In this article we continue our foundational work by looking at the topic of Ministry Styles in church development.

These articles are a continuation and practical application of the earlier articles on Philosophy of Ministry, when we answered the broader question, “How can I contextualize without compromise?,”

So we’ll be revisiting and amplifying some of these key concepts here.

The question here is: How does this church do ministry in this particular culture?

In our earlier articles on Purpose we saw how in Scripture God has made very clear what the primary ministry purposes of a church should be.

As with earlier modules, we will organize these purposes into these five major categories, sometimes combining the last two under Outreach in Word and Deed.

• Worship & Prayer

• Learning & Discipleship

• Fellowship & Community

• Outreach & Evangelism

• Mercy & Social Concern

Here you begin to answer the questions:

• What does worship and prayer look?

• What will discipleship and teaching ministry look like?

• What will fellowship and small groups be like?

• How will we be doing evangelism and acts of mercy?
  

We’ve established that because these purposes are so clearly set forth in Scripture, they must be seen as non-negotiable priorities in ministry development. In other words, all churches in all cultural contexts must always make these purposes a priority.

But the church leader must help determine how these biblical purposes should come to expression in the unique Ministry Focus Group being served. These expressions are called Ministry Styles.

The process by which a church leader contextualizes or adapts the Christian faith into the culture of the new church Ministry Focus Group (while being both faithful to the Scriptures and relevant to the culture) is called contextualization.

The deeper contextualization question in this session is: How can the biblical purposes be best expressed (Styles) in this Ministry Focus Group?

Answering this question well is no small thing when it comes to Church Development.

Let this sink in — the church planter directs how a cluster of people are going to worship. How they are going to pray. How they are going to learn the Scripture. How they are going to fulfill all the “one and others” in terms of fellowship. How they are going to reach out with the gospel. How they are going to love the poor.

I spent 15 years going across the Pacific working with indigenous church planters and cross-cultural missionaries in Asia. And one of the saddest experiences that I had was going into a small church worship service. Being invited into that church and the worship in that church was like many American churches in the late 1950s. The hymns were all from the late 50s hymn books. The liturgy, the style, the organ, was actually used. I felt like I had been transported back to the 1950s!  

How did this happen? Some very well meaning, well-intentioned cross-cultural missionary did not contextualize, and wrongly imposed foreign worship styles from another culture.

If church leaders fail to exegete the culture well and then create ministry styles that are unnecessary stumbling blocks to impacting the culture, then they are destined to have an unhealthy church.

This is one of the top mistakes made by church leaders…the leader chooses ministry styles based on 2 things:

1) what the church leader prefers or

2) styles the church leader has seen be effective in another cultural context.

So with this in mind, let’s begin answering this question, How does your church do ministry in your culture?