How do you run a church?

Learning how to run a church efficiently and especially to be effective in church ministry is something every pastor and Christian leader looks forward to. I believe none of the church pastor or leader somewhere along in their ministry path has never been pondering over the question what a church must really do? Without doubt we must have spent numerous resources and timeless effort in doing everything right for the church to strife for its best – that is to win souls for Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, we must humbly admit to a certain degree our effort often is of little success. We wonder sometimes if God is with us at all.

A book about the “Spirit-led” Ministry of the “Missional Church” by Craig Van Gelder shades some light on the matter. Van Gelder is a guru in pioneering the framework of the Spirit-led ministry of a missional church. He spends his lifetime interpreting what is missional ecclesiology: an important concept of understanding how a church could participate in God’s mission for the world versus what a church should do in its mission.

I have been serving in the church as lay leader for a decade in different capacity. I must say during the time when I was serving as Executive Chairperson of the local church board, numerous occasions and lengthy discussion was spent to define the church mission statements or what the church objectives are. Pastors and fellow brothers and sisters in the committee have also pondered over the one crucial question: what God is doing in our church? However, a lot of time, we have easily mistaken what a church must do in its existence as similar to what God wants us to do. We faithfully hold onto the duties and responsibilities of a church and diligently carry out its plan for mission, outreach, social concerns, teaching and sharing of the gospels. We lay them before God and earnestly seek Him to bless our work.

If you have read the preceding mentioned book by Van Gelder, you would have known it is entirely two different things on what the church wants or decides to do for God and what God wants the church to do for Him. The essence or critical difference here is who initiates the activity. Traditionally, and it is still true today, we would like to ask God to bless what we do. It is not too difficult to have a group of people to brainstorm what are the things a church can do. We usually do not have the trouble to come out with a physical long list of activity or program for the members to implement those events enlisted for their good cause and intention, however, if we put this to the perspective of Spirit-led ministry of a missional church, it appears clearly that we are heading in the wrong direction!

Spirit-led ministry as its term implied - the Holy Spirit is the One who initiates the activity. It is letting the Holy Spirit to lead us to participate in God redemptive work in Christ Jesus through the church. It is an exact opposite of laying down before God the work of the church for His blessing. In real sense, we are actually demanding God to accomplish the church’s agenda on our behalf.

I presume what is significant or the central idea or theme of the book is to be able to see the mission of God for the world – the “missio Dei.” God the creator who creates the world through Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit in the beginning, likewise, He would reconcile the world to Himself through the same Christ and by the work of the same Spirit in the present day. Our responsibility therefore, is to have faith and be able to discern what God is doing in our church for His people around us. Amen.