Integrated Ministry

"But when you do merciful deeds, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does..." (Matthew 6:3).

When Jesus gave these instructions concerning our giving and good works, I don't believe he intended for every ministry in the church to stand alone. After 25 years in ministry in missions, it continues to trouble me how we carve out our own little area of work and never make an effort to integrate it into the overall programs of the local congregation.

Recently I was doing some training for a church in Alabama. The campus ministry was struggling with a sponsorship program for new university students. The idea was to match each new student with a local family, but it continually ran into administrative difficulties in keeping the program going. During the workshop, we integrated the women's ministry with the campus ministry in this one area. The women's ministry agreed to take charge of administering the program, and knowing these ladies convinced me there wouldn't be any lapses in organization or operations.

During our weekend together we took each ministry team through a complete evaluation of their work programs that included identifying needs, resources and outcomes. Once all of the information was charted, we looked at how each ministry contributed to the mission of the local church; how it overlapped with other ministry programs and how the teams could share resources and support each other's work.

It was encouraging a few months later to return and see how the teams were working together. Taking an integrated approach to ministry helped to conserve resources and improve outcomes. More importantly, the ability to see the ministry of the church as a whole gave the membership a real sense of accomplishment.

I would love to hear from our readers concerning how your congregation is integrating ministry programs to meet the mission of the local church.