Churches shouldn’t rely wholly on programs to do the work of ministry, which means that a lot of churches need to think about cutting some programs and reworking others. More importantly, program-driven churches should work to cultivate a culture of discipleship.

But how? How can you wean a church off of an excessive dependence on programs and move toward a culture of discipleship? How can you slim down your church’s diet of programs without causing a shock to the system?

STRATEGIES FOR BECOMING A POST-PROGRAM CHURCH

Those are big questions, and sometimes they have high stakes. In some churches, the adult Sunday school program is like the electric third rail: touch it and die.  Further, as with most practical questions, many of the specific answers will vary church to church.

Still, here are a few suggestions. I hope they will be useful for church leaders who are trying to wean their churches off programs and cultivate a culture of discipleship and evangelism.

1. Put better content in the programs you’ve got. If you’ve got programs that aren’t going away any time soon, figure out how to more biblical content into them. Sunday school is a good place to start.

2. Find other ways to reform existing programs. For example, train and deploy new teachers in Sunday school or small groups. Find and cultivate people who are growing as Christians and are eager to help others do the same. Help them develop a vision for how a program can be used not as a social club, but as an engine for discipleship. 

3. Let sick programs die. Attrition can be your friend. If a program is not generating enough interest to keep it afloat, discover the smiling face behind the frowning providence. It’s much easier to lay a dying program to rest than to get rid of something that is apparently vibrant and successful.

The loss of a program is not necessarily a loss to the church. It frees up members’ time. It frees up church leaders’ time. It cuts down on clutter. It allows you to redirect people’s efforts toward more valuable uses of their time, like loving and serving their non-Christian neighbors.

4. Reprogram people when they come in your front door. Almost every prospective church member will ask, “How can we get involved?” For many, this translates as, “What programs do you offer?” So, from the very beginning of your relationship to new folks, help them to reframe their ministry mindset. Encourage them to see their commitment to the church as more basic than their commitment to any program or small group. And encourage them to live out that commitment by regularly attending the church’s public services, building relationships throughout the church, and serving in whatever ways are needed. Encourage them to see church involvement as more about people than programs.

In short, reprogram new people to think in terms of the ministry of the pew, not merely participation in programs.

One good place to have a conversation about this is in a membership interview. When people are about to commit to your church, encourage them to see their church involvement in terms of attendance, prayer, service, giving, and personal relationships. Some of these things may be facilitated by programs, but programs can’t do the work for them.

5. Redirect traffic toward better programs. Not every program deserves an equal share of the spotlight. If you can’t kill a program or significantly reform it, at least you can use public airtime to positively direct people to other ministries that will be more beneficial. You don’t need to say a word against the program—you can just gently direct people’s attention elsewhere.

6. Labor to transform your leaders’ (and potential leaders’) ministry mindset. The most deep and lasting change will come when all of your elders champion and model it. So invest deeply in cultivating a biblical philosophy of ministry in them. And plant lots of seeds in men who have the potential to serve as elders down the line.

I’ve heard Mark Dever recommend that in an effort to develop a “culture of discipling” mindset, a group of church leaders could read and discuss the following four books, in this order: The Gospel Blimp by Joseph Bayly, The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman, The Trellis and the Vine Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, and The Deliberate Church by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander. And I’d add Jonathan Leeman’s Reverberation to that list.

7. Build discipleship into everything you do as a pastor. One of the most effective tools you have in this process is your own personal model. So lead by example through faithfully discipling others.

8. Find as many ways as you can to make discipleship a defining feature of your church’s culture. Here are twenty suggestions to get you started.

9. Make membership meaningful. This last one is one of the most important. The clearer the distinction between the church and the world, the more the very existence of your church will help Christians grow in Christ.

Conversely, if you’ve got hundreds of non-attenders on your roles, your church is effectively saying that living like Christ has no bearing whatsoever on being a Christian. And if you’ve got non-members serving and leading, you’re sending the message that committing to and submitting a church is merely one option for Christians.

So make membership meaningful. You’ll find that when your church is full of genuine, committed Christians, the culture of the whole church will begin to change organically.

