Everyone has an opinion on what makes a ministry really hum along.

Pastors are always discussing this issue and feeling either vindicated or destroyed by the conversation. Congregation members discuss it to determine why they are so fortunate or what is wrong with the ministry in which they are engaged. There are a number of personal piety matters that need to be addressed as we discuss this, but today I want to merely consider one correct answer that is given to the question. 

The answer is - hope. Hope is what keeps a person going. In his introduction to the Colossians the apostle Paul says "the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven" (1:5). The seedbed of those marks of the Christian life; of faith and love, is the hope that a believer has of the certainty of what is ours in glory. 

And I have noticed that a common component of vibrant ministries is the nurturing of hope; both at a personal and corporate level: that God is doing something significant in the life of every believer and that He is doing something great amongst His people that he has gathered. In the 1980s and 1990s it seemed that just about every article on Christian leadership quoted (often out of context) the verse from Prov 29:18 "that without a vision the people perish". While the verse is about the loss of Biblical revelation, those who used the verse were onto something. That is, hope drives people forward. All you need to do is look at why Americans voted the way they did in the most recent presidential election. 

Hope as we gather

So what does that mean for our gatherings as God's people?

I am convinced on both Biblical and practical grounds that we must call people to hope; and that there are at least three avenues through which this should be done. 

Firstly, from the front. Those in leadership must not tire of reminding us what is already ours and what more will be given when we see our saviour face to face. They must also remind us that in gathering His people together, God will be at work to see His glory cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. 

Secondly, from the side. That is as we mutter and chat with each other over supper or morning tea, or as we meet at the supermarket checkout. It is the job of every believer to remind each other of what God has given and promised. 

Thirdly, from beneath. That is, the setting up of structures that facilitate the reminding of the hope we have, and calling us to share in it. It may be things like ensuring we hear of what God is doing through those who have left our church, or what he is doing in areas of our church life that not many see, or what he is doing in changing people who are sitting in the same row as us. 

It is time to assess how we are going as a church in this. 

The shape of hope

One of the dangers in what I am proposing is that it can become just positive spin. 

So here are three suggestions to help us. 

1. Ensure the hope is solidly based on the gospel and not on our abilities. We must keep reminding each other that we serve a big, gracious and good God, who cradles his children in his everlasting arms. Any change is because our great God is at work at both a personal and organisational level to see his people come to maturity in Christ and his name glorified in the world.

2. Give Biblical hope that is not merely about incremental change (although God usually operates this way too) but about radical change. Coming to faith is not just a change of mind, it is a new creation that has occurred. God's people need to remember that what we share is worth dying for, as it is that significant.

3. Ensure that the elements of hope that are for this age are achievable. A big, hairy, audacious goal is fine, but it has to be achievable at a stretch. It is not worth having a gaol to die for, if it is impossible to achieve the goal.