Manual on Ministerial Training for Church Workers: Ministerial Training for Church Workers

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PREFACE

Jesus spent a lot of time teaching the church of His days. The truth of God’s will is to develop a sound foundation for a proper discipleship program in the church. God’s plan for a healthy and comprehensive church growth is that disciples be trained.

The church worker must be trained in the skills of Missions and Ministry. Church workers need to be taught to use the Bible when sharing faith with others. They need to be trained to study the scriptures. They need to know how to use both the law and the Gospel for an effective witnessing, for study and for devotional reading. They need to be trained to counsel others by using the powerful word of God. The ability to counsel troubled souls with the Word of God does not just come naturally; it takes experience in Christ life school of discipleship.

Christian workers exercise their discipleship when they learn to effectively witness their faith, pray with other persons, visit the sick, preach the Gospel, teach the word, minister to the elderly and perform all other ministries that are part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

As the Great Commission rightly pointed out, Disciples are made, not born. While Disciples are made at Baptism (Matt. 28:19), Disciples mature as they follow a Christian Leader. Jesus led His disciples, He not only taught them what to know, He showed them what to do.

If the Church is to be a living organism, it has to be a school for Discipleship. The Pastor is called the Shepherd of the Royal Priesthood, but he is not there to do ministry for the sheep. Shepherds don’t reproduce sheep but Sheep reproduces sheep. The role of the Pastor in giving leadership to the local Church is a very significant one. The Church’s progress to a large extent will depend on the Pastor‘s ability to identify potentials in the members of his Church and help to develop such potentials to profitable use. A potential is a dormant ability which a person has. It is an unused energy. Pastors; as mentors, are raised by God to challenge their followers until the dormant abilities or latent powers in them become potent.

Missions and ministry belong to the people. The Pastor is there to be the trainer, and the equipper of the people. The Pastor is like a playing coach, he does ministry works himself, but his primary responsibility is to train Christians to do their ministerial assignments.

The Biblical method for this training can be called modelling. Jesus was a model for His disciples. He showed them how to do ministry. The pastor is to be a model for the members. He is to show them the ‘how’. He is to take people with him to show them how to visit the sick and the elderly. He is to demonstrate how to counsel and witness. He is a model for ministry.

In summary, the Pastor is to take his church workers through a five stage sequential Ministerial Leadership Training and human resources development program as follows:-

• The Model Stage is a-do-it-yourself approach of leadership by example, e.g. Jesus Christ washing His disciples’ feet, punctuality at church program by Pastors, etc.

• The Mentorship Stage which is a-do-it-in-their-presence approach, by praying with them, joint visitation, joint evangelism, to avoid a similar request of Jesus’ disciples of teach us to pray (Lk. 11:1).

• The Monitor Stage, by exposing them to prescribed Spiritual assignments. It is a let-him-do-it-in-my-presence-approach.

It is a learning on the job technique, to the fulfilment of the saying that; experience is the best teacher.

• The next stage is duplicating himself in the life of his followers (Heb. 5:11-14). It is a-let-him-do-it-when- you-are-not-there-stage.

• Begin to help your followers to discover and develop the gifts they have (I Tim. 4:16). It is a-let-him-do-it-in-the- presence-of-another-person stage. Discovery of gifts is by exposure and getting the prospect involved. (Col. 3:21, Eph. 6:4).

When Christians lay people are discipled, they in turn are to disciple others. This is the key to the multiplication of ministry. This is the way Christianity is meant to expand according to God’s plan of multiplication.

This book, Manual on Ministerial Training for Church Workers is designed for Ministerial Training that will help Church Leaders develop the potentials in the lives of their Church members.

SECTION 1

1.1. YOU ARE SPECIAL!

I will praise Thee (God); for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14). How precious are Thy (God’s) thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. (Psalm 139:17-18).

You are special! In the entire world there’s nobody like you.

Since the beginning of time, there has never been another person like you. Nobody has your smile, nobody has your voice... you’re special!

No one has your handwriting.

Nobody anywhere has your tastes for food or music or art ... No one sees things just as you do.

In all of time, there’s been no one who laughs like you, no one who cries like you; and what makes you laugh and cry will never provoke identical laughter and tears from anybody else, ever.

No one reacts to any situation just as you would react. You’re special!

You’re the only one in all of creation who has your set of abilities. Oh, there will always be somebody who is better at one of the things you’re good at, but no one in the universe can reach the quality of your combination of talents, ideas, abilities and feelings. Like a room full of musical instruments, some may excel alone, but none can match the symphony sound when all are played together. You’re special!

