Equipping Model or Dependency Model
A major reason why we have not adopted Jesus’ intentional, relational approach to making disciples is that we have substituted a dependency model ministry for a biblical, equipping model ministry.
Let us start by sketching out the ideal biblical description for those who are gifted to shepherd God’s people and then show how these same shepherds have been diverted from their primary calling.
Admittedly, there are not many passages of Scripture that give a “job description” for a pastor-teacher. The apostles Paul and Peter seem to be far more concerned about the character of ministry leaders than they are the competencies.
In other words, reflecting the character of Christ seems to take precedence over how the leaders are to position themselves in relationship to the body of Christ. While not minimizing the ministry sustaining importance of character, we will focus on the essential competency of equipping.
The Equipping Model of Ministry
The apostle Paul gives us a very precise way that ministry leaders are to position themselves in relationship to the people of God (saints).
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…
(Ephesians 4:11-12, ESV).
The late Ray Stedman very helpfully puts these two verses in pictorial form. He first notes four gifted people have a particular way of helping the rest of the body of Christ find and use their spiritual gifts in ministry. He labels apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor-teachers, as those who have support gifts.
What they all have in common is that they use the Word of God as their primary tool, but each in a particular way to support the rest of the body of Christ. Stedman compares them to a life-support system that fosters the health of the human body.
- Apostles are like the skeletal structure which serves as the body’s frame, for it is the truth of God’s Word on which everything hangs.
- Prophets can be compared to the nervous system, since messages are sent from the head through the nerves to activate the body parts.
- Evangelists are like the digestive system for its takes in sustenance in the form of new converts, and distributes energy to all the body parts for life.
- Pastor-teachers are analogous to the circulatory system that distributes the food of the Word and cleans out the waste.
What are those with support gifts to do? They are to do one thing, “equip the saints.” Other words for equip are “prepare, train, educate,” and even better “disciple.” Who are the “saints”? Saints describe an ordinary follower of Christ who received the gift of righteousness or right standing with God.
This right standing is purely a gift from God because Christ’s righteousness has been given to us when we acknowledge our need for salvation and we transfer control of our life to Him.
What are the “saints” to do? They are to do the “work of ministry.” If the “saints” do the “work of ministry,” what will be the result? The “body of Christ will be built up.” It will grow stronger in its ministry capacity and grow in unity.
Elton Trueblood captures Paul’s intent:
“The ministry is for all who share in Christ’s life, the pastorate (and the other support gifts) is for those who possess the peculiar gift of being able to help other men and women practice any ministry to which they are called.”
When the body of Christ follows this rhythm, a whole series of dominoes fall into place: the body of Christ is built up, unity of faith is grounded in the knowledge of God’s Son; and, the church grows to maturity, “fully developed within and without, fully alive in Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13, The Message).
The Dependency Model of Ministry
Unfortunately, and quite disastrously, we have adopted another model of ministry, I refer to as the dependency model, that undermines this biblical model of equipping. The picture below captures the distortion of the biblical intent.
Instead of those with support gifts equipping the saints to the do the work of ministry, those with supports gifts are doing the work of ministry themselves in place of the saints! Our language can be very confusing.
If we call pastor-teachers, “ministers” then we are assigning a small group of people to do ministry--ministers who do the ministry. Then “ministers” replace the saints who are to do ministry. We often ask the question of a pastor, “When or how were you called into the Ministry?” But if the clergy are called into the ministry, what is left for the rest of God’s people?
Not what Jesus intended
The people of God become simply assistants to the ministers, not ministers themselves. Ministers are the called ones, set apart into a category separate from the ordinary follower of Christ. Many church members would say, “Is not ministry what we pay you to do?” meaning, "Pastors, your job is to minister to “me” and my job is the receive your ministry."
I was talking with a disgruntled, underutilized lay person who complained that his pastor told him,
“My job is the preach the best possible sermon I can; your job is to bring people to listen to me.”
How might we recognize a dependency model of ministry? What are the characteristic that a dependency model of ministry is in place?
- Our worship services create a spectator/performer relationship between pastor and people. The very way we arrange a worship center has the same feel as you might while attending a concert, movie, or play. The people are seated in rows facing the performers on the stage. People come as passive recipients for worship, ready for the pastor to deliver the goods, and then we depart giving an instant evaluation of how we think he or she did by our comments. Spectators are there to evaluate the effectiveness of the performers on stage.
We do not even think it is odd to shake hands with the pastor and say things like, “Good sermon, pastor,” as if it is our job to evaluate the effectiveness of the preaching, passing judgment on the quality of their effort.
