Video Transcript: Ministry Staffing Models

So, as you begin your ministry training, you have to ask yourself something about the  economics of staffing, the economics of staffing, what's that about? That's right. Like, you  know, you are a volunteer you're part time, you're full time. What's your dream? What are the opportunities afforded in your community? I mean, you may say, I want to be a career  ministry leader, but those opportunities aren't necessarily there for you, but you still have  that call of God. So then you ask yourself, Lord, is there a role for me? Well, we're gonna talk  today about the ministry staffing models. Now the key goal, remember this, and this is the  key goal of Christian Leaders Institute, connected to Christian Leaders Ministry connected the  Christian Leaders College connected to the Christian Leaders Alliance. The key goal is to train  and empower Christian leaders to bring a stronger, more vibrant Christianity everywhere.  Christian Leaders Ministry that includes the Institute, the Alliance, the College can provide  more leaders with training and ordination opportunities to help help raise up more Christian  leaders everywhere. So I want to talk about firefighters. So in the United States, fire  departments, mobilized teams of trained and certified fire departments, and firefighters, the  number of services needed, primarily determined to staffing models for fire departments, in  towns and rural areas, fire fighters are volunteers. So let's say volunteer fire department that  serves the needs of those communities, fewer people and buildings, less demand for  firefighters services. In cities, that career type of staffing model is more necessary, more  people and buildings, more need for firefighter services. Now, let's talk about the non paid  volunteer firefighters. Okay, so volunteer fire departments are the bedrocks of fire, and  rescue services. Throughout the United States of America, a vast number of fire departments  are volunteers. Many fire departments are completely volunteering, with no one getting  financial support beyond any incurred expense. The firefighters in these types of departments have other careers that support the needs of their family. And let's apply this a moment to  ministry volunteers. Volunteers are the backbone of many ministries. Without faithful  volunteers, churches and nonprofits would be unable to provide the services they offer.  Volunteers can serve homeless ministries, prison ministries, church outreach programs,  chaplaincy, volunteer chaplaincy, pastoral care, small group leaders and many other ministry  roles. So the large amount of Volunteer Ministers in the world is incredible. And you don't  need to be paid just to volunteer in ministry. There's also in firefighters bi-vocational  firefighters bi-vocational firefighters also are considered volunteer fire departments. In these  fire departments. Firefighters are paid part time salaries that will actually be reported as  income for services completed. The firefighters in these types of departments have other  careers that support the needs of their family. Bi-vocational ministry leaders, many Christian  leaders serve in part time ministry roles they have a career that supports their family. They  also dedicate time to ministry. For example, an elementary teacher might also be a worship  leader or secretary of a local church. Then there's the vocational or career firefighters, any  career Fire Department all the firefighters are staffed and their full time personnel.  Chattanooga Tennessee, for instance, has a more dense population. This fire department has  a staff and mobilize a team of Fire and Rescue professionals who usually receive full time  salaries. So now let's apply this to ministry training staffing. Christian leaders are called into  full time vocational ministry. I for instance, went to Calvin Seminary in most seminaries and  Bible colleges, it is for the career ministry leader that most of the training occurs. So I went  four years to Darden College, four more years to Calvin seminary with internships. And I  started out in the Christian reformed denomination, and there was an existing church base.  And there was a group of people with a critical mass necessary for me to be a career ministry  leader. So, Christian leaders can be called and are called into full time vocational ministry.  Examples of this would be the role of a senior pastor. That's what I started out in the 1920s.  Or when I was in my 20s 1920s. That's a long time ago. Couldn't be a church planter. In my  first position, our denomination supported a fund that paid for church planting and I  participated in that could be a chaplain or a hospital. Many seminaries have chaplaincy  programs that go through an extensive amount of training in some traditions and the  apostolic Bishop. They're also churches, they have the resources to support many career  roles. In Florida when we're down there, we are part of Harborside Christian church. And what  you see there is a homegrown model of raising career ministers. So now let's pull this 

