the prayer ministry of the church. This team will work to develop a prayer system to meet the needs of others. They will find ways to receive prayer requests from others, share those requests with the intercessory prayer team, actively go and pray with people who need it (in their homes), and give testimony of answered prayers to the congregation.
Servant of Worship: We need a person who can come along side the pastor and amplify the message God has given him to reach the congregation. This person must be able to develop a close relationship to the pastor, for they will work closely to feed the people of God in unity. This person will be in charge of developing a team of people to help facilitate the primary worship service. This may include: vetting music, ministering to all who are serving in the worship ministry, developing future musicians, planning out skits and illustrations for the service, and most important, leading the congregation into the unified worship of our living God.
Servant of Communion: One of the goals of the fellowship in Bock is to fill the needs of others weekly and directly. One of the most basic ways to do this is through food. The Servant of Communion will have the responsibility to lead and direct the food ministry in the fellowship. This would include making sure that enough food is prepared to feed everyone (potluck style) in every service we have. This ministry will take a large burden of the pastor, as he will be free from the anxiety about this aspect of ministry knowing that people will be fed when they arrive. This person should love serving others and have enough administration gifts to develop a team of people and system to effectively host a weekly potluck.
Servant of Hospitality: This person will be gifted in hosting people in their homes and teaching others to do the same thing. This person will lead all of the other people God is calling to the ministry of hospitality by developing a system to actively love people in the congregation by fostering times of meeting outside of the weekly worship meeting. He or she will also develop a plan and system to help visitors feel welcome by inviting them into our homes.
Servant of Gifts: Money is always the hardest aspect to deal with in the church. In this new system, money will come in and leave the same day as it will be used to fill the needs of others anonymously and directly. Other money will be collected to support the minister and his expenses. The fellowship in Bock needs a person who is trustworthy and comfortable around money. They will be in charge of collecting, counting and allocating funds. Certain money will be marked for specific needs and placed in envelopes for those people. Those envelopes will be given directly to those in need at the end of each service. This person will create a team of people who will work together to make sure that every dollars goes directly to where it should go and that every dollar given to the pastor is of public record so that the people can know if the needs of the pastor are being met or exceeded. The pastor’s budget along with the expenses for ministry will be public knowledge.
Servant of Charity: The fellowship at Bock will fill the needs of people directly and weekly. Therefore, knowing and prioritizing these needs will be of significant importance. This person should have a high gift of discernment. He or she will develop a system and a team of people to gather the needs of the people, prioritize and fill those needs. This may include an intake process where people register and share their situation. It may include developing a prayer team and others with discernment on how to be effective at filling each specific need. This person should also strive to develop strong relationships with local government and non-profit organizations to point people in the right direction to receive further services. This person will also work closely with the servant of Gifts as they work to anonymously share the needs of people with the congregation and dispense those offerings raised back to those in need.
Servant of Witness: It will be the ministry of this person to record and journal the activities of the fellowship. They will record attendance, visitors, baptisms, conversions, and other important events. However, the best part of this ministry is the gathering and sharing of testimonies of what God has done. This servant will be in charge of developing the testimony of those in the fellowship. This may include anonymously sharing something that God has done in someone’s life that week, or choosing a few people to share their testimonies during the worship service.
Servant of Service: The greatest in the kingdom is the least among us. The fellowship in Bock will need a person who can lead a group of people to serve in doing the physical work in the ministry. This would include two primary tasks. Preparing the meeting facility for the service and cleaning the facility after the service is complete. Since we will never own a building, the places where we meet will need to be treated with utmost respect. We need a person who finds joy in doing the tasks that take hard work and can organize and lead a team of others to do the same. By having a person in charge of cleaning the facility, it will free up the pastor to continue ministering to others instead of worrying about cleaning the bathrooms or washing the tables.
Servant of Evangelism: This person should have a drive to reach the lost and be a creative person. It would be this person’s job to develop a team of people to reach the lost in our community. This would include creating events or even developing ministries that are outside of the weekly service.
Servant of Communication: This person would be in charge of developing a team of people to share the activities of the fellowship with the community. This would include producing and uploading the weekly sermon to the internet, and updating social media with photos, events and activities. As this ministry grows, this person may also create and produce skits and video illustrations for the services.
Servant of Greeting: This person would develop a plan and ministry team to foster a welcoming experience when people arrive and leave the service.
As the fellowship grows, things like youth and children ministry would be added to this list.
When fully organized, the people who will be serving in these types of positions will consist of the elders and deacons of that specific fellowship. There will be no membership or ballots to cast these votes. These positions will be more fluid and be selected by the pastor directly. The hope this type of system would be that each position would be actively mentoring and developing others to take their place in ministry. And when the time to birth a new fellowship comes, some of those mentors may go and plant the new work, while other times the apprentices would be sent instead and become new elders and deacons.
Many will not like this form of ministry because there is literally nothing to claim and fight over. The pastor develops the team he needs and that team develops others to start new ministries using those same gifts. The whole system is built to be flexible and capable of fostering “loving church splits” as new local communities are birthed naturally as each person becomes a disciple of Christ and takes their place in God’s plan for their lives.
I have so much more to share, but this post is long enough. If you read this far and may feel a call from God to join us, feel free to give me a call and chat. My number is 763-688-4046.
Oh, I am about to take a month off of social media, so calling or texting me in January is the way to go. Blessings.
Pastor Luke Oakes