Three ways to read a catalogue

In the Christian circles I’m part of in Sydney, there’s a term we use when talking about some of the people in our churches: ‘self-starters’.

The term is, of course, just a piece of ministry shorthand. It’s a description of Christians who really get it—who understand the gospel and who not only want to see other people become Christians and grow in Christ, but who take initiative to make that happen.

They’re the people who latch on to newcomers and visitors and get to know them—asking them over for a meal, inviting them to join their Bible study group, or offering to read the Bible one-to-one with them. They look for opportunities to share the gospel with work colleagues. They phone the person who has missed church for a couple of weeks to check everything is okay.

They don’t need to be asked to do all these things, they just see the need, know what to do—whether because they’ve been trained or because it just comes pretty naturally to them—and get in and do it. The love of Christ compels them (2 Cor 5:14). And we all love having them in our congregation. 

But not every soundly converted Christian is a self-starter. Most of those who aren’t self-starters still understand that we want people to become Christians and to grow. But somehow it just doesn’t occur to them that they could actually do something about it—or perhaps they lack the confidence to take steps in that direction. If you give them a job to do, and explain it, they’ll do it willingly and most likely competently. But they don’t take the initiative.

Now, at this point, I’m going to take what might seem a somewhat tenuous leap in this blog post by telling you that Matthias Media’s 2016 Resource Guide has just been distributed in Australia (and we’re working on our US version right now).

So has this post just turned into an advertisement? A case of bait and switch? Stick with me for a little bit longer.

I want to suggest that there are three ways to read the resource guide, and one of these is a subtle way to move people from being soundly converted to being a soundly converted self-starter.

You see, the soundly converted Christian picks up a ministry resource catalogue like ours and flicks through it to see what they are interested in reading. So when they pick up our resource guide they see a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t seem all that relevant to them (unless they are a home group leader). Once they’ve browsed through it over breakfast, the catalogue probably goes in the recycling.

The self-starter, on the other hand, keeps the Resource Guide on her desk all year. After she meets an unconverted Chinese student at church, she grabs it and looks for a Chinese language evangelistic resource. In other words, she sees the ministry need first, then goes looking for the resource that can help her meet that need. (Although soon she might instead head to our new ‘resource finder’ app coming soon to our web site. But more about that in a future post.)

I want to suggest you train your soundly converted people who aren’t self-starters to browse the Resource Guide differently, so that they start to turn into self-starters with their own ministry niche. How?

Well, we want them to open their catalogue, look at each resource, figure out what it’s for, then ask, “Is that something I could use with someone, and, if so, who do I know that might be helped?”

For example, they come to Short Steps for Long Gains, read the description, and realize that it is a resource that can be used to meet with another Christian in a lunch break to talk about important Christian topics together: “I know Bridget at work is a Christian, but she doesn’t seem to have her Christian life very together. Maybe I could work through this resource with her? Maybe that would help her and me?!”

Or perhaps they notice the MiniZine Facing Depression Together and remember that they had a chat to Jeff at church about the fact that his dad suffers from quite bad depression: “Maybe I could get him a copy of that MiniZine and suggest we read it together and talk and pray about it.”

I could give you a thousand ideas like these from our Resource guide. But that’s not really the point. We want people to look at the resources and for the ideas to occur naturally to them, and with them taking into account their own personal gifts and ministry interests. Perhaps they relate well to the children or teenagers that God has placed in their lives, so the resources aimed at those age groups will jump out at them. Maybe they have great social skills and easily make non-Christian friends—so maybe their ministry light gets lit when they see the range of one-to-one evangelistic Bible studies they could use to share Jesus with those friends.

Self-starters spot the need and then find the resource. But other people can think like self-starters by beginning with the resource and asking “Has God put anyone in my life that I could help with this resource?” It’s a good first step in learning to see the needs around them and to think about other people differently—to regard them no longer from a worldly point of view, but to see the need to be Christ’s ambassadors, sharing the great message of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:16-21).