sword said:
I had a conversation with an old friend I served with years ago. We talked about old times and about our families and ended up talking about the balance of ministry. He discussed how the division of time and effort at his church had changed over the years and we agreed to disagree on the ideal makeup.
I understand no two ministries are exactly alike, but what percentage of time and resources should a church spend on each of these.
Church services and special meetings
Evangelism and outreach
Discipleship and training of new converts
Missions and world outreach
Charitable giving, food banks, disaster relief and other help for the needy
Recreational activities and events for the church family
Political and community involvement
A very good question... stuff like this could help revive the FFF!
Not entirely sure how one would define "special meetings" - is that just a different (special) speaker at the regular service times, or do you mean meetings that take place during non-regular church service times? (Such as a Mon-Fri meeting).
Revival meetings used to be scheduled for a month 100 years ago; when I was growing up, revival services were a week long; now, they are usually Sun-Wed, with only Mon & Tue being extra meeting times.
Seems to me that "church services" should be the bulk of what a church does. Without this as its core, it just isn't a church.
Evangelism/Outreach should be on a parity with Discipleship & Training - the Great Commission discusses both. Churches that are heavy on Evangelism, but light on Discipleship have the high number of (supposed) salvations and baptisms each year, but the church doesn't have much spiritual depth. Churches that only teach the Bible or do training, but zero outreach aren't normal, either. Discipleship is not just for new converts, but is something all Christians do throughout their lives. New converts should have some special grounding.
Missions is another thing that is a bit different these days, with deputation and mission boards, etc. I have been pondering the Faith-Promise program, and I don't think that is really Biblical - it seems to have been invented to increase the church's income, so that the church does not need to give to missions out of the general offering of the members.
Charity works is a tricky one; the gov't has taken over so much of this that it is hard for a church to be a force here. It's good if the church can commit some resources to this, but I hope that they take care of their own needs before the community.
Recreation - it's fun to fellowship with others, and fellowship is one of the key components of a church, but I think this should be small.
Political - this has changed in America; for quite some time, American churches were very political, with preachers weighing in on what was going on, but now, the government threatens a church's tax-exempt status if they dare talk politics. But it should not be the church's main job.
So, I'd say
Services - major
Evangelism - big
Discipleship - big
Missions - big
Charity - medium
Recreation - small
Political - small