Through all of eternity no one will ever look, talk, walk, think or do like you. You’re special! You’re rare. And in all rarity there is great value. Because of your rare value, you need not attempt to imitate others. You should accept yourself and celebrate your differences.

You’re special and you should begin to realize it’s no accident that you’re special. You should begin to see that God made you special for a very special purpose. He must have a job for you that no one else can do as well. Out of all the billions of applicants, only one is qualified, only one has the right combination of what it takes. That one is you because you’re special!

1.2. KEYS TO A VICTORIOUS LIFE

• God-Consciousness. Continuously center your thoughts on God and Scriptural truth. This will crowd out wrong thinking, empower you during temptation and develop wisdom in you, which is necessary for important decisions. (Rom. 8:31-37).

• Your Personal Prayer Life. Set up a place and a daily time for visiting with the Holy Spirit. Keep a list of names of those you may need to pray for. Don't stay in an asking posture" – learn to praise and thank Him for past answers!

• Your Daily Bible Reading Habit. Establish a place, time and system. Early morning is usually the best time because you have placed mind-pictures of truth into your spirit for the rest of the day. Mark your Bible. Take notes. Do not miss a single day.

• Godly Friendships. He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed (Prov. 13:20). Be selective. Friends will add to or take away from your life.

• A teachable Spirit. A wise man will hear... (Prov. 1:5). Through instruction and even criticism, we grow in grace and humility.

• A Winner's Mentality. Stop thinking about obstacles.

• A solid foundation and solid relationship and fellowship with God is crucial and important. Lack of proper foundations a hindrance.

• Who you are is the strength of what to do. Clear and solid relationship with God is an important factor to going forward in life. You need to have an intimate relationship with God. Jesus had 30years of growing in the Lord, 40 years of growing was what Moses also went through. Times of separation are a time that are hard, that is when you go into the University of Wilderness.

• Passion for success is different from passion for soul; we should not be blinded by the passion for success but for passion for souls. It was not success that brought Pastor Kumuyi to where he is, it was burden for souls.

• If you want what God wants, for the same reason that God wants it, you will always have God by your side. That is the way to lay a solid foundation for your life conviction.

• Your vision must be clear. You must know where you are going and what demand God has placed upon your life. Try to get a clear picture of where you are going to. The bible says that; where there is no vision my people perish, my people perish because they lack knowledge.

(i). Whatever the Lord ask you to do, do it with all your vigor. Determine what exactly He asks you to do. Write the vision and make it plane, and run with it. (Habakkuk 2:2).

• It takes faith to go forward in life. We go forward by faith. There will be enough obstacles to stop you from going forward each time God asks you to go forward (Moses used his faith before he could cross the Red sea).

If your focus is on the difficulties, you will never go forward. Every true landmark achievement in life and Ministry is usually accomplished in the face difficulties. If you observe the you will never sow. There is a time to pray and a time to stop praying and begin to act, and then every Red Sea stopping you will part. (Ps.114: 37). When you move in faith, you are moving with God.

• It takes determination to move into your inheritance because there will be enough opposition to you.

• You've got to learn to forget the past (Isaiah 43:18-19). Don't let your past become your snare. Draw a curtain over your past and initiate a brand new beginning as from today. Forget past success or failure, keep pressing on and press toward the mark of His high calling. (Philippians.3:14).

• There is no one that makes it great living in the past. The past is past. Success has no limit and failure has no end.

• If you are going to go forward in life, keep your focus on Jesus not on past success, not on people, not on past honor. The Bible says; I have set the Lord always before me, look unto Jesus, and keep your eyes on Him, determine where you are going and go for it. Set your goals, and set your priorities. Those who work hard to succeed aren’t lucky, they are rewarded (African proverb).

1.3. SLOTH

Sloth is a deadly attitude sloth or (laziness) is a condition condemned by many biblical writers. No good can come from idleness or refusal to work. Nowhere in the Bible is a kind of ‘safety net’ provided for those who merely want to avoid hard work. The person who is successful in endeavor is one who knows how to seize opportunity. An ideal situation does not last forever. Open doors have no guarantee of staying open.

The slothful will always find an excuse of letting those moments slip by.

The Bible gives no pity to the lazy person.

A person who fails to fulfil responsibility soon looses the respect of those who depend on him or her. A slothful habit will eventually bring disgrace

A slothful person is a drain on any situation he or she gets involved in.

