Philosophy of Ministry
GOAL: Multiply Disciples
the Multiplication of multiplying disciples should be the primary goal of every believer and every church.
The Great Commission Defined
The local church is the hope of the world and exists to fulfill the Great Commission by making disciples of our neighbors and the nations.
The Great Commission is found in Matthew 28:18-20: “18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Founded on Jesus’ authority, the Great Commission is one Command: “Make Disciples!” and three Hows: 1) “Go Tell Others About Jesus.” 2) “Symbolically Identify New Believers with Jesus through Baptism.” 3) “Teach Believers to Obey Jesus by Abiding in Christ.”
Disciple Defined
A great definition of a disciple has been identified in Matthew 4:19 where Jesus said to His first disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (ESV). In that invitation, we see three aspects of what it means to be a disciple:
1) “Follow me”—A disciple is someone who has come to know Christ and surrendered to following Christ. Without Jesus, every one of us is spiritually dead and separated from God by our sin (Rom 3:23; Isaiah 59:2). Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of sin and rose to life again to make right with God all who turn from sin and trust Him in salvation (Rom 4:25). Salvation begins when we place saving faith in Christ by calling on the name of the Lord (Rom 10:9-10).
2) “I will make you”—A disciple is someone whose life is being changed by Christ. Salvation means entering into a life-long journey of becoming more and more like Christ in our everyday lives by the power of the Spirit. This is how the believer’s daily life becomes aligned in obedience to Jesus’ commands (Matt 28:20). Jesus said truly loving Him involves all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind (Luke 10:27). Being transformed from the inside out is rarely a straight and steady line of upward growth toward spiritual maturity. It’s often a journey of two steps forward, one step back (Rom 7:15-24). God never gives up on His children and promises never to abandon His work of salvation in us (Phil 1:6).
3) “Fishers of men”—A disciple is someone committed to Christ’s mission of seeing more and more people come to know and follow Him. The ultimate goal of discipleship is not just to see people saved from sin and spiritual death, but discipled—trained, equipped, encouraged—to walk in Spirit-led newness of life (Rom 6:4). Because Jesus’ plan is multiplication, every disciple should eventually become a “spiritual parent” by reproducing more disciples. This mission of multiplying disciples extends to the ends of the earth but begins right where we live—”as we go” (Matt 28:19; Acts 1:8).
Discipleship occurs as we intentionally and authentically gather around the Word of God and share life in relationships of spiritual encouragement and grace-oriented accountability (Acts 2:42-47; 1 Thess 2:8). Progress in the spiritual life happens best as we learn the difference between “trying” to follow Christ and “training” to follow Christ (1 Tim 4:7-10; John 15:5).
Advancing the Great Commission is the unifying vision God has given the local church. From generation to generation, our methods may need updated, but our mission remains unchanged. Everything we do as believers should keep in focus the aim of making and multiplying disciples.
MINISTRY CONVICTIONS
1) Preach the Word
What the Bible says, God says. All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16). The Bible doesn’t just contain God’s Word—it IS God's Word (2 Pet 1:16-21).
The Word of God wielded by the Spirit of God accomplishes the purposes of God (Isa 55:8-11; Heb 4:12). It pleased God to use the simplicity of the Gospel through the “foolishness of preaching” to save those who will trust Christ in salvation (1 Cor 1:21; Rom 1:16). For believers, all of Scripture is purposeful for our continued spiritual formation so that followers of Christ may be fully equipped for every good work that God has planned for us to do (2 Tim 3:16-17; Eph 2:10).
In these times of increasing uncertainty, moral compromise, and attempts to solve sin issues with worldly solutions, it’s paramount that local church ministries thunder with the urgency, authority, and clarity of the Gospel from the whole counsel of God’s Word. The most powerful preaching is Spirit-led and expository in its approach—driven by the substance, structure, and spirit of the inspired, inerrant, infallible text of the Bible.
God’s primary calling on Pat’s life is the spiritual shepherding of people through the ministry of the Word in the local church (2 Tim 4:1-5). 1924 Olympian Eric Liddell said he sensed God's pleasure when running. In a similar way, Pat experiences the smile of the Lord while preaching. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.”
2) love People
The Bible says God is love (1 John 4:16). Because God so loved the world, He sent His Son to save (John 3:16-17). Any doubts we have about God’s love are obliterated when we look to the cross where Jesus willingly died in our place for our sin (Rom 5:8). On the cross, Jesus stretched out His arms as wide as possible as if to say, “God loves you this much!”
At the moment of salvation, God’s love is poured into our hearts as the Holy Spirit comes to live within us (Romans 5:5). We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). The fruit of the Spirit is simply the likeness of Christ flowing through us (Gal 5:22-23).
