The Trellis and the Vine by Tony Payne, Colin Marshall Page A

gospel growth happening is to train more and more mature, godly Christians to be vine-workers—that is, to see more people equipped, resourced and encouraged to speak the word prayerfully to other people, whether in outreach, follow-up or Christian growth.
    Unfortunately, in most churches and for most pastors, hardly any effort goes into training. It’s basically seen as the pastor’s job to do the gospel growth, and since that is virtually impossible at a personal or individual level, it is all done at the general and large-group level. And before long, the management and running of events, groups, meetings and structures consumes the pastor’s time and the church member’s week.
    There is another way. 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.
    [ 1 ] This diagnostic or planning table is shamelessly pinched and adapted from Peter Bolt’s excellent little book Mission Minded (Matthias Media, Sydney, 2000).

Chapter 8.
Why Sunday sermons are necessary but not sufficient
    We’ve come to the point in the flow of our argument where we need to pause and consider in more detail how the model of training and growth we are proposing collides with the reality of our existing church structures and models and practices. Because collide it will. 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.
    We will get to the somewhat alarming proposition contained in this chapter’s title in due course, but first let’s look at two very common approaches to pastoral ministry, and then contrast them with the approach of this book. Now of course these common approaches are stereotypes, and cannot reflect the multi-faceted reality of ministry in all its variety. All the same, we trust that you can recognize the structures and tendencies reflected in the descriptions, and make adjustments for your own situation accordingly.
    There are three approaches or emphases we wish to examine, which we will call:
• the pastor as service-providing clergyman
• the pastor as CEO
• the pastor as trainer.
    The pastor as service-providing clergyman
    In this way of thinking about church life and ministry, the pastor’s role is to care for and feed the congregation. In this sense, he is a professional clergyman (whether or not he is called a ‘clergyman’), and there is an expectation on the part of both congregation and pastor that he is paid to fulfil certain core functions:
• to feed the flock through his Sunday sermons and administration of the sacraments
• to organize and run the Sunday gathering, which is seen as a time of worship for the congregation
• to put on various occasional services for different purposes, such as baptisms, weddings and possibly guest services
• to personally counsel congregation members, especially in times of crisis.
    This is the classic Reformed-evangelical model of an ordained minister shepherding the flock given to him by Christ. And it has great strengths:
• It rightly puts regular preaching of the word at the centre of the ministry.
• It gathers the whole congregation as a family on Sunday for prayer, praise and preaching.
• The occasional services provide opportunities for outreach.
• The pastor cares for his people in times of crisis.
    However, there are also very real (and obvious) disadvantages with this approach. For a start, the ministry that takes place in the congregation will be limited to the gifts and capacity of the pastor: how effectively he preaches, and how many people he can personally know and counsel. In this model, it becomes very difficult for the congregation to grow past