I was the Minister of Education, Music and Youth. I knew music and I knew youth, but the only experience I had had with Christian Education was what I got in college and from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary extension courses I took.
In other words, nothing. They teach a lot of theology in Bible college. They teach a lot of philosophy in Bible college. They even teach a lot of Bible. They teach a warped brand of pseudo-spirituality that does not translate into real life and they teach a strange mixture of “isms” that I call “theosophy.”
Applying that tripe in the real world of meeting Christians where they are and helping them to grow is a wasted endeavor.
What I learned from Harold Brown was how to effectively lead people to real spiritual growth using the principles laid out in God’s word.
When you look at the building of the Temple in I Kings, chapters 5 through 8, you see the phenomenal physical preparations that God instructed Solomon to make. You also see the way God spiritually prepared Solomon for the task. Finally, you see the immense attention to practical detail that God showed Solomon.
Pastor Brown taught me how that same process (which is also found in myriad other places in Scripture) plays out in the local church.
First and foremost, Harold taught me that if we want a strong, lasting worship service we have to build a strong Bible Study ministry. If we want to train many people to works of service, we have to build a strong Bible Study ministry. If we want a good music program that effectively teaches all age groups to participate, we have to build a strong Bible Study ministry. If we want a strong missions ministry, we have to build a strong Bible Study ministry.
In other words, a church that tries to set the worship service as it’s foundation might see gain over the short term due to the force of the personality at the top, but long-term, effective spiritual growth is achieved through the Bible Study ministry. That is because it is not dependent on the personality of the staff, but on the actual lay leaders in the church.
At the church I was serving, in three years, through a strong Bible Study ministry, we doubled in size, had to build a second educational complex, which was paid for before it was completed, enlarged the worship center and had seen dozens come to Christ, including two men who had served as deacons for as long as anybody could remember.
Here is the methodology he taught me to follow:
1. Prayer – not as an exercise, but as a constant moment-by-moment attitude of the heart to know God’s will for the next event in my life.
2. Preparation – not reinventing the wheel, but using the principles of God’s Word as they apply to the provision of His people’s physical, emotional and spiritual needs.
3. Organization – not for the sake of organization, but in order to follow God’s Word as seen in many places, not the least of which is Numbers, chapter 2: the organization of the tents of Israel in such a way that Balam could not curse them.
4. A realization that God’s Holy Spirit does not have a “new” way of doing things. Some principles He has already establish and we don’t have to ask Him for His leadership in them…we just need to find out what they are and to do them.
5. Following the Holy Spirit is not some mystical, magical, ethereal, metaphysical occurrence, but is a direct result of finding what He has already laid out for us the God’s Word.
There were five Spirit led steps that we took to accomplish what God was leading us to do:
1. We examined and discovered the needs of our community through effective, easy surveys that helped us find out who was there and who needed what.
2. We enlarged the organization by structuring ourselves for growth, including establishing classes for which there were not yet any members, so that when they came they would have a specific, pre-determined place to go (an early version of “if you build it they will come”).
3. We enlisted teachers and leaders and trained them to properly conduct a Bible Study class built on the Word of God, sound doctrine and meeting the needs of the people where they were in life. We trained teachers in regular sessions that let them go through the steps of teaching a Bible Study lesson for the particular age group to which they were being asked to minister. We discovered that it took about 15 leaders to grow by 50 members, a number that was not a formula, just a result we experienced.
4. We provided the physical space for Bible Study classes to meet. We “discovered” that to start five new units, five “spaces” were needed, not necessarily rooms. Not necessarily at the church.
5. We established a method of going after people, using the surveys we had done in step one and inviting them to the transformational Bible Study groups for all ages and stages we knew as Sunday School.
This is the Holy Spirit’s method of reaching people on a more than superficial level and for providing for their understanding of the word of God.
We learned that to enlist a hodge-podge of teachers not specifically trained in right doctrine, not properly trained to lead a Bible Study class, not in tune with the overall objective and goals of the church and not exposed to an on-going training process is to invite disaster.
From this ministry, we were able to recruit and train people for many areas of service. We trained them locally, sent them to special seminars and helped them grow in their area of ministry.
On any given Sunday we had close to 300 in Sunday School and between 100 and 150 being trained for ministry as teachers, deacons, song leaders, singers, fellowship leaders, missions leaders for adults, youth, children and preschoolers, and many other ministries, all to the glory of God.
I thank God for leading me to Herald Brown, who walked me step-by-step through the process of becoming an effective Minister of Education.
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