Jesus says to His followers, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Genuinely caring about others is biblically counter-cultural. It’s evidence to those around us that God’s love is truly in us (1 John 4:7-8; John 13:34-35).
Speaking on Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan, the preacher Haddon Robinson said, “Your neighbor is anyone whose need you see, whose need God has put you in a position to meet.” The command to “love your neighbor” is as wide as every nation of the world and as close as the neighbors who live around you and the people you meet each day (Luke 10:25-37). Going on mission trips is a wonderful Great-Commission thing, but so must be “neighboring.”
God’s love through us even enables us to love our enemies (Matt 5:43-47). How much more so should God’s love in and through us be shown to other believers (Gal 6:10; 1 Pet 4:10).
Effective ministry must be coupled with a loving heart (2 Tim 3:16-4:5). It’s trite but true: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Love others as Christ has loved you (John 15:12).
3) Equip the Saints
God calls every believer to ministry. Every believer.
The local church mobilizes as people discover, develop, and deploy their spiritual gifts, talents, and abilities to advance the Great Commission (Eph 4:11-12; Matt 28:18-20). Equipping the saints for ministry is essential to a local church becoming everything God intends.
More than merely joining an organization, church membership means committing to being an active, functioning part of the church as an organism. The apostle Paul used the word picture “body of Christ” to describe the way in which all Christians are joined together “in Christ.”
(There is a “universal” sense in which the body of Christ, comprises all believers from all time. The vast majority of New Testament references, however, use that metaphor with application to specific local congregations. Each local church is an expression of Christ’s “body” on earth today.)
Just as a human body has many parts that play many different roles, so it is with the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-27). In Christ, we are one body and each of us have a God-given role to play. At the moment of salvation, every believer is given at least one spiritual gift to be used for serving in and through a local church (Rom 12:3-8; 1 Cor 12:1-11.)
Furthermore, Ephesians 4:14 says a result of serving in the local church is increased spiritual stability. It appears there are vital aspects of spiritual growth believers cannot and will not experience until they find their place of ministry in a local church and begin serving.
Serving is an essential part of spiritual growth!
The Bible is clear that we are saved by the gift of God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone—not by any good works we do (Eph 2:8-9). While our good works do not save us, however, we are most definitely saved to do the good works God has planned for us to do (Eph 2:8-10; James 2:14-26).
A church staff most biblically functions as a catalytic servant-hearted team of congregational equippers (Eph 4:11-13). When every church member ministers, the members mature, disciples are multiplied, and the church’s overall ministry effectiveness multiplies, as well (Eph 4:14-16).
4) Strengthen Families
From the beginning of time, God ordained the family as the foundational institution of human civilization. As the stability of the home goes, so goes the stability of society.
God’s plan for marriage is one man and one woman, committed to one another in a covenant of marriage for a lifetime (Gen 2:22-24). God intends for the abiding union of a husband and a wife to illustrate Christ’s steadfast love for His church (Eph 5:22-33).
Children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3). Parents (and grandparents) are God’s primary plan for multiplying Christ-centered disciples in and through the home (2 Tim 1:5). The local church is most effective at discipling the next generation when the God-designed structures of the “home family” and the “church family” work together (Deut 6:1-4).
Not only should the local church do all it can to strengthen individual families, but it should also become as healthy as it can be as a multiethnic, multigenerational church family (Gal 6:10). As thankful as we should be for the gift of family by blood, marriage, and adoption, we must likewise be loving and kind towards our spiritual brothers and sisters in the family of God (Matt 12:50).
In today’s world, marriages, raising kids, and the family of faith seem under attack from all sides. For such a time as this, local churches must resolve to do all they can to strengthen all three.
5) Reach the Lost
In Luke 19:10, Jesus defined His mission as coming to seek and save the lost. From the opening stories in Genesis to the final scenes of Revelation, the Bible tells the incredible story of God providing a way for sinful people to be made right with Him through Jesus. Reaching all the way back to Genesis 12, our God is a missionary God, and He intends His people to be a missionary people (Acts 1:8).
God’s people are His plan for getting the good news of Jesus to our neighbors and the nations. God calls every believer to tell others about Jesus. It’s been said the good news of Jesus Christ came to each of us on the way to someone else. Telling the world about Jesus is what it means for us to live as “ambassadors of Christ” and “fishers of men” (2 Cor 5:13-21; Matt 4:19). Loving Jesus overflows into talking about Jesus. As missionary Henry Martyn said, “The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus looked at a crowd of distressed and dejected people. His heart broke because they were like sheep without a shepherd (9:36). In that moment of godly compassion, Jesus said to His disciples, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest” (Matt 9:37-38). Notice Jesus’ concern was not whether the lost would be ready to be saved. His burden was whether His people would go out to tell the world.
Until Jesus comes, His people must go!