Church Growth and the Lay Ministry

A pastor was once on the verge of losing a very key member of his Church who was a singer. For some time, she was not present in Church. The pastor endeavoured to find out why by calling her into his office. When she came, he probed to know what the issue was. She said that she honestly felt that the pastor did not love her as much as the other members in the Church. "When it was my dad's funeral you did not come," she accused. "But I sent my best delegation to the funeral," the pastor defended. "It is YOU I needed there," she sobbed. "I feel like anytime you call it's simply because you want me to come and sing for you," she lamented. The pastor sincerely sought for this dear lady's forgiveness, and she came back to Church. That Sunday, when she sang, it was utterly Heavenly.

Bishop Emmanual Louis Nterful related this event that took place in his ministry as he shared on "Church Growth and the Lay Ministry" on the first day of the Art of Shepherding Conference 2018.

"As a pastor, your calling is questionable if you are without a desire to have a growing Church," he began.

He indicated that the whole world needs to be saved and alluding to the parable of the sower he indicated that God expects that at least one-quarter of the population should be saved (1 Timothy 1:4).

He taught that you must have a burning desire in your heart to see your Church grow. Bishop Nterful challenged participants to be interested in what God is interested in.

He postulated, "Until you have a certain desire, you will not see Church growth. The Church grows first in the heart of the pastor."

The man of God taught that the type of shepherd you are will determine the people you will have. He challenged participants to not despise their Churches even if they don't have many sheep.

Bishop Nterful intimated, "The lay ministry will catapult your ministry to a different level...Under the new covenant, we're all called." (see Matthew 20:16; Revelation 1:6)

The ordinary people in the Church are also called and we need to respect this fact. We need to train them to do the work.

All throughout history, ordinary people have done great things. 

Large Churches are build with ordinary, lay people. The Church will never grow until we release the women to work. Bishop Nterful adumbrated some reasons why women are so important in Church growth:

# Women are naturally productive because of their womb.

# Women receive revelation far easier than men.

# Women have no intention of competing with you.

# Many men come to Church because of women and get caught by the Gospel.

The man of God challenged the pastors to release the people of God to work for God. He indicates that when you don't release the people to do the work, you will diefrim the burden of the ministry, which includes evangelism, prayer, baptism, outreaches, planting Church, listening to the sheeps' problems and many others.

Reading from Exodus 18:13-27, the man of God expounded that doing the ministry alone is not good. He challenged, "Be a multiplied senior pastor. No matter how effective a lay pastor is, he cannot do so many other things. Lay pastors can plant Churches and pastor Churches...the lay ministry is a command from God."