Equipping for ministry
A live church must have two dynamic classes
By Rev. Roger A. Martin
A live church must have two dynamic classes. The first must be a “birthing class.” This is often called a class for seekers, people who want to know what it means to be a Christian. “Seekers” may be too tame a title. A birthing class is more dynamic, bristling with possibilities and expectations. It is expected that something will happen. It is built on the belief that God still works in the lives of people and that the Spirit is seeking to win human hearts to Christ.
Special Note: A new birth in a family is a huge event! This should also be true in the family of God. The Church needs to seek ways to cherish and celebrate when a soul is born anew into Christ – to “ooh” and “aah” over this fresh new babe in the Lord.
The birthing class would require a fine teacher who can tell people how to become Christians and to deal with matters like these:
1. What does it mean to follow Christ?
2. How do I begin with Jesus?
3. How is one “born again?”
4. How do I make Jesus my Lord? (see Romans 10:9-10)
5. How do I learn to love Jesus?
6. How important is the Bible for faithful Christian discipleship?
The birthing class needs some “mid-wives” (both male and female) who know how to be friends-in-fellowship and who know how to care for new babies in Christ. Also:
1. What should participants be asked to read?
2. What should participants be asked to memorize?
3. Should they be asked to write some prayers?
The second class must be a “nurturing class.”
Sam Shoemaker was thinking once about an eager, new Christian and what would happen to all that enthusiasm. Shoemaker wrote: “Never put a live chick under a dead hen!” This raises the question of what sort of environment nourishes new Christians and helps them grow healthy and strong?
When we bring a newborn child home from the hospital, this is a huge event and the whole family works together to feed, nurture and care for the baby. We should do the same in the churches for new babes in Christ. New Christians need a lot of encouraging, loving, comforting and feeding. The nurturing class needs to know how to feed new babies with “the sincere milk of the Word.” (I Peter 2:2 kjv)
And new Christians need to be taught the ABCs of our holy faith:
A. How to worship.
B. How to pray.
C. How to study the Bible.
D. How to behave like people who belong to the Lord.
E. How to speak the “family language.” (Christian vocabulary)
F. What parts of the Bible nourish newborns in the faith?
G. What should members of this class read?
H. What should members of this class memorize?
Someone should be pondering things like: Where do lively, eager, new chicks come from? They come from brooding hens! Who in this church knows how to brood over potential new Christians? Who in this church prays that new people will be won to Christ?
What are the most elementary things new babies need? Who is watching to see when they are ready for more solid food than “the milk of the Word?” And what would that more solid food be?
Some related ideas which need prayer and thought:
Everything suggested thus far assumes a certain expectation in the congregation. The Biblical word for this is “calling.” The congregation must have a keen sense that God calls people to certain activities in the church. This is basic Bible truth. So a sense of calling must be awakened in the hearts of people – by sermons, prayers and testimonies from those who have been called. We must expect God to call people.
The session and pastor would have to seek volunteers who feel “called” to this ministry. (See: “prayer group” below.) The church needs a Prayer Group that will pray for God to call volunteers into this ministry!
All that is written on these pages describes a form of ministry, the shape of a congregation’s life, the way a congregation defines itself and its ministry. See: Acts 2:42-47.
The absolute foundation of everything suggested is to be found in John 15:5b in Jesus’ words: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”
The prayer group
1. Everything has to begin with the pastor, followed by the elders.
2. How do the elders and pastor fit into all this?
A. Should they become the prayer group?
B. How should they pray? For what?
3. How many people in the prayer group?
A. What commitment must they make?
4. Pray for an awakening, a new awareness in the congregation. Pray for a growing hunger in peoples’ hearts.
5. Should the prayer group become the watchers of the flock: Those who watch to see who might be ready to go deeper into the faith?
6. Should the prayer group pray for God to call people:
A. To call the teacher of the birthing class?
B. To call “mid-wives” (both men and women) to be in a fellowship group designed to encourage new Christians?
C. To call volunteers who want to dare more for Christ?
7. Should the concepts in these pages become major items on the prayer group’s list?
A. How should the prayer group seek the things for which they desire to pray?
More related ideas and thoughts for prayer consideration
Where do we as individuals have opportunities in the churches to show (and share) our faith?
This is frightening to us because people could ridicule or criticize us. A safe environment must be created (a group or situation) in which people could learn how to express their faith to one another. This group would need some skills at protecting, encouraging and being patient with one another.
Some people progress more rapidly in faith matters. What kinds of influences and opportunities encourage growth in the faith? What environment makes people want to grow? See: John 16:12: “I have many things yet to say to you,” said Jesus, “but you cannot bear them now.”
The church needs some small groups (communities) of believers that seek to create an atmosphere in which people (new believers) can grow. New believers need a place where they can make mistakes, correct themselves and move on. Good, solid Christian fellowship should create this atmosphere. A warm, loving, caring group of Christian friends teaches much more effectively than learning intellectual beliefs.
Tremendously important: The church needs a group of watchers, experienced believers who steadily watch the flock to note when people are showing signs of readiness for more truth, deeper knowledge, greater challenges or even being called by God to some special ministry. Extreme caution and utmost discretion must be exercised here, perhaps even anonymity. Much caution.
The prayer group must pray for new understandings of what it means to be “born again” – i.e., the birth process.
Birthing means to “bring forth” out of ourselves. Birth (in the physical sense) means the creation and delivery of new life after nine months of gestation. Expectant mothers undergo physical and emotional changes during the gestation period. The changes are of visible and invisible nature.
In a similar way, new spiritual changes bring about visible and invisible alteration in an individual’s life. Sometimes the joy of discovering Christ’s love and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit leads to a heightened awareness of the joys and pains of those around us. We experience fellowship with other Christians, and they become a support system which fosters sharing. Just as in healthy family relationships we share our concerns and hopes for one another, so members of the body of Christ share and support one another.
The prayer group should pray for guidance on how to make the spiritual birthing process mean something to the groups of believers in the congregation.
Two quotes:
“Here in time we make holiday because the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity is now born in time, in human nature. St. Augustine says this birth is always happening. But if it happens not in me what does it profit me? What matters is that it shall happen in me.” (Meister Eckhart)
“Everything is gestation and then bringing forth! To let each impression and each germ of feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: That alone is living the artist’s life.” (Rainer Maria Rilke)
The last phrase of the Rilke quote could be altered to suit our needs.
The previous pages contain some thoughts and questions – mostly questions – designed to stimulate our thoughts about reaching new people for Christ. The first suggestion about a birthing class still needs much prayer and meditation on how to organize such a class and make it effective. My sense is that we know already quite a bit about the nurturing class. We just are not doing what we know very well. Probably a large number of people who have belonged to churches for a long time still feel the need to be nurtured and would profit from participating in a class like this.
Please read these pages and ponder what has been written. If you have thoughts, insights and suggestions please send them to me. Obviously (to me) the central need is to gain a deeper understanding of what the new birth in Christ means and how to convey this to people who have never made a commitment to the Lord.
This equipping article was written by the Rev. Roger A. Martin, 7 McCrary Drive, SW, Rome, GA 30165