Finding Your Missional Ministry

“I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life.” I Corinthians 9:22 (The Message)

Effective evangelism manages two doors: opening the front door inviting new people into your church and closing the back door to help keep them. While most church leaders are keenly aware of these two contrasting aspects of evangelism and discipleship, managing them into complimentary focal points creates a range of challenges. With all of their connecting issues, it’s really not an “either/or question”: it’s really “a both/and missional priority.”

Simply stated: missional impact doesn’t grow without attracting new people to faith in Christ, either through the worship experience or through one of the small group ministry teams of a church. While it used to be true that Sunday School was the main reaching arm of the church, today the worship experience has assumed that role in many churches. Sunday School has become the main teaching arm of the church, and the primary ministry for discipling new people into the congregation’s fellowship. The Church of the Nazarene has recognized this trend and added that emphasis to their new name: Sunday School and Discipleship Ministries International.

In each issue of GROW magazine, featured congregations share how they implement efforts for attracting new people to their church, while also enfolding them into the mission of the Church of the Nazarene. Several common denominators are emerging in these high impact missional ministries as they open the front door, while closing the back door.

Reach out to new people. There’s no right way to bring people to faith. Whatever really works for your church is the right way, and that can vary a great deal from church to church. Leaders usually define their own missional realities in their ministry context. Find what works for your community and focus efforts on those felt needs. See what best practices are working in other churches like yours. Experiment with some new ideas and dare to try something different – even if on a temporary basis to test the results. Keep asking the question: “How are new people finding faith in Christ in our church?”

Focus on your church’s strengths. A growing number of congregations are welcoming new people into their church’s ministries through the side door of small group ministry. Many of these ministry teams develop through the specific giftedness of members of that church. New ministry teams, designed to serve the felt needs in their ministry context, attract and connect new people through relational connections. The rate of missional growth for most churches could be dramatically improved with more attention to increasing the rate of first time attenders. And, connecting your members to that effort is a win/win for both groups in their spiritual formation process.

Connect belonging and believing. Missional impact increases as leaders and churches make the crucial connection between creating a sense of belonging for new people and their eventual step of believing. Missional influence expands with a priority on relational connections for new attenders. For most new believers today, a sense of belonging comes before any step of believing. A church’s willingness to be gracefilled and inclusive, welcoming those in need into their fellowship, allows God’s Spirit to work in their hearts and lives and bring them into faith. Genuine love makes a life-changing and lasting impact.

Learn from other missional leaders. You don’t have time or the energy to make all the possible ministry mistakes – why not let others do that for you? Why not benefit from the experience of other churches? You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Other churches and leaders are discovering ways to attract and keep new people in communities like yours. Find other churches like yours, in the same kind of ministry context you face, and see what they’re doing. Try some of their ideas. Maybe with some minor adjustments, it could also work in your church.

Check out the archived stories in areas that interest you from past issues of GROW magazine at www.GROWmagazine. org. Share with your church board and leaders the dozens of ideas that work in other places. Discuss the best ideas from other churches and pick what may work for your church’s situation. These past articles are offered free to all Nazarene churches and leaders by printing them from the GROW Website. Or, just look around your district for ministries making a missional difference and find out what works for them.

Start some new ministry and give it a try. If it doesn’t work, move on to another “experiment.” Eventually you will find a number of ministry opportunities that can help influence new people into Christ’s Kingdom.

Your church may be their only hope.

—Jim Dorsey Editor, GROW