Full-Time, Part-Time or Somewhere in Between?

Something I’ve been thinking about lately is church planting. It’s something I’ve been aware of for about 6 months or so now but it was only really after Burn Your Plastic Jesus at the Ent Cent the other night that got me seriously thinking about it. For those of you who weren’t there, Mark Driscoll (MD from here on in to save time) basically said that he hoped to return to Sydney in about 5 years time to train up Christian men to go out and plant churches. After reading Craig’s blog it would appear an overwhelming response to this has led MD to revise 5 years to 18 months of so.

What I have become quite aware of however, is the importance that MD and Acts 29 (the church planting network he leads) places on “the call” to go and plant a church. So the question that I wanted to ask is what if I’m not called to plant a church, can I still be involved in a church plant? On a broader level it’s been something I’ve been mulling over as well; if I’m not called to full time ministry, can I still be involved in ministry? The obvious answer to these questions seems to be yes, but what I have been thinking about is something more “substantial” than simply doing welcoming ministry or kids church (both which have huge value and importance in the church). I feel like I could be of more use at the moment and maybe this is just my own pride talking, but I’m a young, energetic guy and while I have the time (12 hours of uni a week affords you a lot of free time!!) I want to be of some good use to spread the glory of God and make disciples. I was challenged by Matt to go away and think and pray about my strengths and weaknesses and more specifically how I can use my strengths to help the ministry of church or a church plant and how I can ask God for help to improve on my weaknesses to work for his glory.

Roles I was thinking about that I would say are somewhere in between full-time ministry (leading a church, etc.) and part-time ministry (casual ministry like kids church, welcoming, music, etc.) are:
- Organising the strategy for a new church plant
- Surveying people in the area of a proposed church plant to see how they would react to it
- Coordinating men’s ministry aimed more at evangelising our friends and edifying each other at the same time (I’ll look at this in more detail in a later post)
- Organising a ministry that specifically targets a certain group but isn’t a church event or linked to church. Something like what Tim and Matt are doing for fathers.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments on this, would love to hear your opinions!
P.S. If you read this please don’t think I am in any way trying to demean full-time or part-time ministry, both of which are of the utmost importance to the operation of the church as a meeting of like minded Christians. I’m actively involved in kids church and welcoming and love doing both!! These are just my thoughts!