Monday is for “kingly” administration: Disciple-Making Delegation

Previous posts on disciple-making in “kingly” administration series:
» Disciple-Making Structures
» Disciple-Making Venues

The goal of discipleship is not only maturity and growth, but exercising gifts while being equipped for ministry.  Delegation is an art, and those in leadership responsible for the decentralization of the mission need to not only be competent in the work of delegating but effective in training others as well.

Delegation can be a challenge for several reasons.  You can be a perfectionist (like me) and have a standard of excellence and thoroughness that makes it difficult for those just getting started.  When an opportunity to serve or minister is executed poorly, time and energy are required to teach and train, which seems more taxing than simply doing it yourself (sometimes you not only have to do this but also correct what was done!).  A commitment to making disciples and training them for service is a messy job, and it becomes even messier when the communication lines and expectations of the delegation process are not clear.

Monday is for “kingly” administration: Disciple-Making Venues

Last week, I talked about disciple-making structures, emphasizing church gathered (attractional), church scattered (missional), and leadership development (training).  This week I want to take a little different angle at disciple-making at discuss the three venues, namely large gathering (macro), small gathering (micro), and one-to-one (organic).  A church with a healthy emphasis on disciple-making will leverage all three “venues” to accomplish that goal, and those who are responsible for kingly administration should have assessment metrics to determine how well each venue is being accessed.

I’m not the guy who says there is only one venue for disciple-making.  I’m a big fan of church gathered (large venue), of church scattered (small venue), and of organic church (one-to-one venue).  In evangelical circles today, however, there tends to be those who emphasize one venue to the exclusion or at least downplaying of the other.  Traditional churches who accustomed to large venue gathered services will downplay micro church because they like the kind of discipleship large venues offer (generally preaching and teaching).  Micro churches can undermine gathered church because it feels too institutional, hierarchical, or professional.  While churches may have a venue that is a strong suit, they ought to be accessing all three venues for healthy and robust disciple-making.

Monday is for “kingly” administration: Discipleship Structures

It’s been a little while since my last post on “kingly” administration, but I thought I’d pick things back up again (after the prodding of several friends).  The big picture of these systems has been along the lines of what I call the “commission continuum”.  This is the “metaprocess” in the life of a “great commission” church as summarized in the following four sub-systems: assimilation, membership, discipleship, and leadership development.  I know there are other aspects besides these, but I’m limiting the commission continuum to these four to avoid being to complex (as is often the case when talking about administration).  For review:

* Assimilation (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)
* Membership (Part 1 | Part 2)

While I will occasionally throw up kingly stuff in a general sense (such as the hub and spoke paradigm), I want to turn my attention to disciple-making.  If you are a fan of the book, The Trellis and the Vine, you know that the focus is the vine, not the trellis.  However, a “fruitful” ministry needs good trellis.  Because it is inevitable, we should make sure it is profitable.

Monday is for “kingly” administration: The Assimilation Process, Part 1 (First-Time Guest)

First of all, I want to say thanks to all of you who agreed to join in on these Monday discussions on church-related systems and processes (what I’m calling kingly administration).  We are all learners and laborers together for church health and gospel growth, and I believe our churches will be better served when we exhibit a kingdom-oriented posture of humbly receiving and generously giving to one another.  I probably do need to make this disclaimer in saying that I am NOT an expert on this stuff.  In fact, I don’t think I own or have read a book on the things we’re talking about (some of you should tune out now).  In any case, I hope to at least get the conversation going with the things I have been thinking and practicing in our own context.

The first area of emphasis that I want us to delve into is the assimilation process.  I want to conceptually lay out what I have been drafting and explain our practices in light of the bigger picture, which looks like this:

a.    Assimilation Process
b.    Membership Process
c.    Discipleship Process
d.    Leadership Development

When I came to Grace two years ago, one of the key objectives I was given was to develop the ministry design in a “simple church” structure that serves our purposes of being a Great Commission Church.  We are not a large church (membership of ~200 with ~300 in attendance), but over the past six months the need for an effective assimilation process has never been greater as we have seen many more visitors come since moving to two services (another topic to be addressed in the future).