Jeff Iorg Blog

Super Bowl Week

Jul 21 2014

We are at Defcon-5 at our house. Ann is in the zone for Vacation Bible School. Its man your battle stations, all hands on deck, and every other get with the program cliché! Mission helpers have arrived from other states, dozens of church members have been mobilized as workers, and children have been registered and assigned to classes. Our house looks like a crafts factory exploded. Now, the work – and the fun – really begins. It’s Super Bowl week for preschool ministry at First Baptist Church, San Francisco. 

If Ann had punched a time clock on this project, I’m sure she would have spent more than 200 hours working on it. Saying she loves VBS doesn’t even come close to describing her commitment to this outreach and teaching effort. If you want a stirring presentation on how important this ministry is to a church, just ask. Believe me, she will be more than glad to preach you that sermon! 

When you do the math, a week of VBS equals more than three months of the teaching time in a typical weekly Sunday School. The intensive time also allows for compound learning, building more directly each day on what was learned the previous day or days. It also facilitates better relationship building with children, new children, and their parents. 

VBS is also a great time to recruit new workers and introduce them to ministry for children. Ann often recruits VBS “helpers” with an eye toward turning them into weekly Sunday School workers. They don’t even know it’s happening to them, since they are having so much fun. Next thing they know, they are signed up and working with kids on a weekly basis. Diabolical! My wife can be sneaky like that. 

I hope your church has someone like Ann who is passionate about young children. If you do, thank God for him or her! I am proud of my wife, her devotion to ministry, and how she takes seriously Jesus’ instructions to allow little children to come to him. 

Churches are still built by hard work, done by many, who make the phone calls, prepare the lessons, work the events, and clean up after it’s over. There’s really no shortcut to church growth – just people who dig in and get the job done. If you are in that multitude – particularly if you worked in VBS or some other summer program – thank you, and thank God for you!

 

Extend the Call

Aug 26 2013

Because of one of my books, Is God Calling Me?, I get asked to speak at college events on the subject of “God’s call.” A few years ago, when speaking to about 600 students, I asked, “How many of you have ever heard a sermon in your church on God’s call to ministry leadership?” Only a few hands were raised. Then I asked, “How many of you have heard a pastor or speaker extend a public invitation to answer God’s call to ministry leadership?” Even fewer hands were raised. 

I am often asked, “How’s the seminary doing?” My response is, “In many ways, just about like the churches.” We are a reflection of the churches that support us. When churches don’t teach about God’s call and challenge young people to respond to it, we will naturally have fewer and fewer students pursuing God’s call at the seminary. 

A young church leader called me recently and said, “We had the best thing happen at camp. The pastor asked for a show of hands – among 125 campers – of those who thought God might be calling them to be missionaries, pastors, or other church leaders. Amazingly, 25 hands were raised.” She then told me, “We had been teaching on missions and ministry all week, but it didn’t occur to us to ask the pastor to include answering God’s call as part of the worship services. When he did, it seemed so natural. I was embarrassed we hadn’t planned to do it and glad he did it. Now we have a whole group of kids to shepherd forward toward potential leadership.” 

Learn from this example. Older children and teenagers are interested in kingdom service. Many of them will commit to a life of ministry leadership – if they are challenged to consider it and supported in their decision. Golden Gate is the end of the training funnel for future leaders. The beginning point is children’s and youth ministries in churches. Collegiate ministries are also vital to the process. 

Church leaders – be more intentional about teaching and preaching about God’s call. Fan the flame of initial interest and nurture embryonic commitment. Seminaries don’t produce leaders. We only shape those the church sends. We are depending on you to call out the called!

 

Death without Discipleship

Mar 11 2013

A common refrain today about the church is, “We aren’t making disciples. Attenders often. Converts occasionally. Disciples – not so much.” What’s the problem?

We seem to have lost focus on the primary means of disciple-making – teaching. Jesus underscored this priority in the Great Commission. We are commissioned to make disciples by teaching believers precepts, principles, and practices leading toward Christian maturity.

Southern Baptists used to do this well. We had an organized plan for teaching the Bible, doctrine, ministry skills, and missions for all age groups in the church. Most churches did it this way – foundational Bible knowledge in Sunday School, doctrine and ministry skills in Discipleship Training, and missions in special classes or seasonal emphases. For many, this was too much organization! Down with the bureaucracy! Running programs that force people through a process just doesn’t work anymore! Everyone knows no one wants that kind of formal approach to training.

Nonsense.

We have a seminary full of students (about 2200 this year) who came to us because they wanted this very thing. A seminary is a regimented program. Students are forced to take some subjects because wise ministry leaders know they need the information – even if the novice students don’t understand why. When a student repeats the doggerel above about “people don’t want programs” I reply this way. “Great, then you won’t mind if I do away with the degree programs at Golden Gate and just offer some courses and classes – or not – whatever seems good in the moment.” Students usually backtrack pretty quickly from that nightmare scenario. They have to admit, they like a definite program of study that is a proven way to increase ministerial effectiveness.

What is the essence of a disciple-making community? It’s systematic teaching of biblical and doctrinal content, ministry skill development, and missional responsibility to every person – all ages – in your church. Build on this teaching strategy with hands-on learning opportunities involving people in ministry. Add meaningful worship services and fellowship opportunities. Voila – a healthy church producing disciples.

Why aren’t more churches doing this? For some, it’s the misguided belief one worship service a week with some videos for the kids is an adequate strategy. For others, it’s lazy leaders who don’t want to work this hard. For many leaders, it’s lack of a comprehensive commitment to disciple everyone – all ages – and do the hard work of training leaders for every age group. For the deluded, it’s believing the devil’s lie that people don’t want structured training.

We will not reverse the trend and become better disciple-makers until we reinvigorate our commitment to teaching strategies expressed in learning programs for every age group. We have dumbed-down the typical Baptist church in alarming ways, pandering to the least committed rather than challenging those truly interested in growing in their faith. We can reverse this with disciplined effort, strategic choices, and quality educational programming. Re-starting traditional programs may not be the answer. But if not, a comprehensive replacement is needed. Let’s get with it!