December 6, 2024
Church Planting, Finishing Well, Gospel

Finishing Well: Ministry as a Relay Race

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series "Finishing well". I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading about finishing well in the past several months. In part, this is because I turn 70 in November and will retire at the end of 2021. But I am also interested in this subject because SEND U has been asked to develop and find resources to help SEND missionaries finish well whether in a ministry assignment or at the end of a career. When reflecting on finishing well, I find it helpful to view ministry as a relay race. 1Tom Steffen’s book, Passing the Baton: Church Planting That Empowers also uses this analogy. Over the next few months, I will be writing a series of blog posts on finishing well in ministry assignments as a leg in a relay race. In this series, I will be applying the… Read the whole post
Finishing Well, Gospel

Finishing Well: Keeping a Firm Grip on the Gospel

This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series "Finishing well". In the first post in this series on finishing well, I compared a ministry assignment to a leg of a relay race. I also pointed to the baton as a distinguishing feature of a relay race. Furthermore, I identified the baton as the gospel in our ministry race. The gospel is the distinguishing feature of our ministry.1 While Tom Steffen does not identify the baton as the gospel in his book, Passing the Baton, he does devote a whole chapter to “Presenting an Accurate Gospel.” (p 127-141 in the 1993 version of the book.) As relay runners must keep a firm grip on the baton, so also church-planters must keep a firm grip on the gospel. This is no less true for administrative assignments in mission organizations. What is the Gospel? This may seem like an unnecessary question.… Read the whole post
Finishing Well, Training

Finishing Well: Receiving the Baton

This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series "Finishing well". As we continue to think about finishing well in a ministry assignment, let’s return to the beginning of our leg of the race. Starting well sets the stage for finishing well. In a relay race, the team that exchanges the baton most efficiently usually wins. So beginning our lap by smoothly receiving the baton will increase the likelihood that we will finish well. In a relay race, a runner must pay attention to the preceding runner. Particularly, one needs to know which hand holds the baton so a smooth transfer can happen. The assigned lane one’s team is running in is also essential to know. Moreover, the placement the previous runner has achieved is also important information for the team’s success. We tend to act as if history started when we arrived on the ministry scene. I did… Read the whole post
Finishing Well, Gospel

Finishing Well: Running Your Leg of the Race

This entry is part 4 of 11 in the series "Finishing well". Let’s continue thinking about finishing well in a ministry assignment. In our last blog post, we talked about receiving the baton well. So now we are running our leg of the race. We are now fully engaged in our ministry assignment. Furthermore, we have a working knowledge of our host language and culture. Yes, we will want to continue to grow in these areas as we serve. But it is now our turn to run well with the baton we have been given. How we run our leg of the race will significantly impact finishing well. Of course, we want our ministry to further the progress of the gospel. We want to make a contribution to the contextualization of the gospel in our host culture, building on the progress of those who served before us. In the New… Read the whole post
Church Planting, Finishing Well, Leadership Training

Finishing Well: Transferring the Baton

This entry is part 5 of 11 in the series "Finishing well". We are finally getting to the finishing part in our series on finishing well in a ministry assignment. In a relay race, transferring the baton is crucial to finishing well. For example, the US 4 x 100 meter relay team was disqualified in the 1988 Olympics for a late handoff. In a similar way, how we transfer responsibility and leadership defines to a large extent whether we finish well in a ministry assignment. The incoming runner has the primary responsibility for the transfer of the baton. Specifically, he/she places the baton so that the outgoing runner can grasp it most efficiently. In a church planting assignment, the missionary is directly involved in the training of emerging leaders. However, in administrative assignments, there is usually less involvement in selecting a successor. Nevertheless, one can leave behind a “Policy and… Read the whole post
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