Getting people mobilized in the church can be tricky. Obviously God never intended for the church to be a place where one guy gets up on stage and entertains the audience then sends the listeners home until next weeks "show"
So how do we get people out of the seat and mobilized?
It starts by creating an environment where people feel empowered and enabled to do ministry. Leaders need to communicate to the people that showing up and sitting down is not the biblical model of church.
Sure... preaching is a great way of presenting truth and challenging the people, but if a persons church experience stops there... well then their spiritual maturity is going to be lacking and the church is going to be incomplete.
And we as leaders can't expect people to just "get it." We must teach, train and encourage people to be more than just church attenders. We have to show people the value and importance of being ministers.
So how do we accomplish this? Here are a few suggestions...
#1 Change the mindset of who should do ministry
- This should be done through constant teaching and educating.
- People need to know that the work of ministry is to be done from the pew, not the pulpit... in other words, everyone should be involved.
- Leaders must cast vision of how people can get involved
#2 Only place people in area of giftedness.
- God has given us just who we need to accomplish what we need to accomplish as His local church. The problem is we have the few doing all the work and the most doing nothing at all in most churches.
- One of my favorite quotes says "nobody should have two jobs in the church until everybody has one" The only way we can accomplish this is for everyone to know their gifts and use them to serve.
- We must start a discovery process on how our people can learn their gifts and use them
for the Lord.
#3 Emphasize high commitment.
- Too many times we under-emphasize commitment and let our people off the hook. God expects much of us, and we as leaders shouldn't expect any less of our people.
- Would you rather lead a Church of hundreds of people with 25 workers or a church of hundreds of people with hundreds of workers? Easy answer huh? Well if we are going to accomplish that, then we must raise expectations.
People want to be a part of something they know matters...
Nathan
