DEACON - CANDIDATE INFORMATION PACKET - Ryan Fields

means that more folks who were lost have come to saving faith in Christ and more folks who were without faithful church community now have it. But whether 10 or 10,000 folks are entrusted into our care, our priority is to see that they are growing in Christ, which will inevitably mean that they are more likely to share the gospel with their neighbors, co- workers, etc., and then numerical growth will likely happen as a consequence. When God grants the blessing of numerical growth, I believe the best model for channeling this growth is church planting (rather than multi-site or mega-church models). Tim Keller among others has written very convincingly that this is best way to both reach an area for the gospel and rejuvenate currently existing churches in an area. I have been blessed to be a part of two EFCA churches that have been very engaged in church planting (one has planted four churches in the course of twelve years), and I would want to make it a priority to help the church prayerfully consider how often we can raise up church planters and assist them in planting churches. I believe that the network of these daughter churches is something to cultivate and that it is a best practice to keep the mother church in contact with them and supporting them through prayer (and continued financial support as appropriate). Perhaps I could respond to this question in a broader way, in that I believe that senior pastor should be interfacing with each of these because they all play a role in helping the church to properly make disciples and see that those disciples become fully mature in Christ. The senior pastor's responsibility isn't to implement various programs that now run on their own; it is to see that these various programs, job responsibilities and staff positions serve the end of making and maturing disciples, whatever that might look like and whatever particular priorities it might mean for that day, week, month, season, or year. In other words, the senior pastor needs to be flexible to give due attention to any one part of the church's life and ministry as it is required. He is to ensure by God's grace that the making and maturing of disciples is something that is deeply rooted in every element of the church's culture. So, the senior pastor would be constantly asking: how can we cultivate this kind of maturity? How can we help our people to grow in grace; to deepen their relationship with God through Scripture and prayer; to cultivate greater relationships with their family, their church community, and with believing and unbelieving neighbors; to grow in a biblical understanding of the world and in a biblically informed engagement with the world; to enlarge their understanding of how their work is done unto God; to seek to serve others, especially the poor and marginalized, through hospitality and incarnation; and to become increasingly faithful stewards of their time, talent and treasure? He would also be asking: how is such maturity in Christ best cultivated? What aspects do we need to weave into our church culture so that this sort of maturity is the natural outcome? Of course ultimately I believe that the making and maturing of disciples is completely reliant upon the grace of God (John 15:4-5) even as we are called to cooperate with that grace (Phil 2:12-13). I also believe that the life of discipleship must be modeled by the pastoral leadership of the church, who should desire that believers continually mature in their relationship with Christ while they model what it looks like to grow as disciples of Jesus, increasingly imitating Him in all of life. How do you view your role as senior pastor in the following areas (Christian education, youth ministry, evangelism, missions, counseling, visitation, music, financial stewardship, pastoral and intern staff, and administration)?

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