How to conduct
a ministry leadership
team meeting

Introduction

By Dan Rogers
Superintendent of U.S. ministers

The church is called to glorify God by obeying Jesus’ Great Commandment to love and his Great Commission to make disciples.

Congregations walk in step with the Holy Spirit in this obedience as they provide a ministry environment that is conducive to disciplemaking, and as they pursue a balanced strategy that is focused on disciplemaking.

The congregation’s leaders have a vital role in nurturing a disciplemaking environment and in ad­vancing a disciplemaking strategy. That role is so important that it should be the focus of nearly all leadership meetings. John Stone­cypher, pastor of the Des Moines and Mason City, Iowa, churches, has written the following article to help ministry team leaders create and maintain that focus.

How to conduct a ministry
leadership team meeting

By John Stonecypher

As outlined in the Church Administration Manual (see also the July WCG News), commissioned ministry leaders lead the individual ministry segments within our congregations. Together these ministry leaders form a ministry leadership team that is led by the senior pastor. For this team to work together in harmony, focused on a shared vision, mission and strategy, it is crucial that the ministry leadership team have regular meetings.  

Following is a suggested agenda outline for such meetings. This outline is designed to help team members to connect, to examine the congregation’s ministry environment (which we often refer to as the foundations), to assess the congregation’s disciplemaking balance, and to coordinate administrative details. 

 1. Connect with God and with each other. Leadership can be lonely work, so it is essential for leaders to take time to be ministered to by God and each other. Begin the meeting with the Word, worship, fellowship and prayer. Give time for the fellowship that occurs naturally before meetings.

Then shepherd the group conversation into sharing praise reports and prayer requests, both personal and ministry-related. Lead the group into an unhurried time of group prayer.

Then move into a time of worship, perhaps using worship DVDs for the sake of easy preparation. This would be an appropriate time to share communion, if desired. The senior pastor or a ministry leader can give a brief devotional from a passage of Scripture that addresses matters of ministry vision, values, mission or strategy. Sonlife’s Harmony Self-Study can be a useful re­source here. By beginning with Scripture, the team will be helped to ground their ministry in the Word of God.

2. Examine the ministry foundations. To what extent is your church environment an atmosphere of love, characterized by the adoration of Christ and prayerful dependence, saturated with the communication of the Word that engenders a biblical church image and a commitment to contact in its members? These essential issues of church health belong at the forefront of leaders’ minds, and deserve close attention in ministry meetings.

To enable depth of discussion, it can be helpful to examine just one of these foundations at each meeting. For example, one meeting can focus on the questions: “Is our congregation’s environment characterized by prayerful dependence? What are we doing that works well? Where are areas for improvement? How can we use our strengths to build up our weaknesses?” It can be helpful to record the responses on a large pad of paper that the whole group can see.

 3. Assess the church’s disciplemaking balance. Make a list of all the programs the church has put on since your last meeting—worship services, prayer meetings, discipleship classes, potlucks, outreach projects—everything. Then, specify the target audience for each event. Was it intended for un­churched people (in other words, was it a winning event)? Was it primarily meant to help Christians grow spiritually (a building event)? Was it targeted at training members to minister to believers or to reach the lost more effectively (an equipping event)? Or was it intended to train leaders (a multiplying event)?

If a program has more than one intended audience, its purpose needs to be defined further. For example, a class for seekers will have different requirements than a class for mature believers, and those differences will be taken into account as the class is prepared. Finally, ask: “How balanced is our programming? On what target group do our programs focus most? On which target group do our programs focus least? What can we do to seek greater balance between the four strategic priorities of Win-Build-Equip-Multiply?” Again, it is helpful to record all re­sponses on a big pad of paper.

 4. Coordinate administrative details. By this point you have a couple of lists that indicate ways to improve your ministry—ways to nurture the particular ministry foundation focused on in this meeting, and ways to balance the four strategic ministry priorities in the church’s programming.

In order to pare the lists down to a manageable size, you may need to postpone a few of the less important items for later implementation. Clarify the goal of each item re­maining on the list, and assign it to the appropriate ministry leader. It will then be the ministry leader’s responsibility to work with his or her ministry team to creatively seek to address the issue. This final part of the meeting is also the appropriate time to raise any administrative issues that need to be addressed.

Sample ministry meeting agenda

Following is a sample detailed ministry leadership team meeting agenda that follows the connect, examine, assess and coordinate outline. It’s helpful to distribute a detailed agenda to participants in advance of the meeting.

AGENDA

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Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2004