Reading: 5.4—Ministry Clarity

5.4 Ministry Clarity: Emphasis on ministry by programs often leads to programming “silos” in a church. Program staff and leaders are largely left to cover their respective ministry programs independent of a well-defined, unifying core mission. The Great Commission pastor unifies all ministries of the church around the core mission of going in the authority of Jesus Christ to make disciples through evangelizing and teaching obedience to the commands of Christ through discipleship.

For a church to be effective as a Great Commission Church, two dynamics must be present: 1. The all-church ministry must have unmistakable ministry clarity, such that all ministries within the church are clear on their mission priority, and, 2. The ministry clarity of all-church ministry must be centered on the Great Commission, such that all ministries within the church are clear on the fact that their mission priority is the Great Commission. When ministry clarity is firmly established, and that ministry clarity is centered on the Great Commission, staff and leaders are poised to expand the ministry of the church and the impact of the church in growing the kingdom. As such, Great Commission ministry clarity is a critical element in working effectively with staff and leaders.

I’m going to assume that you, as a pastor or leader of a church that is striving to be a Great Commission Church, are already committed to the Great Commission, so I’m not going to spend any time here promoting the merits of the Great Commission. This section focuses on establishing ministry clarity, and we’re going to assume that the ministry clarity we speak of here is Great Commission ministry clarity. 

With that said, let’s look at ministry clarity itself. Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger have given us an insightful book titled, Simple Church: Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples. In this book, they outline a discipleship process that features four elements: Clarity, Movement, Alignment, and Focus. In setting the stage for unpacking this process they state, “To have a simple church, you must design a simple discipleship process. This process must be clear. It must move people toward maturity. It must be fully integrated into your church, and you must get rid of the clutter around it,” (p. 26). Bingo!

Of course, our concern in this section is ministry clarity. Chapter 5 of Simple Church dives into clarity, assigning a tag line. The chapter title reads, “Clarity: Starting with a Ministry Blueprint.” We’re going to be building ministry around the Great Commission so the Great Commission will inform our vision, our strategy, and our organizational structure. We are building the spiritual house of God, one living stone at a time with Jesus as the cornerstone, as Peter informs in 1 Peter 2:4-8. We’re going to go in the authority of Christ and make disciples, we’re going to baptize and teach obedience, and He is going to be with us to the end of the age. Ministry clarity is going to provide a blueprint.

I’d like to borrow from GiANT Worldwide once again, utilizing several of their leadership development constructs. These constructs will be helpful to you in your development as a leader and will be helpful to you in working with staff and leaders. Consider this Organizational Clarity diagram:

VISION/MISSION

Is it clear? Is it compelling?

VALUES

Do people know and live the values?

LEADERSHIP

Are roles and responsibilities clear at every level?

This Organizational Clarity diagram is a business model, but it easily transfers to a ministry application. I believe the diagram to be largely self-evident, so I’m not going to unpack all that’s included. Rather, I’m going to zero in on several features:

1. Strategy – How do we win? In other words, do we have a picture of what Great Commission success or effectiveness looks like? Do we have a sense of what outcomes we’re endeavoring to produce, what targets we’re aiming to hit? Ministry often operates without a clear understanding of what a win looks like, and it stands to reason that you can’t hit a target that you can’t see.

2. Structure – Do we have the right people, systems, and capital? Often, we approach mobilizing people for ministry through slot-filling, simply recruiting a dutiful soul who will fill a slot in our programming. Consequently, we end up with “wrong” people serving in ways that are unproductive and unfulfilling, ultimately leading to burn out. Systems are often carry-overs from 20th century programming that we have inherited without critical examination, and these conventional systems typically have nothing to do with the Great Commission. Capital in a church context might not have an obvious relevance to our discussion, but an examination of annual budgets and noting how financial and other resources are being distributed will indicate whether or not the Great Commission is in a position of priority.

3. Tactics – Do our people know what to do? What “our people” are we talking about here? First and foremost, we’re talking about our staff and leaders. Do they know what to do tactically? Have they been trained to conduct their respective ministries with Great Commission priority, and are they being evaluated according to that priority? Even as I write this, it occurs to me that the answer to these questions would be, “No,” but, upon further reflection, I think the answer in most churches would be, “What? What are you talking about?” This kind of thinking doesn’t even seem to be on the radar screen for most churches. Historical and conventional patterns typically shape tactical ministry, not Great Commission vision, values, strategies, and structures. Once staff and leaders are on board, the next “our people” is the congregation at large. If Great Commission organizational clarity is to prevail, that clarity must penetrate into all levels of participants, from senior staff and leaders throughout the entire congregation.

