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by David Cox
Resume: This page explains that other ministries are valid and have a place, but the principle ministry is the salvation of souls, and their equipping to do the same.
The objection may be raised, "we cannot limit 'the ministry' to only evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. The New Testament gives room for more 'ministry' than that."
This is correct. God desires a whole broad spectrum of "ministry" by the church and by Christians. But we must be very careful here. It is the same thing as to say the daily functioning is the same as reproduction.
The great commission (which holds the primary, most essential and most important task for the church) is that which is involved in its reproduction, both individuals and churches. This has to have a very different importance and priority than all other things.
Consider a couple. They may keep house, work, tend to the yard, and do a lot of things involved in their life, all of which are legitimate things for two people to do. But when we speak of reproducing a human child and that child growing into maturity so that he can form another family, these things take precedence over everything else.
We do not put taking the pregnant mom to the hospital to birth the baby on the same level as taking out the trash, raking the yard of leaves, or washing the car. These other things are of less priority in comparison to things related to the birth and welfare of a child. That is not to say that we can do without buying groceries, taking out the trash, etc. These are good things, but that child and his welfare is the "best" thing.
Where do other ministries enter into the scheme of things?
Very simply, God desires that our main thrust is to produce Christians and a local church, independent, autonomous, and self functioning. What is an autonomous local church Once this is established, it is up to that new church to function in the place where God has placed it. This means works of charity, orphanages, and all other types of ministries are to be carried out by that church.
This is logical because the people best able to discern what is a scam and a fraud from what is a legitimate need are the people of that culture and language, living locally in that area. The local church in the area of need works as a point of distribution, administration, and filter against fraud. This eliminates the need for a separate overhead and structure apart from a local church. Why the local church is the design and method of God? (See this study for an explanation as to why the local church has the advantage over any other type of ministry.)
Christians serving, developing their own personal ministries
The Bible presents every Christian having a gift or gifts from God. As a dutiful Christian, he or she should use that gift in the service of God. This is biblical. But what is not biblical is that every one of these people need to have their own office, secretaries, and promotional apparatus which is paid for by the rest of Christianity. When people work and minister under the structure and administration of the local church, then we get back to the design of God in all of this.
The local church is the forum where Christians work out their gifts and callings. Everything rotates around the local church. Ministries are either evangelistic, edification, or service of God's people. But all of these are under the auspices of the local church.
Local Church oversight of ministries
God leads men and women in various different ways, but there has to be accountability. Important in this discussion is what is the local church's responsibility as to ministries working out from under them. Today we have pastors who have become dictators, and in reality have greatly restricted the work of the Lord, opening the door to everybody working outside of the local church and doing whatever is right in their own eyes.
A local church is formed of people who are saved and want to identify as the redeemed of God, doing the purposes and work (and will) of God. They "congregate" which means to assemble intelligently for the purpose of accomplishing a purpose. In this scheme of things, we have to posit a pastor (elder, bishop, and or pastor). He is responsible before God for the sheep of that fold.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.KJV
"rule" is hegeomai which means to lead or govern. This is the concept behind the word for pastor in Hebrew and Greek. He is somebody who governs the welfare and affairs of the sheep for the benefit of the owner.
So the spiritual life of every Christian should be a matter of concern for his pastor. That means that on a personal level, the pastor has an interest in the person if they are sinning or growing spiritually, or living disobediently or whatever. It is his pastor's duty to see to the spiritual welfare of his flock.
But that does not necessarily mean the pastor is the one who makes all the decisions over those who minister in the church whether the ministry is considered "within" the church (for example in the Sunday morning church service), or without (a Pregnancy Crisis hotline counseling ministry). The pastor's goal is to develop the church members so that they become mature Christians, able to make correct decisions on their own. Therefore, the pastor's goal is to train his people such that the pastor does not have to hear and judge and make decisions in all of his people's lives, but rather that they themselves are able to do so correctly.
