Seven Kinds of People who can help their Church Grow to Maturity (short post)

 

1: Clean People

People who have given their heart to Jesus, and allow Him to peer deeply inside of them and deal with sin. They aren’t afraid to face shortcomings, because their ego is in check by a deep knowledge that they stand and serve in the grace of God. They aren’t perfect, but they know the stinging pain of confession and the sweet relief of cleansing.

2: Called People

People who know their gifts and use them with a profound passion to accomplish what God has rooted in their hearts. They know why they are ministering in the area they are. They understand their role and feel the surge of God using them in their giftedness. They don’t need a lot of stroking from others because the joy comes from knowing Jesus was pleased.

3: Committed People

People who work hard to overcome any obstacle and find a way to minister in some clear and forward way. They don’t want to expend the energy of the body without purpose, but are doggedly inspired to accomplish a God-given agenda of ministering to Jesus by serving others in that ministry.

4: Communicating People

People who celebrate the body and its work. Some ministry is obvious, but most is done in quiet places, out of the spotlight. When they serve in the community in places the body cannot easily see, they share regularly with the body the joy of the experience. They want many to pray with them and joy with them – so they build their own prayer and praise team.

5: Co-laboring People

People who work hard and do not feel entitled to eat at the table unless they have deliberately labored with the others who provided it. “Christian welfare”– people who enrich their knowledge with the teaching and enjoy the fellowship, but feel they need give back little or nothing – must end. Some people give money instead of working, but in the end churches close because people don’t work – and the assets are disbursed away to places where people will work.

6: Cooperative People

People who fit their approaches and ministry goals into the structure of and accountability to local church leadership. Many believers put the bulk of their ministry energy into para-church organizations that fulfill good ends, but truly have little or no accountability structure. Some want to be lone rangers that answer to no other law man. People who won’t follow their leader should not consider themselves good body parts – they are “epileptic Christians” who expend energy without connection to the head.

7: Creative People

People who will understand that hands are for working much more than for begging. Perpetually needy ministry people need to grow up. We must not be so quickly trained to get a vision to accomplish something and jump immediately to putting a hand out to get support. Laboring creatively to find a way to make a ministry operate forces people to connect and prolongs the need to keep us on our knees. Give a man something he desires to do and he will find a way; give him something he doesn’t want to do – and he will find an excuse. Creative people want it bad enough to find a way forward and they will expend their own resources to make it happen.