There is no need to convince you that as our world demands ever more of us we are becoming time poor. Time poor is not just a word people use of themselves in our churches, but one that whole churches use to describe the entire congregation.
We see this time poverty as we seek volunteers for our rosters, as we invite people to study the Bible one to one, and as we gather people to join small groups; and we even see it as the reason given for irregular attendance at church.
What do we do?
How do we minister amongst each other in this time poor world? There are a number of options.
We could just accept that this is the world we are in. This battle is not as significant as other ones and so there is no point fighting it. This is so often the reason given for why churches have given up their church weekends away – people are just unwilling and unable to surrender a whole weekend.
We could bemoan the spirit and practice of our age and long for the good old days again. That will just lead to losing heart and bitterness.
We could fight against the flow. Call people to do what is important and say ‘no’ to other things so that they can be more involved in church things. There are two dangerous outcomes in following this course: people act out of guilt or they become disgruntled which doesn’t take long to spill over to sin.
We could go the way of our society that recognizes the time poorness of people, and so provides services to do the tasks once performed by people. A generation ago people cleaned their own houses, washed their own cars, walked their own dogs, prepared their own meals. Nowadays we can pay others to do that. Likewise, in the old days congregation members mowed the church grounds, taught Sunday School and Scripture, met with others with Bible open and spoke the gospel to friends and acquaintances. Today we put money in the plate so that others can do it.
What does the Bible say?
In the famous words from Ephesians 4:11-12
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christa may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Outsourcing of ministry to others is the exact opposite of what Christ is doing in His church. We must be equipping each other for ministry, not taking it away from God’s people.
Some suggestions
I am convinced that we need to wean brothers and sisters off our time poor living.
There is much to say about how to make progress in this area, but here are some simple suggestions.
• Start small. Instead of asking two people to meet to read the Bible together weekly, why not ask them to phone each other for 5 minutes to share prayer points? Or just ask the two, before church, to tell each other one thing they have found encouraging from the Bible this past week? Some years ago a wise friend of mine said “don’t ask a person to scale Mt. Everest before they have learnt to abseil”. So too, in one to one ministry; start small.
• Don’t ask someone to do a ministry, do it beside them. Rather than asking a person to take on a task, why not invite them to join you in what you are doing? As a person sees ministry in action they often see that they can do it.
• Rather than trying to fill jobs, lets think more widely. Let’s begin by thinking about the person, and how they could serve and create new ministries from their own situation.
• Keep asking ‘do I expect the pastor to do this?’ If so, why? It may be that you need to ask the pastor to help you do it.
Remember that growth in ministry is communal. It is like yeast. As individuals begin to serve more, so others take service on board as well.
