For the past few months I have been urging us to begin new ministries. Ministries like church and work Bible studies, or gatherings of different affinity groups around the Word. This is what church planting is all about: ever increasing opportunities for people to congregate around the Word, and it is a ministry everyone can be involved in.
But should we go on endlessly duplicating ministries? Is that an efficient use of resources? How do we work out whether to keep on going and when have we duplicated enough?
There are two competing forces at work in duplicating ministries:
Force number one - Increased Opportunities
Creating more and more ministries means more opportunities to hear the gospel and the greater likelihood that people will listen. It also means that everyone involved in the ministry has to be active since smaller numbers require every person has to contribute. This benefits both those in need of salvation through the increased opportunities to hear the gospel, and also those committed to Jesus, through increased opportunities to serve.
Force number two - Decreased Sensitivity
The fracturing which comes through duplicating ministry works in the opposite direction. Duplication sometimes hardens the ears of the hearers who think "I rejected this group before", making the decision to reject the gospel easier the next time. It also stretches resources so that not all aspects of ministry can be maintained or worse still, they are performed badly. The personnel miss the relationships they used to have and are exhausted by all that needs to be done. This hinders both evangelism and commitment.
A way to achieve the benefits without all the difficulties is to think not in terms of duplication, but in terms of differentiation. Duplication is creating a ministry exactly the same as one that already exists. Differentiation is the creation of new ministry that in some important way is distinct from existing ministries. If we multiply differentiated ministries it gives greater opportunity for people to be drawn into affinity with a ministry and helps members of the ministry understand why they exist as a separate entity.
An example from congregation multiplications might help to show what I mean.
St. John's 11:00 am congregation had outgrown the building, so the congregation decided to duplicate the ministry by beginning a 9:30 am congregation that was exactly the same as 11:00 am. Congregation members could choose which congregation they attended, and as a selling point for the proposal were told they could switch from time to time depending on family activities. Over a twelve month period the obvious happened: commitment and attendance in both congregations waned, so that the 9:30 am meeting was dissolved.
Two years later St John's had regained numbers and this time they ceased the 11:00 am meeting and created two new meetings, one at 8:00 am with a longer morning tea and without a children's program, and another new congregation at 10:30am (not 11:00 am) focused on family ministry. The 8:30am congregation helped with kid's ministry at 10:30 and the 10:30 congregation provided morning tea for 8:00 am. They were two very different ministries, and both have grown. The duplication failed, but the multiplication succeeded.
Recently I was speaking to a friend about this and he said their Bible study intentionally duplicated itself, to keep consistency of quality and content. But as we spoke he revealed that the duplication was because one group lived on one side of the freeway and the other on the opposite side. This is not duplication but differentiation, the differentiation being geographical.
There needs to be good reasons for severing relationships as we grow new ministries, and differentiation of ministry is a good one. Think twice before simply cloning a ministry. Is there a differentiated ministry that may be better than duplication?