together. So firefighters and Christian leaders, firefighters, regardless if they are volunteer  part time or full time, the training program for all three statuses is extensive. Whether the  firefighters are full time volunteer, the stakes are too high for firefighters to be poorly trained.  The stakes are also too high for ministry leaders to be poorly trained. So the volunteer, so  whether they are volunteer bi-vocational or vocational, they do need to have sound doctrine  as a witness for Christ and bring revival to their communities. You know, and this really makes a lot of sense. And you can see that in the history of the Christian church. Historically, the  growth of Christianity has risen with volunteers bi-vocational and vocational Christian leaders. Each local church or ministry has had different combinations of volunteers, part time and  career Christian leaders. The church group reached people in every rank and in different  demographic and cultural locations, aided by a staffing operation system that adjusted to the  local missional need. Now what am I talking about? This is what I'm saying is if there are very  limited resources, called the Holy Spirit to raise up leaders, or some are called to be prophets, and teachers, and so forth, it's a volunteer model. But as the church grew and churches were  planted, more and more, there is the opportunity for people getting part time salaries and  then career full time salaries. There were challenges to rapid growth and this system of  volunteer, part time, or full time understanding of staffing, connected to even some of those  challenges in interesting ways. So the early church multiplied, especially with people of lower  ranks in the Roman Empire, the church proliferated without a defined canon of Scripture think  that through the Bible, the New Testament, for instance, came together, after a couple of  centuries have started talking about what were the apostolic writings, and a decision was  made and what the New Testament was about. But in the very earliest part of Christianity.  There was a sense of these are the sacred books, but it wasn't yet defined and there was  debate, the church proliferated without a defined canon of Scripture. There were not clear  doctrines about positions like the trinity of the person of Christ. Also, the underlying message  of Christianity was introduced quickly by different leaders will emphasize different  perspectives such as Jewish or Gentile, the personality of their possible job is very different  from the nature of the apostle Peter. Therefore, there were misunderstandings in  synchronization means mixing of local beliefs and practices. There were doctrinal differences  in the early church, even in the times of the apostle Paul, Christian leaders like Apollos  showed up. He had holes in his doctrine. He only knew about Jesus from one of John's, the  Baptist disciples. He was teaching about Jesus with incomplete knowledge. Priscilla and Aquila gave her ministry training to update his doctrine. We see about this in Acts 18 Verse 24. I'll  read that a moment. Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria came to  Ephesus. He was a learned man and with a thorough knowledge of the scriptures, he had  been instructed in the way of the Lord and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus  accurately. Though he knew only the baptism of John, he began to speak boldly in the  synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their homes explained to  him the way of God more adequately. So you really do see how in the early church, the  launching of Christian leaders wasn't necessarily a cut and dried curriculum, things through  the power of the Holy Spirit's are coming together with those early leaders. Now, in that  process of these challenges, ministry training model was started to develop in critical mass  and the church was becoming larger, and the career ministry leaders were becoming more  prolific and more pronounced. And we're starting to develop with the Clergy Laity distinction,  as Christianity spread a centralized church order of hierarchy developed by the mid two  hundreds. So this is the third century, the career priests and bishops were the clergy and the  volunteers, including the deacon ministers and other church volunteers were the laity and  started to develop. The career were more the ordained, and the laity were the unordained. It  started out that women were ordained as deacon ministers, and then later times had it. They  were considered part of the laity. So you do really see that there is a shift occurring in history  between clergy, clergy and laity distinction. I'm Alan B. Wheatley, wrote a book about  patronage in the early church. He notes that career clergy became the key patrons of the  church, he wrote, The clergy had have clearly become the holders of the patron role, or a  greatly enlarge brokering role, the function of the people of God has much become much less  active with regard to God's favor in the world, and more dependent upon the clergy. And this 