Diligence multiplies resources, diligence bring a blessing both from God and from grateful employees.

The Bible reinforces the idea that honest effort will be rewarded. Only through diligent labor can one hope to have provision and plenty. A belief in the value of labor is a cornerstone of greatness. The work ethic has its root in the very nature of God. He is a creator who works with purpose and excellence. In making people in His image, God granted them power as co-creators and gave them authority as care takers of the earth. God’s original design gave dignity to all forms of work, both physical and intellectual. Slackness however is condemned throughout the Bible as disgraceful and wasteful.

God ordained work. He intended it to be a blessing and not a curse. We are not to despise the tasks He calls us to do, but to see our contribution as meaningful and important to His purpose and to the nurturing of creation as a whole.

Work provides a sense of self sufficiency. There is appropriate pride in being able to care for your own needs and pay your own bills. The person who becomes skilled in his/her own occupation whatever the job can walk through life with dignity and confidence.

1.4 CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP

i. What is Christian leadership?

Christian Leadership is the means of showing the way with a Christian view point. Donald Aultman puts it this way True Christian Leadership is investing one’s life in guiding a group toward worthy Christian ideas and accomplishments.

ii. Qualifications for Christian Leadership Consecration – (Rom. 12:1)

Consecration is more than just accepting Christ as the Savior but also recognizing Him as the Lord of one’s life. The consecrated leader walks the path of prayer in search of guidance. He is sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

Sincerity (Phil. 1:9-11)

Sincerity in its simplest form is transparent honesty. It means that the sincere leader will walk without deceit, pretense or hypocrisy. God’s work requires highest sense of honesty and therefore demands the highest sense of sincerity.

Humility (Mk. 9:35; Mt. 20:26-28)

(ii.) This is one of the qualities that Christian Leader should emulate. The Church is not supposed to be a place of struggle for power or position and that was the reason why the disciples were rebuked by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unselfishness (Phil. 2:4-6; I Cor. 10:33)

A good leader does not think of his own alone but also of others. Christ is our perfect example of the unselfish life. Saint Paul is another example of unselfish leadership. The self-centered leader takes credit for all the good accomplished, but refuses to accept any responsibility for failure.

Faith (Heb. 11:1)

Faith is believing in something you know even though you cannot prove it. It is believing something will happen before it happens. A good leader will have faith in God’s Word, in what he is doing, and in himself.

Vision The sight of faith

Full and complete vision pre-suppose that the leader, firstly sees what should be done; secondly uses a plan of action; and thirdly, sees that is carried out.

iii. Improving Your Leadership Personality

No one jumps into full maturity and perfection. The Bible exhorts us to grow in grace. To grow in grace means to gradually improve every aspect of our Christian personality. Good habit, clean living in thought, words and conduct are a reflection to this growth. Some of these trails are no doubt, inherited. Leadership personality can improve:

Through association with a mentor

Through reading good books on leadership

Through serving under a successful leader

Be friendly – Anyone that would have friends must be friendly.

Use Tact-Tact is the skill in dealing with person or difficult situation. Practice Patience-Patience is one of the fruit of the Spirit listed out in Gal. 5:22-23.

Be enthusiastic. If the leader is zealous the group will catch the fire.

Show Sympathy. This is the ability to be able to enter into another person’s position and to feel and see as they do.

Be persuasive. The leader should cultivate the ability to help others see his side.

Guard Confidence, as failure may destroy trust there are some leaders who cannot keep a secret even though they are hardworking. This damaging failure destroys trust. One is faced with confidential information. When a person opens his inner most thought to you, do not betray confidence and reveal them. Learn to guard confidence.

Be submissive. Every leader should submit to the authority of the Word, the Holy Spirit and the leadership of the Church.

Be teachable. Non adherence to the above Christian qualifications for leaders will result in negative response from the led.

SECTION 2

1.

2.

2.1 OVERCOMING THE WORRIES OF LIFE

One in four of us will suffer from an anxiety disorder in our lifetime. And the rest of us will worry, fuss, and fret far more than we need to. Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.– Swedish Proverb.

i. What is worry?

The word worry (Greek word merimnao) means to be anxious, to be distracted, or to have a divided mind. (Mt. 6:25, Phil. 4:6) Worry is a feeling of uneasiness, apprehension or dread. It is related to negative thoughts of a likely event. "Worriers dwell in the what ‘ifs’ of life", forgetting that if you have faith your mountain can be removed (Mk. 9:23), and that the notion of why worry when you can pray is still relevant today.

