Training men for ministry: encouraging 'one man ministry'

Dear Editor,

I am encouraged by the response to my Open Letter which you recently published [en June]. I have received considerable feedback personally, all of which has been entirely in agreement and supportive, and which comes from across the spectrum of the generations. This is not an issue on which older men are criticising the younger generation, as has been presented. I am also encouraged because it has, at least, stirred up a discussion, something which can only be good.

In particular, please permit me the opportunity to respond to the letter by Dave Williams which you published. I do so, not to justify myself in any way, but to correct some of his false assumptions. I confess I find it sad when, because someone disagrees with you, you effectively say ‘you don’t know what you are talking about’! I am not an ill-informed, elder statesman addressing the frontline from the context of a parachurch organisation. I am a fellow labourer who has no intention to stand down from the frontline. I am on the frontline with you and wanting to fight for what is possible. I happen to head up a Bible College but I am, through and through, a local church man, having spent more than 40 years working in and with local churches. Last summer, at the age of 68, I stood down from pastoring my third church, a church the Lord had privileged me to revitalise, and I spend most of my time preaching and teaching in small local churches as well as preparing people for ministry. I never said that the picture I painted was universally true of the UK, but it is definitely an accurate portrayal of large swathes of the church, as has been affirmed by all the feedback I have received personally.

It is true that many small churches do find it difficult to maintain two services and a traditional mid-week teaching slot, but one of the main reasons for that is the lack of willingness on the part of preachers and would-be pastors to provide that service. It is a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I also know of churches which have refused to give up their evening service on principle and the Lord has blessed them and they have known growth, spiritually as well as numerically.

Of course, there’s always the danger that the ‘one-man ministry’ model can stunt the life and fruitfulness of churches, but then that is the bad practice of that model, not the model itself, as has been proved over countless years. Often, the ‘one-man ministry’ is necessary, as I have myself proved, to give new life to a small work, but if men are being told, as they are, not to even consider such a position, what hope is there? Of course there is the danger of keeping people busy at church with lots of meetings in order to ‘protect them from encountering the world outside’, but again that’s because the practice is at fault, not the principle itself.

There are many reasons why a church gets down to its last dozen or half-dozen members, and some churches definitely should close for lack of vision and appetite etc. I have advised in that way, expressing my inability to help but, equally, I have been excited by the attitude of others who want to grow and reach out and flourish – if only someone would sacrificially invest some time and energy and leadership. I appreciate that Dave may have had the experience of small churches making all the right noises but being unwilling to make changes, but that is most definitely not the whole picture, as he himself testifies.

I am not harping back to a golden era ‘that never was’, but it is an undeniable truth that the church of Christ in the UK is in a generally lamentable condition and what the church in the UK needs now, more than ever, is more – not less – passionate Bible ministry to equip the saints to reach an increasingly secular and hostile world. I will happily labour for the return of a so-called golden era that certainly once was real.

Yours sincerely,
John Brand
Midlothian