In this video from ETCH Conference 2016, Senior Pastor Eric Geiger discusses how equipping others for ministry is often overlooked and not treated as a conviction in the same way preaching Scripture is.
Learn more about ETCH Family Ministry Conference here.
The entire video is above, and the complete transcript is below.
Here’s what has to happen for us to really believe this, to really believe Ephesians 4:11-13. We’ve gotta have, everyone of us, those of us who are in ministry and we are, a conviction for equipping.
Here’s how I think you can tell if you have a conviction, if I have a conviction. If you can’t imagine ministry without something, it’s not a conviction.
For example, my friends in ministry, all of them, they all have a conviction to preach the Scripture, all of them. Everyone of them. And so if I went to them and said, “Hey listen, you know, we’re now finding that you can have a really healthy ministry if you don’t preach the Scripture, if you don’t teach kids or students, or you don’t teach the flock the Word of God. You can have a really healthy ministry. People will accept you in your community more. You’ll have a healthy ministry if you don’t teach the Scripture.” My friends would say, “Bro, like, that doesn’t make any sense. I don’t care what the promise is. I’m not going operate in ministry that way because what is ministry apart from the Scripture? What is discipleship apart from the Word?”
That’s a conviction. If you cannot imagine ministry without something then it’s a conviction.
My friends also, and I would say this is true for us in this room, if somebody came to you and said, “Listen, you can have a healthy kids ministry, you can have a really popular student ministry in your community if you stop calling kids and students to repentance and faith in Christ.” I mean, we would say like, “There’s no point. That doesn’t make any sense.”
I mean, we do this because we believe there’s a heaven and hell. We do this because we believe that Jesus changes the human heart. We do this because Jesus brings salvation to His people. That’s why we’re in this.
You would tap out. You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t make that trade because you believe in the core of who you are that calling students and kids to faith in Jesus is a conviction for you. It’s part of why we do this.
But is equipping the same level of conviction? I mean, do you really believe? I mean, I didn’t. I didn’t when I first started. The the role of a ministry leader isn’t to do, to perform all the ministry, but it’s to equip, to prepare others for ministry. Is this a conviction?