Sermon Tone Analysis

THE NECESSITY OF ALIGNMENT

Three plans

Mark, Rick and Ben

God is moving in the hearts of these men.

How would you answer these three?

There is only so much energy and so many resources in your church, and you must use them for the most important things.

We do not need more people, we need more focus.

The fourth shift we advocate is from activity to relationship.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

170).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

170).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Instead of busying ourselves with well-intentioned yet haphazardly focused activities, we should make an intentional shift that nurtures the type of biblical relational discipleship we have been talking about.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

171).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

171).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Within this shift, we are advocating the principle of alignment, in which every program and ministry of a church exists in harmony with the overall goal of making disciples.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

171).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Various ministries are no longer seen as isolated components of the church.

They are not silos functioning as competitors for resources and leaders.

If a program is to exist (and clearly some should), it must move people to venues where spiritual growth can occur.

Everything the church does relates in some way to the primary mission of discipleship.

By applying this principle, church leaders protect their people from spending energy on things that lead to something other than what Jesus would consider success.

Success for the church isn’t feeding the poor a meal to satisfy their hunger.

Success is feeding the poor in such a way that they will wonder why we are doing what we do.

Our actions should lead them to hunger for the Bread of Life.

The Problem of Misalignment

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

171).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

We fail to ask why?

WVCSB

Mini-Bike Ministry

Having a lot of unconnected programs in a church not only raises the question of effectiveness; it also creates a quality problem.

The more programs you have and the more they are disconnected from a common purpose, the harder it is to lead, organize, and do things that really matter.—Jim

Putnam

It’s far easier to do fewer things well than to do a lot of things haphazardly.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

173).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

It also becomes hard to sustain a large number of programs over the long haul.

The original leaders get tired and drop out, so new staff or volunteers must be recruited.

The people coming to the programs and participating get tired too.

People get overwhelmed with the number of activities they engage in.

The whole process becomes hard to reproduce season after season.

To summarize, the principle of alignment means that

every program must be evaluated to see if it is really producing what Jesus values;

every program that has the potential to make disciples, but isn’t doing so, must align itself with the overall goal of biblical relational discipleship;

we do fewer things in the church, and we do them well.

Putman, Jim.

DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p.

173).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

A Little Exercise

exercise is to have your church’s leadership think through every program in your church, with an eye to discipleship.35

or instance, your church might hold an Easter egg hunt each year.

Ask: What’s the purpose of the hunt?

Who’s the audience you’re shooting for?

What’s the next step for people to take once they come to the hunt?

Take an Easter egg hunt.

Ask: What’s the purpose of the hunt?

Who’s the audience you’re shooting for?

What’s the next step for people to take once they come to the hunt?

Ideally, with an Easter egg hunt, you want to create a fun environment to which your people can invite non-Christians so they can gain a different perspective of church.

You want it to be easy for your people to invite their friends to a worship service after the hunt, because they now have a new understanding of what the people in the church look like and act like.

Once your people’s friends are at a service, you want them to hear about Jesus in a compelling way so they ask the ones who brought them more about some of the perceptions they have had.

You want to have the believers you teach in your church to be ready for those questions and to know how to answer them or how to get answers for them.

Eventually you want to move people to small groups, and so on.

Each ministry and its leaders must be aligned to the overall purpose, and whatever you do needs to move people to the next stage.

Every ministry in the church must funnel people back to the relational small group, where biblical discipleship can happen.

The challenge with alignment is that we as leaders are telling people to use the gifts they have been given for God’s glory and his mission to reach the world.

At the same time, if this is happening well, so many people will have what they think are good ideas about how to use those gifts.

They want us to champion their causes, and to be honest, we love them and don’t want to dissuade them from doing what is in part the right thing to do.

However, if we don’t align people, ensuring that each and every ministry is matched and fitted to the purpose of making disciples, the real mission of the church, we will end up with a mismatched, disconnected community of people pursuing their own goals and programs that take on a life of their own.

This is why every program in a church must be aligned with the goal of relational discipleship in view.

We must learn to discern the difference between the good and the great, the well-meaning and the highly focused, the ineffective and the effective.

Church leaders must examine every program and ask, What’s the best use of our time according to the mission God has given us?

In the book they give this example;

Discuss the alignment concept.

Why must everything in a church lead to discipleship?

If your church has a baseball team, for instance, the purpose of that baseball team is not just to play ball; it’s to disciple people.

In order to take people where you want to lead them, you have to start where they are.

So baseball becomes a point of contact.

A baseball team is a wonderful way of developing a relationship of trust that then brings the opportunity to present the gospel to people who will believe.

It could be a thousand other things besides baseball.

A point of contact is developed wherever the people are and are interested.