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Reliability in Ministry

By John Truscott.

The powers-that-be at Ministry Today suggested that I might like to write about professionalism in ministry.  The concept is sometimes mocked in church circles, no doubt because of a legitimate fear that the Church will become just another organisation squeezed dry of any spirituality.

This set me thinking as to whether there might be a different entry point, a slant on the subject that all Christians would see as valid.  And then I considered the idea of ‘reliability’ and started to explore that.  Here is where it took me.

Reliability - the word

‘To rely’ on or upon means to depend upon with confidence, to trust or to count on, often on the basis of past experience.  You need to prove your reliability.  The word comes from Latin re-ligare, to bind or tie together and so hold fast and thus to be safe.

It may be that I find that the 6.34am train is always on time.  My trust may grow if the experience continues to be good and the 6.34 continues to get me in on the dot each day, or it may be dented if something goes wrong and the 6.34 is cancelled.  If I rely on the 6.34, I continue to catch it each day.  If I can no longer trust it, I may be forced to catch the 6.12 instead.

Over time I come to trust certain colleagues that, whenever they say they will do something in a certain way and by a given date, I can rely on that delivery.  They will not let me down.  I won’t have to chase them up.  I can relax.

This track record then leads to a level of wider expectation.  I can delegate a new task to a colleague who has never done something like this before, or a much more responsible task than I have asked of them previously, because they have proved themselves to be reliable in other matters.

Relying on God

The concept of a God who is utterly reliable is woven throughout Scripture.  We are asked to put our trust in him because he is trustworthy. So the Psalmist can say, among many possible quotations, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God” (Psalm 20.7).  Proverbs commands us to “trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not (do not rely) on your own understanding”. (Proverbs 3:5).

Old Testament leaders challenged God to be true to what he had promised.  So Moses, in the incident of the golden calf, reminds God of his promise to Abraham to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and to give them the land he promised them - and God is true to what he promised (see Exodus 32.11-14).

At the Last Supper, Jesus reminds his disciples that they need to rely on him: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14.1).  This is to be based not on some blind faith but on the experience of their time living with him and observing him closely.

He reminded the Jews that “he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world” (John 8.26).

Paul says to Timothy, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment”  (1 Timothy 6.17; cf. Matthew 6.19-21).

Paul also reminds the Corinthians that God is faithful and can be trusted when it comes to temptation (1 Corinthians 10.13) and that his promises can be trusted (see 2 Corinthians 1.18-22).  He tells the Thessalonians that the God who calls them is faithful and will keep them (1 Thessalonians 5.24).  And so we could go on.

Many of our hymns and songs remind us of this fact.  So William Cowper wrote, “Can a woman’s tender care cease towards the child she bare? Yes, she may forgetful be, yet will I remember thee.”

And of course reliability is frequently used in relation to Scripture.  Psalms 19 and 119 include verses on this idea (e.g. Psalm 19.7; 119.86, etc.) and Jesus clearly took the authority of the Scriptures of his time as read.

So any consideration of reliability should start with God’s character and the certain expectation we can place in him.  So far, we are on familiar ground, but what about a requirement for us to be reliable?  When did you last preach on that?

Our duty to God

If we are to live a godly life, then we have to reflect the character of our Father, so I would expect there to be a requirement that means that, first, God, and second, others, can depend on me.

Paul describes one part of the fruit of the Spirit as being faithfulness (Galatians 5.22) which William Barclay calls “the virtue of reliability”.  “We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments” is how Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message.

To God, we are to be reliable in the handling of the gospel (see 2 Corinthians 4.1-6) and in all that God has given us as stewards.  Jesus commends the reliability of two of the servants in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25.21 and 23) and makes a similar point in the parable of the shrewd manager (Luke 16.10-12).  In 1 Corinthians 4.1-5, Paul teaches that we must be faithful in the sight of God to what he has entrusted to us.  We are to live a life worthy of the Lord (as in Colossians 1.10).  God places high expectations on many of us (Luke 12.48).

We are given scriptural role-models too.  I love the description of Timothy in Philippians 2.19-22: “I have no-one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.  For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.  But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.”

