Reading: 3.1—Life Transformation Focus

Skill 3: Setting Objectives & Establishing Accountability

I’m going to open this section of X/52 by importing a short piece I developed some years ago. I’ve used it in multiple publications since and I’m going to use it again here. It’s titled, The Program-Scripted Church. The American evangelical church of the past one-hundred years is highly vested in program ministry. Whether those programs are traditional or conventional in nature, the modern attractional model or seeker model, or the post- modern casual, rock band, low-key teaching model, the central organizing motif is the same - ministry-by-programs. This might be identified as the Program-Scripted Church.

As the name implies, there is a script that is followed, not necessarily by design, but surely by default. Without even considering alternatives, the church’s ministry is program-driven. Staffing is determined by programs, space is allocated according to programs, budgets are formulated according to programs, and volunteers are recruited to man the programs. There is a sense that effectiveness is a product of well-run programs, and the seemingly well-run program follows a very predictable path that has been laid out over decades of historical and habitual program patterns. Giving the benefit of the doubt that this program-scripted approach to ministry worked in the past, it no longer works today. Simply put, if most churches are program-driven, or at least aspire to be, and most churches are in plateau or decline, it stands to reason that the program-scripted approach to ministry must give way to something different, something new, something fresh, something innovative.

Ironically, to go forward we must go back, not back to the ministry of the past fifty years, but back to the ministry of the apostles who were commanded to go and make disciples. The church must focus anew on the making of disciples and not the running of programs. For most churches, this will require a significant change.

In the context of the current conversation, I want to point out that the Program-Scripted Church is often a church that is devoid of clear objectives and accountability regarding effective ministry, especially effective missional ministry. Measurement of ministry is informal at best and tends to lean on activity rather than results. Programs are scattered throughout the church calendar and seem to multiply until there is no room left on the calendar. As long as the calendar is full and everyone is as busy as possible, we reason that we are working as hard as we possibly can and doing all that we possibly can. This can be reflective of a high level of commitment, which is admirable, but the bottom line is not busyness; the bottom line is effectiveness. Ministry needs to produce results, not just a flurry of activity. Ministry needs to be guided by right objectives and measured by relevant metrics, and, with Great Commission ministry in view, I prefer designating right objectives as Great Commission Objectives (GCOs). We must develop the skill of Setting Objectives and Establishing Accountability for these GCOs.

3.1 Life Transformation Focus: The objective of Great Commission ministry is not to see churches improve but to see lives transformed by the Gospel. Holding ministry accountable to life transformation keeps the church on a Great Commission track. Ministry is not meant to be transactional but transformational. Scripture says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come,” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is transformation in its ultimate sense.

A giant transformative step is taken when a person is regenerated and steps into the family of God as a follower of Christ. This person has passed from darkness into light and has begun a new life with Jesus as Savior. But that’s just the beginning of transformation. Once that first step is taken, a journey of thousands of steps follows toward maturity in Christ, toward the fullness of Christ. Paul, in one of his famous run-on sentences, says it like this, “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes,” (Ephesians 4:11-14). It is in this growing to maturity that we fully discover the Lordship of Jesus Christ who is both Savior and Lord of our lives.

The Great Commission, as expressed in Matthew 28, is typically our most prominent proof text for evangelism. After all, Jesus says that we are to go and make disciples. However, going and making disciples is bigger than evangelism alone; it engages discipleship and growing in maturity. How so? The Great Commission continues to say that we are to teach followers of Christ to obey all that Jesus commanded and it’s in this obedience that maturity is rooted.

One particular Scripture passage that zeroes in on transformation is Romans 12. It reads, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect,” (Romans 12:1-2). Effective GCOs for missional, i.e., Great Co-Missional ministry, begin with life transformation in mind, and accountability of such ministry leverages metrics and analysis that focus on transformation.

Setting Great Commission Objectives (GCOs) and establishing accountability is focused on life transformation, guiding a church in its mission to reach, nurture, and grow people in their faith.