How is the ministry at your church among teenagers? Student ministry is frequently a challenge in congregations. All too often, adults feel like they have to dream up activities to “entertain” the youth in a “Christian environment.” Increasingly, I see a good trend among high school students. They are open to serving. I was at a church a couple of weeks ago where all the high school students teach Sunday school, either during the early or late service of this large church in Ohio. They each have a mentor who is an adult and a mature Christian who not only works with them to teach Sunday school, but also throughout the week becomes their mentor, coach, discipler. They have some fun activities, of course. However, the interesting observation is that it is the service that has impacted the high school students the most. This has led to other areas where they are providing service including work in the inner-city cleaning up homes and trash in the streets, and annual trips to Mexico to help build ministry facilities for churches there. The idea of having students teach Sunday school reminds me of my own high school years. When I declared to my pastor that I wanted to become a pastor, he put me in a 5th grade Sunday school class as a teacher. At that point, I told him I didn’t know much about the Bible. He said, and I learned what this church in Ohio has discovered, when you teach the Bible, you learn it and perhaps in the best way. You also learn to be a servant to others. These high school kids are also a tremendous role model for the young children in the Sunday school to look up to them.

God literally has all resources available to Him, so if He has not released as many as you think you need, you must examine the reason why. But we will not boast beyond our measure, but within the measure of the sphere, which God apportions to us as a measure, to reach even as far as you (2 Cor. 10:13-15). To go outside of our appointed sphere or limit is rebellion against God. It is, in effect, a statement that you are God & reserve the right to find fault with God’s plans, substituting your own in their place.

What money reveals about people:

Many people think that having more money will solve problems & bring them what they want. Not so. Many of your limitations are designed by God to protect you. God, not money, is the answer to problems.

How you view God’s limits for yourself & your business can be a source of safety.

God uses money to reveal how much we look to Him as our ultimate source & problem solver, but He also uses it to teach us more about Himself & how He wants us to use better management skills.

Eight questions to ask when the lack of resources appears to be limiting your freedom, choices, & goals:

• Is God keeping me from expansion–or even paying my bills–because of a particular moral sin in my life?

• Is greed or materialism driving my desire for expansion? While God is not opposed to personal comfort or things that make the use of our time & energy more efficient, He does oppose greed & materialism.

• Is this new project–or the one I’ve been following since I last heard from God—in His perfect will for me or those associated with it? Do I care enough to fast & pray about this issue until I have an answer?

• Is God trying to protect me from something or someone in this project? What is it, or who is it? A lack of money is often a “red light” saying not only stop, but identifying the danger that is around you.

• Are you proceeding in this project God’s way? Is there biblical truth you are in danger of transgressing? How diligent have you been in searching God’s Word for economic or management principles that might apply to this problem?

• If God doesn’t supply the money when you want it–and in the form, you want it–are you willing to take matters into your own hands? Would you get the money any way possible? Is your ambition stronger than your recognition of God’s safety limits?

• Are you clear on the fact that God couldn’t care less about your money problem; instead, His concern is your maturity problem. Has profit become a goal instead of a fruit for you?

• Do you have enough management wealth & skills to properly steward this new expansion? If not, what skills or people will you need that you don’t have? Riches, which exceed your management skills, almost always destroy you.

There seems to be a great deal of discussion these days regarding church government. Small committees, large committees, lots of committees, no committees; the dialog goes on and on.

Can a church function in a “no committee” environment? If the lead pastor makes critical church decisions, is the church headed for chaotic closure? Is a church destined for doom if it never holds an annual meeting so members can vote on church business? Before you answer, consider the following real-life example.

A rapidly growing church in a growing community recently went through a shake up over their church government. From the beginning, they were organized as a Pastor-led church. There are no committees and no annual meetings. In fact, they don’t have formal membership. Rather, they ask people to become partners in the ministry of the church.

Over time, a small but vocal group became upset that they didn’t get to vote on church decisions. They eventually ended up leaving the church; taking a somewhat significant number of people with them. While this course of action is sadly disappointing, it was not nearly as devastating as you might think.

Because of their church government structure, instead of going through a long, highly visible and painful process; the church recovered rapidly without much incident. In fact, many of the people still attending the church are not even aware of what went on.

6 months after the incident you could hardly tell anything happened. 9 months after the incident, weekend attendance was higher than it had been prior to the group of people leaving. Today the church is still growing and making disciples.

It may be surprising to discover that many of the common forms of church government don’t work well in the 21st century. In fact, church government is one of the most significant challenges facing many churches today. However, broaching this subject can be tricky. In fact, if not handled correctly, discussions about changes in church government can destroy a congregation.

Church Doctor Consultants understand the transitional dynamics involved with changes in church Government. They welcome the opportunity to work with your congregation through a Church Government Consultation.

