Ministry Reflection Three
For as long as I have been in ministry, and for a long time before that, there have been popular trends and fads on how to do ministry. There are generally two responses to these trends. There are certain pastors who go from fad to fad, looking for that silver bullet that will make ministry effective. There are others who reject every new innovation. If it was good enough for the nineteenth century, it is good enough for today.
My experience is that pastors need to be students of innovation and change. Our job is not to imitate or reject fads but to study the reasons these things have appeared and to discover what principles, if any, are applicable to your context. I suspect every fad or trend will actually have something that we can take from. Their are elements of truth from purpose driven concepts, to seeker sensitive models, and even aspects of the emergent church that we can learn from. We do not have to adopt their entire theology, worldview or ministry model to benefit from what they are doing.
There are trends very popular today and there will be new ones that will appear on a regular basis. Do not uncritically adopt them, nor blindly reject them. Study them and attempt to discover what God has for your ministry in what others are doing.