On the other hand, we have people like Demas who deserted Paul because he loved the world more than the gospel (2 Timothy 4.10) and the falling-out between Paul and Barnabas about Mark because Paul deemed him unreliable (Acts 15.37-39).

So does God find us reliable in our calling?  Have we proved ourselves so that he can trust us with the treasures of ministry?

Reliability in society

I have this week bought a new kettle.  The old one was in fact less than two years old, but it seems to have died.  No doubt 15 minutes of someone’s time to repair it would cost more than the original price of the whole item, and it might take 60 minutes plus parts.  My wife and I were bemoaning that, in the past, kettles lasted many years.  So we have bought a shiny, new one, courtesy of a half-price offer at Argos.  But, on past experience, we are not expecting it to last long.  We do not expect it to be reliable.

There is a danger in generalisations, but when there was a greater sense of local community in our UK culture, people depended on each other more than now.  Today we tend to live isolated lives, with networks flung much more widely than a geographical locality.  We do not rely on each other in the way we used to.

We have lost the idea of individual attention in our rush to globalisation and the need to cut costs.  In many sectors of life it can no longer be said, as the London Stock Exchange states, “My word is my bond”.  I cannot rely on people in general to be honest, to put the needs of others before themselves, or to reply to my email if it does not suit them.  We no longer expect people to keep their marriage vows.

There are, of course, exceptions, but the point is that they are exceptions.  Some retail organisations have recognised that it makes business sense to put the customer first.  But even words such as ‘reliability’, ‘dependability’, ‘trustworthiness’ have a certain dated, uncool feel to them.

And yet it was always so.  As the Psalmist writes, “Help, LORD, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men.  Everyone lies to his neighbour; their flattering lips speak with deception” (Psalm 12.1-2).

Implications for churches

If Christians serve a God who is utterly reliable and if we are to reflect his character in the Church, we have a wonderful opportunity to be counter-cultural and stand out.  The trouble is that too often we don’t.  Reliability is built up over time, so this concerns long-haul, not one-off actions. 

Could it be said that the world could rely on the global Church to have integrity by:

·         practising what we preach - demonstrating our faith

·         being true to our calling - to preach the Good News

·         demonstrating real care - to people in every circumstance

·         showing competence in all we do - because of investment in quality training

·         understanding society - so we address real needs and communicate well

·         getting our hands dirty - wherever there is need

·         demonstrating contentedness - that makes the faith deeply desirable

What if the world could rely on us to live blameless lives, to sort our internal disagreements out in a way that demonstrates love and to be, as one author has expressed it, a provocative church?

Here are some possible applications.

Teaching and training in Christian character

The New Testament is full of the requirement for Christians to live holy lives, but the Church today (in the UK) soft-peddles this challenge (see Romans 12.1ff. and Colossians 3.1-17, among many passages).

Appointing people who have proved themselves

Too often we appoint anyone we can find to fill an activity programme. If we tried to do less, but took Christian character and track record more seriously, we might increase our spiritual competence (see 1 Timothy 3.1-16 and examples such as Exodus 18.21; Nehemiah 13.13; Acts 6.3).

Supporting workers: volunteers and employed

Once churches place people in ministry, they too often see that as job done.  But all workers deserve proper support: explanations about the post, training, team-working, injection of resources as appropriate, regular reviews, prayer, interest from the leadership.  Churches need to take HR much more seriously, and therefore should consider doing less to enable this to be possible.

Offering professional behind-the-scenes back-up

We need to see administrative functions such as office hub, deployment of people, financial management, building maintenance, systems of control, structures and meetings culture as a part of our total ministry and essential if our ministry of teaching, pastoring, outreach and care is to prove to be reliable. A reliable church pays its bills promptly, deals with enquirers with charm and keeps careful records, among many other things.

Ensuring communication is good

Churches that have set up from scratch in recent years are often way ahead of more established churches whose idea of communication has traditionally been a staid church magazine and a weekly pew sheet.  If people within and outside the church are to trust us, what will count is much more likely to be the quality of our website, our use of social networking, our colour printing and the people-centred way we put across news.  For many today, they need to see quality to believe in and rely on the product.  But the content must be correct too.

