THE TRELLIS AND THE VINE
A book review
Presented to
(Future)Dr. Bob Buchanan
Faith Baptist Church
Parker, Colorado
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Apprenticeship of 2010-2011
By
Stephen M. Reese
October 4, 2010
Marshall, Colin and Payne, Tony, The Trellis and the Vine, Chapters 7-12. Kingsford, New South Wales, Australia. Matthias Media, 2009. 86 Pages
Introduction
Colin Marshall is a graduate of Moore Theological College (BTh, MA). Until 2006 he directed the Ministry Training Strategy, and is now heading up Vinegrowers, a new training ministry aiming to help pastors and other ministry leaders implement the principles in this book (see vinegrowers.com)[1]
Tony Payne is a graduate of Moore theological College (BTh Honors) and is the publishing director of Matthias Media.[2]
Summary
Chapter Seven: Training and Gospel Growth
The authors Marshall and Payne open the second half of the book with the application of all that they have discussed in the previous six chapters. They begin to discuss the actual training of people and what that might look like. They also give an interesting warning that the better the church trains people the more likely they are to lose them to the mission field, church planting and even seminary. “Thinking broadly, there are four basic stages in the growth of the gospel in someone’s life. We might call them:
· Outreach
· Follow-up
· Growth
· Training”(83,84)
“Where the “word of truth” is taught and believed, it bears fruit. People are changed. They are transferred from one kingdom to another … They begin to have a faith in Christ Jesus and a love for all the saints, and to long for their heavenly inheritance.”(82) The outreach is to unbelievers, follow-up is for new believers, while growth is for all believers and training; especially training, according to the authors, should be included in the process to becoming more effective Disciples of Christ.
In specifying training as a key ingredient in the development of the growth of the gospel in the church, the authors use the rest of their book to build their case. “But before we talk more about what a training ministry looks like in practice, it’s time to pause and deal with some issues that have no doubt been brewing in some readers’ minds for some time.”(91)
Chapter Eight: Why Sunday sermons are necessary but not sufficient.
“By far the greatest obstacle to rethinking and reforming our ministries is the inertia of tradition—whether the long-held traditions of our denominations and churchmanship, or the more recent traditions of the church growth movement that have become a kind of unspoken orthodoxy in many evangelical churches.”(93) The authors then go on to point out the different ways that pastors are called to lead. From the Sunday sermon, to just basically caring for their flock a single pastor they say is limited to between 100-150 people that they can serve depending on their gifts. And they point out that the more people that can be trained up the easier and more fruitful the pastor’s ministry becomes. Not unlike the military, where each man is trained in basic combat techniques and so makes the whole army stronger as a result. But if you can train both soldiers and officers at the same time it becomes a force-multiplier, and the army is that much more devastating to the enemy.
They give three dominant roles that pastor’s play in the church today, pastor as CEO, pastor as clergyman, and finally pastor as trainer. They explain that the big church model of pastor as CEO is the difference from running a little ‘Mom and Pop’ store to running a giant superstore. The pastor delegates much more and has far less time to spend in one-on-one ministry, much less training. He is consumed with making sure the various departments of his ‘store’ are being run well, and almost none on personal growth ministry. Although interestingly the authors point to the ‘consumers’ in this church model as being more growth oriented. That is the ‘storefront’ of the church is made as appealing as possible to newcomers and the gospel itself is lost somewhere along the way.
The pastor as clergyman model is the ‘Mom and Pop’ store owner. He spends more time maintaining the flock he has, preaching and teaching on Sunday, and just keeping the flock together as best as his abilities will allow. In this church model the authors present the ‘consumers’ as in a maintenance mode, with little gospel growth. Though the flash and dash of the growth model is missing the gospel is usually at the forefront of the ministry, as it should be.
However, according to Marshall and Payne the pastor as trainer is where the rubber meets the road. “There is a radical dissolution, in this model, of the clergy-lay distinction. It is not minister and ministered-to, but the pastor and his people working in close partnership in all manner of word ministries.”(99) Pastoral care is spread out among the congregation, people ministering to one another, many of the sheep become shepherds themselves, the load gets spread around and so does the growth of the gospel. There is still trellis work to do, there always will be, but the vine is growing abundantly and even spilling over into the neighbors’ yards. And this mode of ministry, according to the authors, results in a church with disciples in mission mode, which is to spread the gospel.
Chapter Nine: Multiplying gospel growth through training co-workers.
“The problem is, he [the pastor as trainer model, in a small church of say 130 regular attendees] barely has time to spend with ten of them, let alone 130.”(109) This is where it really starts to get interesting, Marshall and Payne go back to Paul’s ministry as a model of how the overloaded pastor spends his time and energies. “Up to 100 names are associated with Paul in the New Testament, of which 36 could be considered close partners and fellow laborers.”(112)
There were ‘fellow workers’ (1 Cor 3:5-9) to Paul in God’s great ministry and they were co-dependent upon one another and the Lord to do their business. “Their common status as God’s labourers both dignifies and humbles. They are working alongside God in his great work in the world; and yet they are nothing, because it is God who gives the growth.”(113) They were also minister-servants working alongside each other, and building one another up in the service of the Lord. “It’s a lovely picture of mutual labour and encouragement.”(114)
This model of Paul’s with co-laborers seen as integral and in many ways equal to himself is a hard model to follow in today’s world. But theologically it is hard to argue with. There is only one Master, and the rest of us are his humble servants, so it makes sense that we would all, like a well matched team of horses, pull along in the work together building up and encouraging one another along the path, and creating more disciples along the way.