What is the structure of your church? Are you positioned for growth or for maintenance? Is the decision-making process pleasurable or painful? Whatever your answer, how your church is structured is more significant than you think.

Perhaps you saw Outreach magazine’s annual report of the 100 fastest growing and 100 largest churches in America (October/November 2007 issue). We are all indebted to Outreach for the effort they make to provide us with this amazing information on an annual basis.

We must continue to work, as Christians, to come to the day when we will not only report generic membership statistics, but will redefine real growth by subtracting growth from those who join the church by transfer or through biological growth (kids growing up in the church who already belong to families who attend the church). The majority of Americans are self-declared non-Christians. If we’re going to set a bar for achievement, by size or by amount of growth, it ought to be tied to unchurched people who become churched.  Those are the churches that should become our models.  What do you think? 

~ Kent Hunter, church consultant, Church Doctor Ministries

Call me Mr. Scrooge or the Apostle Paul–your choice. What were they thinking at the contemporary worship service on Christmas Eve? They sang songs like “Joy to the World, the Lord is Come,” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem” with the word “Thy” throughout. To top it off, they sang “Gloria in Excelsis Deo…”–it’s Latin!

Don’t get me wrong–I grew up with all these great songs, and because they’re part of my childhood, they’re all “feel-good” songs to me, too. But, it’s a contemporary service during the one time when more un-churched and de-churched people attend than any other.

Rob Bell from Mars Hill Church in Grandville, MI, had an article in Time Magazine, December 17, 2007, on page 60. With 11,000 people attending weekly, Bell talks about the early beginnings: “100 people a day were calling and saying, ‘Dude! Give us the real thing.’ I was like, ‘If someone could speak to them in their mother tongue, they’d be here in droves.’”

Call me Scrooge if you want, but for heaven’s sake, what’s our top priority? Mission or feel good? I’d go with the Apostle Paul.

Kent R. Hunter

For 30 years I have prayed for revival in North America. Consulting over 1,000 churches, I have come to the conclusion that, generally speaking, there are five major areas of roadblocks keeping the Christian movement from reaching its potential. Here they are:

• The inability to deliver the Gospel in forms indigenous to 21^st Century, unchurched Americans.
• The lack of effective training for pastors to serve as missionaries.
• The lack of a “go” mentality to focus ministry on the community, away from the church building, engaging people in the marketplace.
• Unbiblical and unproductive forms of church government.
• Ten unbiblical worldviews largely held by a majority of church leaders and decision-makers.

Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Walnut Creek, CA, (www.saintmatthew.org ) is about to build 12,000 sq. feet of new buildings. We have been challenged with the idea that the “mission field” of dozens of contractors and laborers will be coming on our campus for the next six to nine months. We simply asked the question, how can we engage these people with the Gospel?

We heard about an organization called “Building God’s Way,” who had a variety of services to provide for churches, but one of the most unique features was doing ministry with these folks who come to help us build our new facilities www.bgwservices.com)

We are kicking off a Ministry of Construction that will have various components:

1) There is a weekly mid-week Bible Study being taught by Pastor Jeff Thiemann, Saint Matthew’s Executive Pastor, on Nehemiah and “Building God’s Way.” Everyone who is involved in the Ministry of Construction is being encouraged to participate.

2) There are prayer teams who will meet and greet the contractors and laborers each Monday morning, soliciting any needs for which we can be praying, and actually offering prayers for them during a mid-morning coffee break if they would like. One of these teams is all Spanish-speaking to facilitate our ability to communicate with any Spanish-speaking workers.

3) We are intentionally inviting the children and families of those working to special events that are happening during the summer and fall that are outreach-type events like FX (shared Family Experience), as well as to our Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas services.

4) A team will prepare lunch for all the workers every Friday, and all of the prayer teams will be encouraged to come and have lunch with the workers for whom they have been praying, just to having caring conversations.

All of those involved with the Ministry of Construction will be organized as a “Cluster” based on a model we have observed at St. Thomas’ Parish in Sheffield, England. Their Mission focus will be the men and women who are helping us construct our buildings, but they will also share in additional fellowship times once a month for mutual encouragement and support. The leaders of the Ministry of Construction teams are also being “huddled” (intentional discipleship training groups) by Pastor Jeff.

The Jesus Enterprise is great. I have a friend who started his own enterprise ministry. He lives in a small town where there is “nothing to do”. So he opened a family pizza place just down the street from his church. He hires teens from his church as servers. He trains them to know that they are not only serving pizza, they are also serving Christ as they serve others. He says he has established great relationships with many people who have never been to a church in their life. Some of the regular customers have started attending his church and some have received Christ as Savior!

Church Doctor Ministries is proud to announce the launch of our new website, TheJesusEnterprise.com. This website is a community based forum for sharing ideas and successes of develping Jesus Enterprises.