Having said all this, ministries look for money from churches and God's people. They should rather be looking to work in harmony with the local church, not needing funds, separate infrastructure and property, etc. If these ministries are valid and serving a need, then the local church will see this, and support them economically on a limited basis.
Heresy and personal sin
The place of authority and oversight for the local church over a ministry is in verifying the minister. Here the two basis considerations are that (1) he is doctrinally correct, and (2) that he is not in personal sin (conduct). These are the two critical issues that every local church must intervene in the lives of their members. This calls for disciple in the case of either.
Doctrinal Error - The practice of the early church was that the church was a battle ground for doctrinal views. This resulted in some bad things and some good things. The bottom line here is that everybody should get a hear of their view and position. These points (differing from the understanding of the leadership of the local church, thus causing for attention) should be meditated over, discussed repeatedly and studied. If it is heresy, then the person should be shown why it is, and given the chance to change back to sound doctrine. If it is not unscriptural, then he should be allowed to continue fellowship. If it is not necessarily unscriptural, but it is divisive, causing schisms in the fellowship, then that is a sin in itself.
Conduct Problems - The church member should have his personal life watched over by the church leadership. This means if he is sinning in his conduct, it should come to the attention of the church leadership, be dealt with, and be corrected or he should be separated from on a corporate and personal level.
These issues go for everybody. Just because a man is a president of a Christian University does not mean he is free from inspection in his doctrine and personal life. "Great men of God" have to conform to Scripture just as anybody else.
But when everything becomes a mission, then nothing is a mission.
When soldiers are sent out to another country to "accomplish a mission", that becomes the overshadowing theme and guiding principle that they check all activity, expense of resources, and use of personal against. It becomes a priority. They can accomplish a million other things, but if they fail in their primary mission, they have completely failed.
We have Christians and "ministers" running around Christendom accomplishing a million good things, but we have lost focus on the primary thing. It is unconceivable how a man or woman can say they are "in the ministry" and in reality they do witness to people, they do not disciple, they do not bring their converts into a local church once saved, they do very little teaching, preaching, or any other New Testament thing ministers did, but they live off of donations or a salary like a minister or missionary. Simply put, they occur the space of a missionary or preacher, but they do little towards actually do the work of those people.
Churches need to understand that their missions budget needs to be a principle expense of their church. What's more, churches need to make their mission's program (missionaries they give their missions dollars to) principally people who are doing the work of evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. See You cannot divide the Great Commission. These people should be where the majority of a church's mission budget goes to. See Do we support ministers or ministries.
This is not to say that a local church should not support other things besides missions. The majority of their budget should go into the ministry that they have. On a biblical note, we do not see in the New Testament a great expense in buildings and infrastructure, but rather the principle expense is in ministers' salaries. All of the ministries of the people of a church should be a consideration for funding by the church.
It would seem that budgets have restricted greatly the freedom of God's people to give. When the people locally see a ministry where they know the ministers and the work, they desire to give financially to that work. If churches would allow them to do so, that would fund these ministries as the local church people get a burden for it.
Today we have promotional experts who are running around professionally raising money. It is something to think about when a missionary comes to a church for a share in their missions budget (often $50 a month) and bring a $6000 video projector, a $4000 laptop, and drives up in a quarter million dollar mobile home. This needs to be meditated over greatly. See Things for Pastors and Churches to consider with their missionaries?.
The entire idea of a ministry looking for funding outside of its own local church is something is very dubious from a New Testament standpoint. The only valid reason or biblical example is for missions, i.e. what the Apostle Paul and other New Testament missionaries did.
Summary: Other non-Great Commission ministries are valid if they are part of and an outworking of a local church. They should have a degree of freedom from the administration and oversight of the local church, but also should be under the authority of that local church. This means that when there are problems in doctrine or conduct, the local church has the ability to shut them down, and not just these people shifting to another local church with lesser standards.
Last Updated on 12/09/05
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