You're in for a treat with Thabiti's Anyabwile's new book, Finding Good Elders and Deacons. Let me give you three reasons. First, it will help you grow in your understanding of what godly maturity looks like in the context of the local church. This really struck me when I read the book for the first time. Elders should exemplify the character qualities that all Christians should grow into, and so Thabiti's meditations on the list of elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 basically provides all of us with a portrait of what Christian maturity looks like. It's a beautiful picture.

Second, it will provide you with an excellent discipleship tool for using with a younger Christian in a discipleship relationship.

Third, it will provide an excellent gift for your pastors or fellow pastors, giving them a tool for evaluating prospective elder and deacon candidates.

In order to provide you with a better introduction, I thought I'd ask Thabiti a few questions about the book. I'm grateful to him for taking the time to offer these replies.

1) What are some of the wrong qualities churches prioritize in their search for new elders and deacons?

Most well-intentioned churches make the mistake of looking for good qualities that re not prioritized by the scripture. So, they look for men who are well-known or popular, men who’ve been successful at business or another endeavor, or men who appear charismatic and influential. These may not be bad things, but they are in no way sufficient things or priorities. When these kinds of characteristics displace biblical godliness, churches end up looking for the wrong kinds of people who inevitably lead the church in the wrong direction. How can people who place a low priority on godliness ever hope to faithfully follow the Lord?

2) Why do the lists in characteristics of elders and deacons presented by Timothy and Titus seem so ordinary?

The list of qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 really represent spiritual maturity for all Christians. We should see these qualities in some measure in the lives of every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, elsewhere in the New Testament we find these things being commanded or commended of the “rank and file” believer. So, in one sense, the elder and is simply another Christian, one of the brothers in whom God’s grace is at work. What distinguishes the elder or deacon is the degree to which these characteristics are evident and consistent in their life. The elder and deacon should stand out as one in whom these “normal” Christian qualities occur in “abnormal” degree.

3) How have you seen the wisdom of these lists play out in your own experience working with other elders and deacons?

I’m so prone to look for people like me in some way, or to move impatiently in seeking out leaders. These qualities tend to (a) bring to our attention people that don’t fit our mold or readily appear “like us,” and (b) these qualities slow us down such that we avoid making hasty decisions to ordain elders and deacons. The qualifications actually require we take our time in order to properly discern their presence. When I’ve been patient, prayerful, and watchful for “unusual suspects,” the church has been rewarded and blessed with men God approve for the task. That’s what we want in all our churches.

4) What happens when churches forsake these lists?

Disaster. Wolves enter. Unfaithful men take the helm of the church. Sooner or later a low state of spirituality will engulf the church. Even the very image and respect for leadership itself will be tarnished as men unfit for the positions bring the offices into disrepute. Ultimately, poorly qualified leaders hinder the work and honor of the Lord in the local community.

5) Does your book have relevance for churches beyond whichever body is responsible for nominating new leaders?

I hope so. I hope it’s helpful for congregations in knowing how to pray for their leaders and strengthen the leader’s work. I pray it’s useful for aspiring pastors and ministers in discerning a sense of call and qualification. Also, I hope it’s useful as a basic discipleship tool for men. Every man should at least aspire to be an elder because the qualifications are simply another way of describing Christian maturity. Perhaps the book would even be helpful to women in the congregation, holding forth a description of mature manhood. 1 Timothy 3 is what women should expect from male leaders, what single women should pray for in a potential husband, and what married women should honor in their husbands.

Learn more about the book and purchase here.

If churches shouldn’t rely wholly on programs to do the work of ministry, this raises some questions: First, should churches ditch all their programs? Second, if not, how should churches decide which programs to keep or cut?

SHOULD CHURCHES DITCH ALL THEIR PROGRAMS?

Should churches ditch all their programs? Not necessarily.

Certainly churches should view all “programs” that aren’t biblically prescribed as optional, and so they should hold them with a relatively open hand. But this doesn’t mean that all programs are bad, or that they are inherently bureaucratic and counterproductive of real ministry. Some programs, like Sunday school, can be excellent tools for teaching the Bible, equipping Christians with a biblical worldview, and changing the culture of a church.

HOW TO DECIDE WHICH PROGRAMS TO KEEP OR CUT

How then should churches decide which programs to keep or cut? Obviously this is a complicated question that each church will answer slightly differently. Here are three principles for thinking it through. These principles, I should add, are relevant not just for deciding whether to keep a program or cut it, but for thinking through how to reform and improve existing programs as well.