At the end of the chapter the authors address the choosing of viable candidates for discipleship training, and they give many good reasons for selecting certain people and other reasons for not selecting people. “In one sense, the criteria for selecting co-workers are obvious. Co-workers need to be a people who have a heart for God and a hunger to learn and grow. They need to be soundly converted, mature believers with some runs on the board in Christian living, who have the faithfulness and potential to minister to others.”(118)
Chapter Ten: People worth watching
Marshall and Payne use chapter ten to explain the unique way that God calls people to his service, and the means that the pastor as trainer can use to find the right people in his own congregation. They break this down into four manageable questions, that cover the ‘call’, remuneration “Do I get paid to serve?”. And finally does it demean people to stay in secular work?
They give a series of answers to these questions that really get to the core issues of serving in the ministry. That as Christians we are all called to the ministry in one form or another, whether it be as a full time pastor or a lay person. The authors point out that secular work is still done to the glory of God, that in all things the Bible tells us that we should, “in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”(Col 3:17)
“What we are saying, in effect, is that we should be talent scouts. If the current generation of pastors and ministers is responsible for calling, choosing, and setting apart the next generation, we need to be constantly on the lookout for the sort of people with the gifts and integrity to preach the word and pastor God’s people.”(139)
Chapter Eleven: Ministry apprenticeship
The authors start the next to last chapter asking the question, what happens between the man being called to the pastorate, and his going and doing the work. The usual answer is seminary. They suggest an alternative method, the one they have been building up all along, the apprenticeship program. Where the selectee partly through osmosis, mainly through study and the work of the ministry learns what it is to be a full time pastor. And through this process finds out if they are suitable to the calling.
They give seven examples of the benefits of the apprentice model:
1. Apprentices learn to integrate word, life and ministry practice
2. Apprentices are tested in character
3. Apprentices learn that ministry is about people, not programs
4. Apprentices are well-prepared for formal theological training
5. Apprentices learn ministry in the real world
6. Apprentices learn to be trainers of others so that ministry is multiplied
7. Apprentices learn evangelism and entrepreneurial ministry
This is where the authors mention that after training, many of the best go out into the world on their own in missionary, church-planting and various other forms of ministry and leave the very church that taught them. This seems like the hardest thing of all, to train or be trained for a year to two years and then leave the nest. But it’s exactly what Paul’s people did!
Chapter Twelve: Making a start
“…Christian ministry is really not very complicated. It is simply the making and nurturing of genuine followers of the Lord Jesus Christ through prayerful, Spirit-backed proclamation of the word of God. It’s disciple making.”(151) If it were only so easy! We live in a sin-racked world with one another’s strengths and weaknesses. And unfortunately it is the weaknesses that come up most often in our day-to-day interactions, but all is not lost for we have Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit to lead us.
The authors go on to point out how frustrating the day-to-day ministry can be. And how easily it is that we get discouraged, and consequently how easy it is to fall into the traps of the latest fad. The mega-church, the purpose driven life, and any other number of fads that come along every few years or so to entice us away from the church’s true purpose which is to build disciples. Miller and Payne even go on to say that, “Churches inevitably drift towards instititutionalism and secularization. The focus invariably shift from the vine to the trellis—from seeing people grow as disciples to organizing and maintaining activities and programs.”(152)
The heart of Christian ministry is building up people in discipleship and training them as to the way they should go, not in numbers of people sitting in the pews on Sunday but in the number of people being reached on a spiritual level. “The sermon on Sunday should aim to make disciples,”(153) as should ABC’s, Sunday School, Men’s Breakfast, Ministry Community, and everything else we engage in at church, as a gathered family.
Again and again Miller and Payne stress the prayerful teaching of the word is the cornerstone to their approach. “The essence of ‘vine-work’ is the prayerful, Spirit-backed speaking of the message of the bible by one person to another (or to more than one).”(153) They state as a conclusion that, “but without the speaking it is all trellis and no vine.”(153)
Conclusion
As I read and reread this book I was deeply convicted of much of what the authors had to say about discipleship, and discipleship training. I find little to argue with in their argument and much to learn and to put into practice. And as an apprentice trainee I am again reminded of the awesome task laid out before me, that is to learn as much as possible in my year or two of training, to revel in this chance to serve God in such a way and yet to be humble in my walk and conduct, character, and actions at all times.
I would recommend this book to any church that is struggling with growth issues or spiritual warfare issues especially. It is infinitely better to spread the load of the pastor and elders than to expect them to carry the load by themselves. I go back to my Spartan analogy in the first paper, that we all are called to service, and that only through training possibly as harsh as the agoge[3] (for we will be joined in battle against the forces of evil if we take up this noble endeavor, and we must be ready) will we be equipped with the armor and knowledge of God’s awesome authority to defeat the powers of darkness.
[1] Marshall, Colin and Payne, Tony, The Trellis and the Vine, About the Authors. Kingsford, New South Wales, Australia. Matthias Media, 2009. 167 Pages $23.00
[2] Ibid
[3] The agoge was where Spartan children, all boys, at the age of seven were taken from their homes and started intensive physical and psychological warfare training. At 18 they were expected to go out and kill a healot (slave) without being caught before they would be admitted into the army. No wonder they were able to hold up the Persians at Thermopylae with only 300 men!
No comments:
Post a Comment