A recurring theme at this year’s Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in Birmingham was that of working together for unity in the gospel.
At the local church level working together might mean thinking about how your church gets along and how it runs its committees or teams.
Nationwide an estimated 65 million “dones” exist — Christians who have quit church due to infighting, politics and committee structures, according to a January article by Baptist News Global.
According to minister and author Patrick Vaughn, many of these people went to church looking for community and found judgment or felt they were asked to give their time and talent to maintaining the institution rather than reaching out.
He said this should be a “wakeup call” to the church to think about what church really means.
For some that means a change from their traditional committee structure to a ministry team approach, he said.
Mike Jackson, director of the office of LeaderCare and church health for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said for him, the important thing about both committees and ministry teams is the heart behind them.
‘Not a matter of semantics’
“We have to be careful that it’s not a matter of semantics — ‘Let’s just call them ministry teams’(but there’s no difference),” he said.
The temptation with traditional committee structures is to fill a vacancy with a warm body, Jackson said. “But sometimes in putting committees together there’s a lot of thoughtful prayer and consideration of the individuals — their shape, their spiritual gifts, their heart and their aptitude.”
That’s the idea that makes ministry teams work too, he said — finding someone who has a passion and letting that individual serve accordingly.
“I think what ministry teams want to try to do is find people who are passionate about something and put them in that area of responsibility and then don’t necessarily change them after two or three years,” Jackson said, noting committees traditionally have a rotating structure.
Working together is key
Don Hatcher, associational missions director for Barbour Baptist Association, said he doesn’t know of any churches in his association that have embraced the ministry team designation, but he’s begun to use it informally among his pastors and churches.
“I started using the team concept long before I retired from pastoral ministry,” Hatcher said.
“I faced no push back from my church. My approach was to explain that the designation ‘team’ was an accurate description of a group of people who work together to achieve a goal whereas a committee was usually a group of people who meet, decide what needs to be done and then expect someone else to get it done.”
Jackson said whether a church chooses committees or teams often depends on its personality.
“In some churches deacon bodies may find it easier to do things through structure,” Jackson said. “I would say to those deacons, find out where these guys are passionate and plug them in there. If you’ve got a guy with a heart for evangelism, put him on the outreach team.”
On ministry teams membership is more fluid — people can come and go and stay longer if they feel led.
“That would probably be the big difference I see — trying to pair people with passions and gifts in a place where they can effectively minister,” Jackson said. “In our putting together ministry teams we’ve got to be very cognizant of that person and their gifts.”
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