I came across this picture a few months ago as I was preparing a presentation for Area Director School. It was taken sometime in the early 1980s at Frontier Ranch. These young men all experienced significant ministry in their lives. That led me to reflect on some important questions:
How does ministry begin?
Ministry begins with prayer. I am not talking about beginning a program but beginning ministry, which means people are changed in the way they feel, think, and act.
This is what Scripture teaches, and it’s how Young Life began, with women praying before Jim Rayburn even began.
This commitment to prayer is typically guided by a list. We all know Matt 9:36-38. In this text, we see Jesus’ compassion (“He had compassion on them”) and the need of people (“they were like sheep without a shepherd”). When we are touched by Jesus’ love and the needs of the world, the proper response is to pray for workers in the harvest.
How does ministry develop?
As we pray, the Lord leads us into action based on the vision we have received from Him. This is focused on a specific target audience.
The target audience may be a population, a school, or a community. And the vision is best shared when it is written, which enables others to join. It is essentially, a map.
The map must be connected to our prayer life. If the vision doesn’t flow out of what God is doing in our heart in prayer, it becomes a burden to be carried rather than a joyful hope to be shared.
How does ministry grow?
What goes deepest to the heart goes widest to the world. At the heart of real transformation is discipleship; the slow, labor intensive work of pouring oneself into other lives.
Paul talks about discipleship when he says “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Discipleship is both an invitation to imitate and an invitation to serve Christ in the lives of others.
We capture this process visually in the Tree.
In your own ministry-with your leadership team, your staff, or maybe with one other person, I encourage you to share, on an ongoing basis, your prayer list or map, or your tree. Click on this link on Staff Resources for a tree template if needed.
This brings me back to the picture of that cabin of guys. They had all been on a prayer list. They were part of a map; a vision for ministry. And although, there was no written tree used with them, several were significantly involved in discipleship. One became a youth minister in the church for about 30 years.
As I was sharing this story and picture at Area Director School this past January, a woman from Indiana burst out, “He is my mentor!”
It turns out, the young man on the far left at the bottom, Rich, has been a Young Life committee member for years, and personally is a mentor to our AD in New Castle, Indiana.
Prayer. Vision. Discipleship.
List. Map. Tree.
By Ken Knipp