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IRVING–Because pastoral staff can’t “do it all,” Steve Stroope, pastor of Lake Pointe Church, encouraged ministers to delegate ministry needs by equipping families to disciple their own children and equipping church members to lead.
Citing both Old Testament and New Testament precedent for the biblical principle of delegation, Stroope called attention to Ex. 18:17-22 and Eph. 4:11-13, where Moses and Paul both called out and trained leaders in the congregation for ministry.
“We keep doing all the ministry, and we need to be handing it off to our families and handing it off to our leaders,” a conclusion Stroope said his church came to after evaluating how well their church lived out its 13 core values.
“One of those values says ‘we believe the family is the primary vehicle for spiritual formation.’ That value came in dead last in terms of how well we implemented it,” said the Rockwall pastor. “It wasn’t that we didn’t believe the family was a primary vehicle for spiritual formation, we just weren’t applying it in our church.”
Suspecting that many churches experience the same ministerial disconnect, Stroope said, “It’s not what is not happening at the church that is making the difference, it is what is not happening in the home.”
To remedy their failure to equip and support families to carry out the Great Commission in their homes, Lake Pointe responded with four points of action.
First, the church declared Christian discipleship in the home a parental responsibility. “It’s not the church’s job to win and disciple Christian parents' children,” Stroope said. “It is their job.”
“The truth is we can do everything perfect at the church in the one or two hours we have the children of our families,” he said. “And our families can undo everything we’re doing in one day. So we have to make a declaration,” Parents, it is your responsibility to lead your own kids to Christ and then to disciple that child.”
Second, Lake Pointe began to resource parents with biblical information.
“The church needs … to become knowledge brokers, to say here’s the best book on parenting, here’s the best book on managing finances in your home, here’s the best book on marriage, here’s the best book on communication, here’s the best book on dealing with a child with special needs, and resource our people so they know where to go and where to get the right information.”
Third, the church aligned existing ministries to include the family in the spiritual process.
“Sometimes that’s as simple as letting them know what is going on at camp,” said Stroope, adding that Lake Pointe began to televise camp speakers and discussion times so parents have talking points when their children return home.
The key to seeing families become disciple-makers lies in reducing the number of church events, Stroope said.
“I think it’s wonderful when we gather together at church, but if a football team spent all its time in huddle it would never score any touchdowns. If anything there ought to be fewer things at church and more things that get pushed down to the family.”
Fourth, the church began to remind families about their responsibility to make disciples. Stroope said Lake Pointe runs recurring campaigns on “what it means to do family.” They cover topics such as praying together, serving together, and even sharing meals together.
“And part of this is it is about saying the pastor of the church cannot do it all, a children’s minister cannot do this all, a student pastor cannot do it all, and to hand back to the family their part of this thing called spiritual formation,” he said.
Along with equipping families, Stroope said the church should strive to apply the biblical principle of delegation to all members of the body – both paid staff and volunteers.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise that the average church in America never gets larger than about 150 people, because that’s all that one man can minister to,” Stroope said. “We’ve got to do more than just do ministry, we’ve also got to lead.”
Leading, said Stroope, is about “letting go” of the ministry and delegating it to others. “Part of our job is to give away more of our ministry so more ministry can be done without neglecting our own family and our own relationship with God.”
Stroope outlined three parts of delegation: the clear communication of vision and values, absolute truth telling, and “contact with control.”
“You’ve got to stay in contact with the person you’ve handed the ministry off to,” Stroope explained. “If you don’t stay in contact with them and you’re not reading how well they are heeding the vision and how well they are adhering to the values, then you’re not delegating responsibility, you’ve abdicated responsibility.”
“Here’s the reality – when we do ministry we’ve got to give away more of our ministry so we can accomplish more ministry.”