Meaning what we say

A church with a purpose statement about loving God and each other should be revolutionary.  Often it carries on as before while the statement is quietly filed under P in a cabinet.  We have let the Good News entrusted to us become Nice News: nice for us, nice for anyone who asks about it, lacking any power.  We can only have integrity if we live out what we claim to believe in.

Implications for Christian leaders

What if we take this quality or reliability and now apply it to ourselves?

Seeking out reliable leaders

When St Paul instructs Timothy on how to spread the gift of teaching, he uses these words: “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:1-2).  It is our role to train others for ministry and the key quality here is reliability.

Keeping confidences

If we are found to be reliable people, then it is essential that in all aspects of pastoral work we keep secrets (see Proverbs 11:13).  A lifetime reputation of reliability will be ruined in one go when we say too much, as those in Government are finding out as I write this.

Delivering on time

Many people, often volunteers with limited time to give, rely on us to provide what they need when they need it.  So if it is our responsibility to deliver an article for a magazine by an agreed date and time, we must do all we can to honour that.  This means that most of us will need to learn something about planning our time, and to have a reminder system so we do not miss deadlines.  So much of a Minister’s work has to be response to external needs that it will always be dangerous to leave planned work until the last minute.  When a deadline has to be missed, the other person deserves an immediate notification with a suggested Plan B.

Responding to requests

We need to learn how to cope with voicemails, emails, post and other incoming messages so that people know they will receive an answer without inappropriate delay.  That may mean the appointment of an administrative assistant in some form, the use of a church office to handle much of the routine business or diarised time for personal admin, but it also requires basic skills in paper-handling and delegation.  At heart it calls for an expression of what our role is supposed to be and what our priorities are within that.

Role-modelling discipleship

If people are to trust us, our own lives, which have to be lived in a public arena, have to be true to our beliefs.  This involves, where appropriate, our marriages, family life, time off, public behaviour, people-skills and much more.  Of course we fail, but we still aim high.  Christian character matters more than job description.

Responding to needs

The communications system in a church needs to work effectively enough for the Minister to be made aware of needs he or she should be addressing.  So if someone is in hospital, the Minister needs to know.  The reliable Minister is someone in touch with their congregation.  This implies quality background administrative support.

Promising to pray

It is so easy to promise to pray for someone who shares a need, and equally easy to forget almost at once.  Reliability demands that we have a system to ensure we do pray, and then ask questions over time to show we are genuinely interested.

Learning to say ‘no’

It will by now be apparent that to do all the above is simply impossible.  How can you possibly minister to every need while role modelling the perfect spouse and parent and dealing with emails reasonably promptly?  I therefore close with the most fundamental point of all for a consistent and reliable Christian witness: knowing when to say ‘no’ and then saying it with charm and regret, but with firmness.  Then you will be found to be reliable for all the things that you have said ‘yes’ to.  This calls for clarity in role.

Closing thoughts

Reliability builds relationships.  It is not a matter of business efficiency but trust in a person.  It is a response to one of the greatest characteristics of God.  It is something none of us will ever achieve with anything like perfection, but it is, I believe, a characteristic of a church and of us for which we should strive.  When we are reliable, others can relax because they trust us, but in doing that, our aim must be to point them to the One who is utterly reliable, whose word is sure and who promises life in all its fullness. 

John champions the subject of ‘creative organisation’ in churches.  His website has almost 90 printed items on this theme, all of which are available without charge for downloading or printing out.  Go to www.john-truscott.co.uk and to the Resources section. You will find help in personal administration as well as much else.

If your church has a Church Administrator in any form, ensure they are members of the UK Church Administrator Network (UCAN).  You will find details of this on the website in the Administrators section.

John runs training events for dioceses and districts and topics include self-management, paperwork, various aspects of communication, etc.  He also offers Ministers a black-bin-sack day in their study to enable you to find the carpet once again. Contact him via the website.