In this article I am orienting you and preparing you to do your ministry model exercise. For many years I've done this exercise with church leaders around the world, and watched many of them gain great clarity about how to bring this concept of God's purposes for their community down to practical ministry. In those settings I usually ask leaders to gather a few materials. I recommend putting this exercise down on paper or in a document, and not just thinking through it. This will benefit you by making it more clear, and helping you to see how the various ministry components you're developing in the church can and should fit together. You will complete this exercise following this session in five steps. You will have access, in writing, to everything I am saying here after you complete this session, so just relax now and become oriented to the five steps you'll take following this article.

In the first step you will list each anticipated major ministry you will be developing in the church. I recommend aiming for eight to ten major ministries. Do not list more than 12, if you can, you will always be able to list more later. Before you do this, go back and read over your Mission statement you completed earlier. Review your answers to the questions “who are you called to serve?” that you did in your people profile. “What are their greatest needs? How will your church help meet those needs?”

Also be sure to go back and review your biblical Purposes statement you created earlier. Make sure that all the biblical purposes are reflected in the major ministries that you list here. This means you must be certain to list among your major ministry components, the ministries of worship, discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, acts of mercy, and leadership development. This also a very good time to review your Values statement, and be sure to include specialized ministries that uniquely reflect your values, like men's and women's ministries, ministry to singles or the elderly, to youth or to widows, or to orphans.

Once you have listed these ministries, your second step is to organize them together. Your task is to arrange those ministries now in a logical order, in ministry sequence. Select the sequence option that works best for you. Whether that be from the right to the left, from the left to the right, top to bottom, or bottom to top. As you do this, reflect your gathering or scattering outreach dial by determining your entry points into the church for people. Consider now practical ways that your ministry will fit in relation to taking someone from the beginning contact with the church to advanced commitments. In other words, as I shared earlier, organize the ministries in such a way that you can trace how a person can go from a new Christian to ministry involvement, to becoming a [mature leader through your church's ministry model.

After you have listed these ministries in a logical order and sequence, your third step is to draw lines between the ministry components to show your intentional discipleship pathways. As you draw these lines, begin to crystallize in your mind the discipleship pathways you envision for the spiritual growth of people, and the communication pathways between ministries and leaders. After you've completed drawing lines between the ministry components to show the pathways, your fourth step is to write names or titles next to the ministry components to show the leaders of each component. If you're already on the field, when choosing names and titles, be sure to identify present leaders responsible for some of these ministry components and then develop all the titles needed for future leaders of each of these components. Examples of titles you could put under these components would be something as simple as worship leader, small groups leader, or outreach leader.

Finally, step five is to review the ministry model you have created and determine the answers to each of these very important following questions.

Where in this ministry model are people most likely to be converted by coming to saving faith in Christ?

Where in your ministry model are people most likely to be discipled and nurtured, that they might grow to spiritual maturity in Christ?

Where in your ministry model will people have significant opportunity to be equipped to serve, using their gifts in and through the body of Christ?

Where in your ministry model are true leaders being developed in a holistic way?

Lastly, be sure to identify where in your ministry model is your church invested outside of itself to bless and to serve the community in which God is placing you.