One Sunday morning I got a comment that I had no idea how to handle. I was shaking hands as people were exited the sanctuary and one person paused and said, “You know, you’re getting better.” My first thought was, “Better than what? Better than the lousy preacher I used to be?” - There is an unwritten, unspoken emotional covenant with the pastor as caregiver in most of our churches. What we often mean when we call a pastor a shepherd, is that they are present at our beckon call in a time of need.
“Pastor, if something goes wrong in my life, such as a death, illness, or some other quality of life-threatening situation, I expect you to be there, and if you are not, then you are not a good pastor.”
Some have compared this expectation we have of pastor to a bell-hop at an expensive hotel. We ring the bell and the pastor comes running!
We have a good biblical case study regarding how the apostles handled caregiving expectations. A dispute arose in the in the church of Jerusalem because the Greek-speaking widows felt that they “were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food,” when compared to the Hebrew-speaking widows. The problem was brought to the apostles for a solution. In their wisdom, this is what they decided,
“It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables” (Acts 6:2).
The wording of the apostle’s decision implies that they were tempted to add the oversight of this dispute to their job description. After all, what better way to show the heart of God for widows than affirming their value by serving them directly. But what they spotted here was an attempted diversion from their primary call to pray and preach the word of God.
Ultimately, they saw this as an actual opportunity to expand ministry by appointing seven Greek-speaking men “full of the Spirit and wisdom” to make sure there was an equitable distribution of food (Acts 6:3). So many ministry “opportunities” are presented to pastors as veiled attempts, good things in themselves, but draw them away from that their primary role to “equip or disciple” the saints for ministry. - Where does disciplemaking fit into the practices on the pastor’s priority list? A pastor of a church well-known for intentional disciplemaking attended a gathering of pastors of large churches. There were 15-20 pastors present for this conversation.
Their pattern was to submit topics they wanted to discuss. They listed 15-20 items and ranked them in order of importance. The pastor of the disciplemaking church said he wanted to discuss how people are formed spiritually--in others words, how are disciples made.
His topic came in dead last in order of importance to the group. They finally got around to his subject with about 30 minutes left in their time together. The other pastors were already mentally packing up and emotionally were heading to the airport. The leader of the discussion summed up his response to disciplemaking,
“As you can see this topic was left for last. Currently, how does a church specifically help to be formed spiritually? If you can get people to worship, do outreach, volunteer weekly in a ministry, that is about the best you can expect.”
Off they went to their flight home. - Why is equipping such a low priority for so many pastors? Most pastors, I would guess, would say that they see the importance of discipleship or disciplemaking. How could you not? But when it comes down to it, they are too busy maintaining their congregations, looking after the elders, deacons, buildings, weddings, funerals, committees to run, crises, etc.
I often get the objection, "I cannot add one more thing to the list of things I am already doing." My response is that I am not asking to add one more thing at the bottom of the list. I am asking you to add this to the top of the list and assess what you can stop doing so that you put disciplemaking or equipping as a top priority and eliminate something else on the list.
Conclusion
What has happened is that pastors overperform by taking on ministry that is reserved for the “saints.” In turn, the ministry for the members of the body of Christ is undermined.
We have created a system in which we pay pastors to do ministry and the people are the recipients of their pastoral care. I have referred to this as the “dependency model of ministry.”
I am arguing we need to put in its place an “equipping model of ministry.” Elton Trueblood suggests for this to happen we need an image of a pastor that explains the relationship between pastor and people. Trueblood uses an athletic image for pastor he calls “player-coach.”
What is the role of a coach? A good coach thrives by helping the members of his team to excel in the position they have on the team so that they can make their contribution to the health of the team. But by including the image of player-coach, the pastor is not just on the sidelines shouting encouragement and instruction, but they are part of the same team, accomplishing together the mission of growing and reproducing disciples of Jesus.
Why is the change of a ministry model so vital for intentional, relational disciplemaking to become a reality?
A dependency model of ministry cannot support a disciplemaking vision. In fact, it works against it. The dependency model is a system of control. It equates ministry with pastors who are set apart into a separate ministry category.
On the other hand, a disciplemaking culture requires a belief that ALL of God’s people are ministers and are capable of being disciples who make disciples. The pastor-teachers exist to empower others to make their ministry contribution. In fact, the reward for equippers is to see that their efforts on behalf of God’s people leads to others fulfilling their God-given designs. John Stott sums it up well,
"The New Testament concept of the pastor is not of a person who jealously guards all ministry in his own hands, and successfully squashes all lay initiatives, but of one who helps and encourages all of God's people to discover, develop and exercise their gifts. His teaching and training are directed to this end, to enable the people of God to be a servant people, ministering actively but humbly according to their gifts in a world of alienation and pain. Thus, instead of monopolizing all ministry himself, he actually multiplies ministries." (The Message of Ephesians, John R. W. Stott).
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