Ministry News

Goal: To Equip and Send, Not Extract

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Published on Tuesday, 09 February 2010 11:28

Written by Marcus Yoars

QUOTE: "It's almost as if we're extracting people from the world instead of equipping them and sending them into the world. [We are supposed to] equip the saints for works of ministry, not to do the ministry for the saints. … If you don't structure your church in such a way that the saints are doing the ministry and you're equipping the saints for ministry, what you'll convince your people of is that they pay you to do ministry for them and they receive it all from you. … We've got to call the church to be the church." —Jeff Vanderstelt, a Tacoma, Wash., church planter and speaker at the Verge: Missional Community Conference held last week in Austin, Texas. Vanderstelt, who also serves as pastor of Soma Communities, echoed the sentiment of thousands of fellow church planters present when he added: "It's a very different way to do church as far as I'm concerned because it says 'now your life counts.' Instead of us pulling you out of your life we're just equipping you for life with one another." [christianpost.com, 2/6/10]