4. Simple, Scalable, Sustainable – Note the positioning of these three attributes down the center of the diagram. These attributes are outcomes that will be forthcoming when an enterprise has organizational clarity. The 4DX Model (The 4 Disciplines of Execution by McChesney, Covey, and Huling) describes such outcomes as “lag measures.” A lag measure, according to the 4DX Model, is an outcome that occurs as a result of executing an action designed to produce that outcome effectively. For example, in the church we might want to see our worship attendance increase, but concentrating on seeing worship numbers increase will not actually create that increase. A lead measure that might impact that number would be engaging with the community by presenting, say, educational seminars that are relevant to that community. In such a case, presenting seminars would be a lead measure while increased attendance would be a lag measure. It seems that most churches focus on lag measures, hoping for outcomes that have no catalyst, and then wonder why we aren’t seeing the desired outcomes.

Let’s get back to our diagram: Consider the lead measures of discerning a clear and compelling Great Commission vision or mission, building Great Commission values into your staff, leaders, and congregation, defining strategy through the lens of what a Great Commission win looks like, creating a Great Commission structure that puts the right people, systems, and resources in place, and training everyone in executing his or her Great Commission tactical roles with effectiveness. These are your lead measures. When you do so, Simple, Scalable, and Sustainable will be among your lag measures, will be among your outcomes. Ministry will be Simple, a la Simple Church by Rainer and Geiger. Ministry will be Scalable, i.e., easy to expand as numbers increase. Ministry will be Sustainable because the ministry blueprint is clear and the focus will remain a Great Commission focus, propelling the church again and again into the harvest, the catalyst for kingdom growth.

Ministry Clarity is one of the elements that contributes to creating healthy culture, and moving a church to a priority commitment to the Great Commission will likely entail changing that church’s culture. The Organizational Clarity diagram outlines a methodology for establishing ministry clarity which is foundational to creating healthy culture. GiANT also offers a snapshot of creating healthy culture in a broader sense with its Creating Healthy Culture diagram as follows:

VOCABULARY

Expressed In

VISUAL TOOLS

Creates

LEADERSHIP LANGUAGE

Impacts

LEADERSHIP CULTURE

Stated in simple narrative, Vocabulary, or a common nomenclature, expressed in iconic Visual Tools creates a Leadership Language that impacts Leadership Culture. Over the twenty-five plus years that I have been engaged in revitalization ministry utilizing original curriculum, I have frequently heard pastors or church leaders comment on the fact that GO Center training gave them a language with which to talk about revitalization, or that I had provided a language that labeled thoughts that they had considered before but we unable to verbalize. This simple formula of Vocabulary + Visual Tools = Leadership Language that matures into Leadership Culture is, indeed, a baseline for creating a healthy culture.

Why is culture so important? Why do we need to think and talk about it? In short, consider this oft stated truth: Culture Trumps Strategy. There is a phrase circulating in the business world, mostly, it seems, attributed to business guru, Peter Drucker, that goes like this: Culture Eats Strategy for Lunch! What’s that all about? When a person, a group, a team, a task force, a committee, a department, or an entire organization seeks to revitalize, they, by definition, must effect change. Change is always challenging because, as a rule, people are more comfortable with the status quo, even when it’s not working well.

Effecting change in general will create a need for new strategies. People will realize the importance of new strategies and might even affirm those strategies at the outset. However, change in strategies alone is not sufficient. Rather, there must be a change in culture. Why?

When launching new strategies, it’s inevitable that there will be obstacles along the way. Not everything will work smoothly, not everything that is expected will come to fruition, and not everyone up and down the ladder of the enterprise will get on board, and there might even be open resistance. When strategies run into this wall, culture will take over. If the prevailing culture is still grounded in the former status quo, that culture will devour the new strategies, and the revitalization attempt will be thwarted. If, however, the culture has shifted to the new vision, mission, values, and structure, the new strategies with their new tactics will find support and will be allowed to go through their growing pains as they move toward maturity. Vocabulary, Visual Tools, and Leadership Language will combine to establish a Leadership Culture that will surround new strategies and tactics as they get their legs. Without this cultural shift, new efforts will give way, and there will be a return to the former status quo.

Working with staff and leaders effectively demands ministry clarity, and ministry clarity is greatly supported by organizational clarity and the creation of a healthy culture that is founded on credible Great Commission vision, mission, values, strategy, and structure.