is what happened early century writes about how this historical phenomenon occurred in the  church. The letter had become the newly exclusive brokers have both spiritual and material  benefits, with this enlarge power and authority have have come in a large honor, which is no  longer given to all humanity. And it's even reduced within the community with newer  believers and women placed in a marginal position relative to the men and the clergy. The  vision of the new paradigm and he talks about this book about the certain paradigm, that  community of broad scale of broad scale endowment and benevolence had become rather  vague. Now, he wrote this long book about patronage and so forth. And he said, how when  Jesus came, He really said to be great, you must be the least, to be great, you must be the  DIAC. In this in the servant, you must serve the Lord serve your fellow human, and that there  is a concept of in the early church that there was not a blurred clergy and laity distinction,  that they were all ministers. But what he says is true. More and more to career ministers  became the clergy and the volunteers, non ordained, became just volunteers, the laity? So  having said all that, what does this discussion have to do with today? By the time the  Christian bible was established, so we're talking in the three hundreds in ministry train system had developed in the church that bore much fruit. Christian leaders like Augustine and others  addressed the needs of a rapidly expanding church that stood the test of time, the church  education system, around that time shifted from house churches, Volunteer Ministers, by  vocational ministers and shifted to more the career ministry ordained clergy. So, having said  that, what is then have to do today, as you are now on the ministry training journey? Well, we  can go back to like the fire departments, we can go back to a robust, a open for opportunity,  type of ministry staffing model, that includes Volunteer Ministers, part time ministers and  career ministers. Not one is better than the other, and they all need amazing training. So here are some conclusions by which we can conclude this presentation. First, high quality training  has not been accessible until now to all of the different types of ministry calling in terms of  staffing, so, right now through Christian Leaders Ministry, Christian Leaders Institute and  through Christian Leaders College and the Alliance, now a large amount of opportunity is  given, no matter where your calling is. With the invention of the internet, formal ministry  training is opened up to anyone with access to the internet. So that's a powerful implication of how the Holy Spirit's opened up the door for ministry trained for you. Second, this access  opens up the possibility to blur the line between Clergy Laity distinction, it opens up new  possibilities to train call Christian leaders for volunteer are part time roles. They can become  ordained as ministers with the same type of training career ministers receive. So at Christian  Leaders Institute this is a high quality training that will give you the essentials and more  advanced training to be a credible to be a spirit filled to be a knowledgeable Christian leaders, leader in today's world. Third, local churches and ministries will be blessed by well trained and ordained if you need ordination, Christian Leaders Alliance connected to the institute can give you a credible local ordination, where you get recommendations and you get mentorship and  encouragement locally, become ordained locally, first, as a minister, Deacon, Deacon Minister actually call it and then there are roles after you complete training, you can take that  ordination and be commissioned in roles as a minister, again, with the clergy in the laity  distinction blurred. So you just administer like a local fire fighter. It's just a fire fighter. And this volunteer local firefighter is getting the training needed to put out fires now. Many of them  who go into volunteer firefighting, love it and they have gifts for it. And they get training, and  they can become hired. And they really want to make a move to like a place like Chattanooga. And now they can do part time work full time in that case, and Chattanooga. Firefighting, in  that's how the Christian church works. Where the model depends on your calling, depends on  where you're at. In these developing nations, for instance, there's less and less support from  the Western, more wealthy Christians to do mission projects and other places where there's a  developing sort of Christianity happening within developing countries. So there's volunteer  models are absolutely necessary. And a training ought to be just as good as training that  occurs in places that are predominantly career. But even in places like the United States and  Europe, where traditionally, the career model has been dominant. Really, there's so many  people to reach in there. We need a prolific, I believe, volunteer by vocational and career  model, but the volunteer and the Bi-vocational need that shot in the arm with excellent 

training. So Christian leaders Institute is here for you, to help you take your next step, so that  you can become trained, whether you're a volunteer ministry leader, whether you're a Bi vocational leader, or whether you are a career full time ministry leader, and I pray that God  blesses you and you may start out one way and then as time goes on, opportunity arises any  become a career ministry leader, but whatever that is. You can get the training here to take  your next step, our ministry path that reaches more and more people. May God bless you, as  you study here at Christian Leaders Institute.