MINISTRY

'...we recruit the wrong people. There are a number of common mistakes:

• We only recruit people like ourselves - people who fit with our particular personality or style of ministry.
• We overlook the maverick or the revolutionary, who is harder to train but might evangelize nations.
• We miss the creative or intuitive person, who is poor administrativley but will reach people in ways we haven't thought of.
• We recruit the flashy, outgoing young superstar rather than the person of real character and substance.
• We recruit only for one kind of ministry - usually the traditional form of it in our denomination - rather than starting with a gifted, godly person and thinking about what kind of ministry might be built around them.
• We don't let people escape from the box into which we've put them; we don't let them outgrow the first impressions we have of them.
• We wait too long to recruit someone, and they make family or career decisisons that close off ministry options.'

Colin Marshall & Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine, p.148.

PREACHING

'To say that sermons (in the sense of Biblical exposition in our Sunday gatherings) are necessary but not sufficient is simply to stand on the theological truth that it is the word of the gospel that is sufficient, rather than any one particular form of its delivery. We might say that the speaking of the word of the gospel under the power of the Spirit is entirely sufficient - it's just that on its own, the 25 minute sermonic form of it is not.

We say this because the New Testament compels us to. As we have already seen, God expects all Christians to be disciple-makers by prayerfully speaking the word of God to others - in whatever way and to whatever extent their gifting and circumstances allow. When God has gifted all the members of the congregation to help grow disciples, why should we silence the contribution of all but one of them (the pastor), and think that this is sufficient or acceptable?'

Colin Marshall & Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine, p.102.