A short teaching block from our weekly Friends of BPC email. Updated each week.
Relational Ministry: Part 1
You may know this helpful saying: don’t just give a person a fish, teach them to fish. But when it comes to ministry, there’s a third step: teach others to teach others to fish. That’s exactly what Paul is doing in 2 Timothy 2:2. He says to Timothy: “The things you have heard me say… entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.” That’s four generations of training in one sentence. Paul to Timothy to reliable people to others.
What Paul is describing isn’t a program. It’s a culture. And the key to that culture is relationships, not just events. Too much of what passes for training is event-focused. We hope that if we get enough people to an event or conference, something will stick. And events certainly have their place. But on their own, they produce very little lasting impact. Unless there is an ongoing training relationship for feedback, discussion, and prayer, not much will result.
The training culture that Jesus modelled, and that Paul handed on, is deeply relational. It happens in the rhythm of shared life. I’d love for that to be the heartbeat of BPC.
Read about it for yourself: 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 2:7–12; Luke 6:12–16; Mark 3:14
Adapted from MTS Ministry Paper 0.01 The Ministry Training Church. mts.com.au/resources/ministry-training-papers/