The Lay Ministry Revolution: How You Can Join - Softcover

Hall, Eddy; Morsch, Gary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801090059 ISBN 13: 9780801090059

Publisher: Baker Pub Group, 1995

Synopsis

Book by Hall, Eddy, Morsch, Gary

About this title

About the Author:

Eddy Hall of Goessel, Kansas, is a church consultant who works with local churches to help them maximize ministry and growth through strategic planning of ministries, staffing, facilities, and finances. He also conducts workshops and retreats on lay mobilization, discerning spiritual gifts and call, and transitioning the local church from program-driven ministry to call-driven ministry. He has also coauthored When Not To Build and When Not To Borrow and his articles have appeared in more than 100 periodicals.

Gary Morsch of Olathe, Kansas, is a physician and the chair of Heart to Heart International, a volunteer organization dedicated to mobilizing community resources to alleviate human suffering around the world by addressing the needs of the total person. He has also written Heart and Soul: Awakening Your Passion To Serve.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From the Foreword by Larry D. Morgan: During more than twenty years of pastoral ministry, I have often tried to fulfill the many expectations that go along with what I call a clergy-centered approach to ministry but have always ended up feeling frustrated and guilty. I never have enough time, never enough talent, never enough energy to fulfill all the expectations. And, while feeling overwhelmed, I have often observed laypeople who are gifted and willing to serve but remain stifled and unfulfilled in their expressions of discipleship.

I believe that many of the frustrations of both overburdened pastoral staff and unfulfilled laity spring from the same source--the unbiblical division of God's people into categories of "ministers" and "non-ministers." And I feel strongly that the solution to both problems, and a key to the church's spiritual power, is to be found in the recovery of lay ministry.

Over the years I have had a growing desire to see those I pastor experience fulfillment in ministry. And so I have resolved to equip laity for, and release them into, ministry.

I confess, the effort has been neither easy nor quick to produce results. Our roles as laypeople and clergy have become comfortable and familiar, even while they remain frustrating and unfulfilling. But I had caught a glimpse of the partnership in ministry that God intends for the church, and this glimpse kept me going through many years of seeing little response to this vision of shared ministry.

Now, after twenty-two years of pastoral ministry, something has broken through this "clergy-centered ministry" mind-set in the congregation I am pastoring. It is this course on lay ministry you hold in your hands. When I invited the people of my church to take part, forty eagerly responded. As we went through the pilot course together, I witnessed the freeing effects of the realization that every Christian is called to minister. I saw a growing fulfillment in those who began to live out this approach to ministry.

We have twice more offered this study to our congregation. I have now watched about 40 percent of our adults go through this course that helps people come to a biblical understanding of the nature of ministry, clarify their own calls, and live out those calls in everyday life. New ministries have sprung up from some of these newly discovered calls, and still others are forming.

Recruiting and motivating laypeople to take on ministry responsibility used to be one of my most difficult tasks. That aspect of my pastoring has changed since we started offering this class. More than half of those who have completed the class have come to me excitedly sharing their own sense of call. I no longer have to do any of the initial motivating. I only have to support and cheer on my lay ministers.

Do I believe this book can help you? Oh, yes! Layperson, break free from the emptiness of not knowing where you fit into God's work. Pastor, trade in your frustration of being overwhelmed for the joy of multiplying your effectiveness through equipping others for ministry. Both, be the ministers God has called you to be!

About this edition

• Publisher: Baker Pub Group
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0801090059
• ISBN 13: 9780801090059
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 126