Worry super imposes the future on the present. It is a pre occupation of the mind with a bad thought that certain things may happen. Worry shifts the burden from God’s strong shoulders to our weak shoulders. Worry is a threat to faith. Worry is a faith wrecker. Worry is faith in the negative. Worry builds on supposition which has no basis with faith.

ii. Don’t worry about anything instead pray about everything

Worry comes when human beings interfere with God’s plan for their lives. Worry is the magnet that attracts negative conditions. It destroys. Worry is a special form of fear. It is what human beings do with simple fear, once it reaches the part of their brain called the cerebral cortex it leads to fear complex, anticipatory memory imagination and emotional destabilization.

Worry takes many forms, but it almost always stems from an overwhelming sense of vulnerability and powerlessness. Many of us locate the source of worry outside ourselves, believing it is triggered purely by life experiences such as: What is going on in the world to make me feel this way? Such thoughts only increase our feeling of vulnerability. And anyone who has been worried before knows all too well that even when the world is right, worry surfaces. The worrier may be momentarily calmed, but the fire of worry soon flares up again.

iii. Why do worriers go on worrying?

This is because his mind has, in effect, gone into a spasm, a grip that can’t relax and accept good news. He is suffering a kind of "brain burn" because his system is continually pumping out a huge bolus of adrenaline under high pressure.

Worry is like blood pressure: you need a certain level of it to live, but too much of it can kill you. At its worst, worry is insidious, invisible, a relentless scavenger, roaming the corners of your mind, feeding on anything it finds. It sets upon you, unwanted and unbidden, feasting on the infinite array of negative possibilities in life, diminishing your enjoyment of friend, family, achievements, and physical being, all because you live in fear of what might go wrong. People who worry too much suffer a lot. For all their hard work, for all their humor and willingness to laugh at themselves, for all their self- awareness, worriers just cannot achieve peace of mind. Worry is amazingly common. At least one on four of us will meet the criteria for an anxiety disorder at some points in our lifetime. Even those individuals whose lives are going well may worry excessively occasionally.

And yet, worry is a very treatable condition. Most people today are not aware of all that we have learned about worry in the last 50 years. Just as rainstorms may strike in different ways sudden thunderstorms, lingering drizzle, or occasional showers, so does worry attack its victims variously. We’ve come to understand the many distinctly different types of worry, and the underlying triggers. Worry may accompany simple shyness, depression, generalized anxiety disorder, or even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Each kind of worry responds to specific and powerful techniques, from cognitive therapy. to medication, to regular exercise.

Today, we are finally beginning to understand the biology of worry, to pinpoint what is happening in the nerve cells of the worrier, rather than his soul. It turns out that some of us may be born worriers. Our autonomic nervous systems are cranked up higher, and our blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate may be higher. And we may be less sensitive than others to the brain’s natural stress modulators, which are activated by the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid). People who have a good supply of GABA, or brains that are especially responsive to it, may be innately cool and calm.

By contrast, a fascinating 1996 study actually linked a gene called SLC6A4 to individuals who are highly susceptible to anxiety, pessimism, and negative thinking. Other pioneering research, by Jerome Kagan, Ph.D. has revealed that children who are high-strung and highly aroused early often become tense, shy worrying adults. Brain scans have also shown that people who ruminate have excess activity in a part of their brains called the ingulate cortex.

Our new knowledge has enabled us to stop blaming worriers for their woes, and begin helping them to get better. One of newest and most powerful findings is that brains are adaptable and flexible. You cannot give yourself a new brain but you can be redirected, restrained, retrained, reassured, and reset. You can change.

Many people who worry too much do so out of broken trust or loss of faith. If these people share what they really feel in their hearts, their story will reveal the deep trauma underlying their worry. Life is scary and insecure. But many people suffer excessively because they don’t know how or where to get support.

If Christ is in the center of your life the circumstances will take care of itself. Great things are achieved by those who dare to belief that God inside them is superior to their circumstances.

2.2 OVERCOMING ANXIETY

i. What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a troubled feeling affecting the mind, caused by worry and various forms of fears about the future. It is a demonic spirit sent from the pit of hell to confuse and torment the believer. Anxiety makes a person to do what he will not do under normal circumstances. (Gen. 3:17-19; 2 Sam. 12:10-13). Anxiety brings about perpetual bondage. Anxiety is a spirit of oppression that puts a believer in continuous bondage, except it is quickly