1. Programs should be means, not ends in themselves. That is, they should be means to the end of equipping the saints for the work of ministry. For instance, an evangelism program shouldn’t be the only way people in the church evangelize. Or at least, if it is initially, it should have the stated goal of equipping people to evangelize outside the program.

Further, some programs seem to exist for the sole purpose of furthering their own existence. The fact that the program exists lends it an artificial weight and importance all out of proportion to its contribution to the church’s work of evangelism and discipleship.

Of course, many programs could fall on either side of this divide depending on the quality of content, teaching, planning, and so on. Take Sunday school. On the one hand, many adult Sunday school programs contribute little to the Christian growth of their participants or the church’s culture of discipleship.

Yet in a recent eJournal article, Jonathan Pennington argued that Sunday school is a uniquely helpful context for teaching church members a wide range of biblical and practical topics from how to study the Bible to parenting. One of the points he made was that if churches don’t use something like Sunday school to teach on these matters, they probably won’t be taught at all.

From this angle, Sunday school—especially a well-planned, content-driven model—helps a church to equip its members more thoroughly and completely than it would without the help of a structured program like this. Sunday school is a means, not an end.

2. Programs should contribute to a culture of discipleship, not compete with it. Let’s stay with our example of Sunday school. Done well, Sunday school is like a diet plan—it helps to ensure that the church as a whole is receiving a balanced diet of biblical teaching. It’s one specific tool for discipling Christians, and it helps feed an overall culture of Christian growth by creating the expectation that church members will be growing in their knowledge of and obedience to God’s Word.

Sunday school shouldn’t take the place of discipleship. It shouldn’t give the impression that discipleship exclusively takes place in Sunday school, or that Sunday school is absolutely essential to discipleship. Instead, it’s simply one means to the end of discipling Christians, and fostering an overall atmosphere in the church that nurtures discipleship.

Or consider small groups. If a church chooses to make use of them, small groups should be a structure that helps to nurture personal relationships and acts of service. By providing a starting point for relationship building, they should help to knit the whole church together. But people’s church participation shouldn’t begin and end with their small group. They shouldn’t be more devoted to their small group than to their church. 

3. Christians shouldn’t spend all their time “at church.” Christians shouldn’t live out their whole lives within the four walls of their church. We need time to be faithful in our vocations, whether mothering or mortgage brokering. We need time to disciple our children. We need time to befriend and love and evangelize our non-Christian neighbors. And there are only so many hours in the week.

Extra-biblical church programs inherently compete for time with these other, explicitly biblical, priorities. So pastors should always be aware that time at church programs is time taken away from these other things.

MORE TO SAY

Obviously there’s much more than could be said here, but these three basic principles are a starting point. Programs should be evaluated for what they contribute not just to individual Christians’ discipleship, or the act of evangelism, but to an overall culture of discipleship. And pastors should always realize that in terms of time, they’re always dealing with trade-offs. More time in church related activities is less time with non-Christian neighbors.

Next week I’ll give a few practical suggestions about how church leaders can wean a church off programs, improve the programs they’ve got, and cultivate an overall culture of discipleship.

In The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Jeremiah Burroughs explains why ministers and other people in positions of authority sometimes have to stand in a place of (presumably, spiritual) danger.  He also notes that this should make people who do not occupy positions of authority happy for their situation! 

Speaking of the Israelites crossing the Jordan in Joshua 4, he writes:

Now it was God's disposal that all the people should pass over first, that they should be safe on land; but the priests must stand still till all the people had passed over, and then they must have leave to go. But they must stay till God would have them to go, stay in all that danger! For certainly, to reason and sense, there was a great deal of danger in staying, for the text says that the people hasted over, but the priests they must stay till the people have gone, stay till God calls them out from that place of danger.

And so many times it proves the case that God is pleased to dispose of things so that his ministers must stay longer in danger than the people, and likewise magistrates and those in public places, which should make people to be satisfied and contented with a lower position into which God has put them. Though your position is low, yet you are not in the same danger as those who are in a higher position. God calls those in public positions to stand longer in the gap and place of danger than other people, but we must be content to stay even in Jordan till the Lord shall be pleased to call us out.

             -- Chapter 1, Section 9