As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of a growing cooperation of churches in China that faces lower-level persecution. By ‘lower-level’ persecution, I mean that the authorities have…relaxed their hold on churches in comparison to a previous era.” - 9 Marks
“I’d like to try and bring light rather than heat to the question of cooperation between churches in these polarized times. How do we decide when and to what extent to cooperate with churches that are more or less like-minded?” - 9 Marks
Republished, with permission, from Voice magazine, Nov/Dec 2013.
Two men sat in a cafe and shared ministry concerns over a cup of coffee. Young, energetic, and visionary, they dreamed of the things they could accomplish for God. They were already busily involved in ministry, but they saw so many other needed things they would like to do. There just did not seem to be time to do it all. “There is so much we could do,” one of the men commented, “If we could just get organized and make better use of our time.”
Energy, vision, and time management are essential for effective ministry. These two men might have become moderately more effective by better time management. Sharing their vision and zeal with ministry partners could, however, have made them markedly more effective. Ministry partnerships are an exceptionally effective way of increasing both the effectiveness and scope of one’s ministry. Partnerships not only afford faithful prayer partners and encouragers, but also enable pursuit of vision that is beyond one’s personal gifting and abilities. Additionally, partnerships help one maintain ministry focus through difficult circumstances that might otherwise result in overt ministry failure or even abandonment one’s God given calling.
Discussion