In my last Mission Thinking article I stressed that one limiting human factor in gospel growth is insufficient trained people to engage in ministry. I asked two questions: who conducts ministry?, and who recruits for ministry? The answer to both must be our congregations. A significant way to overcome our personnel limitations is to get serious about recruiting and training for gospel service.
In this article the question I want to explore a little further is "What are we recruiting for"? Take a moment to answer that question.
Your answer shows whether a change in thinking and action is needed. If you answered with a task, any task then it is necessary to separate competency from commitment. That is, so often we recruit to get a job done, and so we look to recruit people who are competent to do the job. The problem is that there is a far more important prior recruitment which must occur, and until that is done, we will never have enough people with a right heart from which to recruit for tasks.
The prior recruitment is to maturity. It is our task to recruit people into an understanding that the Christian life is about being changed from one degree of glory into another, to not being content with staying as we are but pushing on to greater change: to seeing that this life is given that we may be conformed to the likeness of Christ. And so the most important recruiting we can do is to recruit people to change, to see that life is about glorifying the Father and honouring the Son through obedience to God's Word and service of His people.
It is a recruiting not to a competency, but to a commitment. That commitment can only truly come about through the work of the Spirit of God, but it happens as we work and recruit side by side each other.
The difference I am writing about is like the old question asked of teachers; "what do you teach?’. Some answer with a subject, but good teachers answer "children". The first answer is a competency, the second is a commitment.
The answer to the question "What are we recruiting for"? is "the task doesn't really matter!" What matters is that we are recruiting for:
"¢ a life of continual change
"¢ an opportunity for the joy of service
"¢ always looking for opportunities to serve
"¢ ministering alongside others
"¢ the sake of others not for yourself
That is, in our recruiting, we seek the change in commitment shaped by an understanding that a person can and must grow, that all believers can minister and that church life is much more than just being "pew fodder".
Where task does matter in our recruiting is that often the tasks we begin with are the ones with which we continue, so that, consciously or unconsciously, we create "channels" or boundaries in the minds of people concerning what sorts of ministries they can do.
But more of that next time.
