Resolutions

So one of my goals for this year was to read 18 books. I finished my first one last night: "Simple Church". Pretty good, although I felt like a lot of it was covered in "Breakout Churches", but the ideas certainly deserved to be implemented. The main focus is on creating a simple ministry process for your church, helping the church understand that process, aligning all ministries in the church to that process, and eliminating anything that doesn't fit into that process. My favorite line is when he is talking about how to transition your church from complex to simple he says regarding timing "Get there as fast as you can but not faster". Good advice. JM

Discipleship Equation

So my boss wants us to come up with a ministry process for our church. He started off by giving us the equation of People + Christ = Transformation. I think that People + Christ = Justification. While justification is a form of transformation, to say that this type of transformation is what God desires the church to be doing is incorrect, or at least not fully correct.
The church is supposed to teach, encourage, and grow strong (I Corinthians 14:26,31). If all we are seeking is justification, that is growth, but not growing strong, teaching, or encouraging.
I think the end goal of the church is to make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus doesn't stop at salvation, or even baptism, but he continues to say "teach them to obey everything that I have taught you."
So:
People + Christ = Justification
and
Justification + Teaching + Encouraging = Transformation = God's desire for the church.
If this is true, then to design a process for church ministry would require avenues for introducing people to Jesus, teaching them the disciplines of the Christian faith, and encouraging them as they grow. As people are transformed, they would need to be provided opportunities to serve and lead both inside and outside our church.
I'll probably develop my design based on this thought-process. JM