Reaching, Teaching, Caring, Worshiping

REACHING, TEACHING, CARING, WORSHIPING by Ray Pritchard At the Biannual Business Meeting in March, I announced to the membership that we are reorganizing the staff and all the ministries of the church around four great biblical priorities–reaching, teaching, caring, and worshiping. The idea came to me as I read Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose-Driven Church. He argues that in order to be effective in the 21st century, churches must return to fundamental biblical priorities. As I thought about it, the idea came to me (from the Lord, I believe) to reorganize all that we are doing at Calvary in order to be more self-consciously biblical in all that we do. In one sense, this is not a radical shift for us since we have always believed the Bible and tried to make it the foundation of all that we do. The Bible is so deeply engrained in our spiritual DNA that I doubt anyone could successfully take it out, and I hope no one ever tries. But even good churches need to rethink what they are doing from time to time. So I started with the premise that everything we are doing should fit under four basic priorities, and if something doesn’t clearly fit in those four areas, then we probably shouldn’t be doing it. Here are those four areas briefly explained: Reaching involves evangelism and world missions. It includes visitor follow-up, membership, and new believer discipleship. Teaching involves the educational and spiritual growth ministries. It includes the children’s ministry, youth ministry, and Adult Bible Fellowships. Caring involves connecting believers to one another and our people-helping ministries. It includes LifeCARE, lay counseling, premarital counseling, and the singles ministry. Worshiping involves connecting people with God through worship and praise. It includes public worship, the music ministry and “Touching Heaven.” We have worked to make sure that every ministry at Calvary comes under one of those four areas. The list for each area is much longer than the few examples given above. The new organizational plan goes into effect July 1, 2003. As part of the new plan, we are organizing the ministry staff around those four ministry areas. Our ultimate goal is to have a pastor over each area with other pastors, directors, and ministry leaders serving with him under his direction. And we have created a new position called Executive Pastor to give day-to-day oversight to the entire staff. Here are the positions we have filled so far: Executive Pastor: Davis Duggins Pastor of Spiritual Development: Bob Boerman (“teaching” area) Pastor of Caring Ministries: Howard Duncan Pastor of Worship & Music: Andrew Irvin The Pastor of Outreach Ministries is a new position that has not been filled yet. We hope to begin the search to fill this position sometime this fall. Our overall goal has not changed. We’re still in the business of helping people discover the life-changing power of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Focusing on reaching, teaching, caring, and worshiping helps us stay on target.