Sunday School Leader Focus: Ministry

- I am delighted tonight to have one of my friends, I shouldn't say long-term friends, but Ken and I can't deny it anymore. We've been around the block a few times and we've been around that block several times together. Ken and I kind of both came up during what was called the Church Growth Movement, we participated heavily in something called the Growth Spiral, and then both of us were very involved with the Faith Sunday School Evangelism Ministry. Ken has continued on in his work with LifeWay, helping churches in Sunday school and all aspects of Sunday school, not just growth, but outreach, ministry, so forth and so on, but he's always been near and dear to my heart when it comes to ministry, 'cause one of the things he will probably tell you about tonight is quit calling it enrollment, let's call it the ministry list 'cause that why that's why those people are there is for us to minister to them. As of January one, Ken retired and retreaded, so he's retired from LifeWay after many years there then with Tennessee Baptist Convention for awhile also pastored and so a wonderful time of service and ministry throughout his years. And so, a very good friend. Ken, we're delighted to have you tonight, you currently are a member at Brentwood Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tennessee, just South of Nashville where he also teaches via Zoom a empty nester Sunday school class. So, he still has his hand very active in Sunday school and ministry. And so Ken, I'm not gonna take up anymore of your time and let you have at it, welcome, Ken.

- Thank you, Daniel, thank you very much. Hope everybody in here okay. If not, I'm sure Daniel your way that'd be something, but I am delighted to be a part of this, been doing Zoom now, who would have ever thought we would be doing life groups and Sunday school classes, wherever you might call yours via technology for this many months. I would have thought when we started the first non-physical church services in March, we'd be done with this in June, everything will be fine, March, April, May, yet surely three or four months and now we're still doing this. And so, I get to teach every Sunday morning, our attendance is 20 to 25, 27 in nesters on Sunday morning and that's working well for us and so all of our folks are enjoying it. They wanna get back to church, obviously, but right now it's not the time, especially for the life groups Sunday school classes, Daniel asked me and Jamie asked me to talk about the ministry list, and this is a concept that came up with several years ago and it's probably not new to you now, but as far as I know, I'm the first person as far as my memory carries me, let me put it that way. The first time I heard of the concept of the ministry list taking the place of the role was for me, I thought about this and I came up with this idea and began to share it at Glorietta and at Ridgecrest with pastors and other Sunday school leaders who caught on pretty well, was putting in some of our books and some of our material, I know that Francis picked it up put it several of his small books and here's the concept, the concept is that when you think of the Sunday school role, you immediately think of a list of people who ought to be in attendance. And so, the role conjures up this thing of, if you're not here, then you shouldn't be on our roll, thus we will drop you from our roll, and we still have churches in Sunday school classes doing roll cleaning. And so, the idea became, it's not our job to get people to come to Sunday school, it's our job to love all people. And so, the role which conjures up this idea of attendance, let's try to get rid of that and go to the concept of the role is a list of people that we need to be ministering to on a weekly basis. So, that's why we have that term, the ministry list. Really and truly, I've had people through the years talk to me about, I just can't give up people to go with that term, they can't change it, don't change it, it's okay. What we wanna do is change the concept of why it exists. it's kind of, and on your handout, I'm hoping most of you got the handout, all of you got their hand out when you registered and so forth, most kind of following along here. The why is the big deal here, why do we have a church? Why are we there at church? What is it that we need to be accomplishing? And I'm fully convinced we need to change our philosophy, we need to change our purpose or redefine our purpose and we need to change this name. And here's the deal, If I were to come to your church Sunday and just walk the halls before Sunday school and I had a notebook in my hand, and I would say to your members, "I'm connecting a survey, why are you here today? "I'd really like to know," what would be the answers, right? If we had an open mic discussion, here's what I would hear, people in your church would say, "Well, it's just my habit, "I grew up this church, "I've been here every year, you know, I mean, "every Sunday for 23 years, "and I don't know what else to do on Sunday morning. "It's just what I do." Other people would say, "We're on joint fellowship. "you know, I used to love people, "and I need to see my friends and buddies, you know," and somebody else said, "I need prayer, oh my gosh, "this is the place I come to get reenergized "and recharged through prayer ministry and needs "and so forth and so on." And somebody else would say, "Well, you know, "I just feel like this is where I have to serve. "I've gotta serve here, the Bible is clear about serving." You see where I'm going? We get tons of different, and people come to your church on Sunday morning for different reasons. I hate to pop your bubble here, but they're not all there for the same reason, the truth of the matter is the church exists to reach people for Christ, that's why we have the church. The church is not there for us, even though that's the number one answer that most of our people give, it's unselfish reasons. The reason I'm here for this, that's gonna help me. I'm here to do this, that's gonna help me, even though they may not verbalize that it's gonna help me part. So, most people attend the church that they do because it meets their needs, not a bad thing, but the truth is in meeting our needs, we must be about reaching people for Christ, that's why we have a church. So, the purpose of the church is to reach people for Christ, that's why you have a church, that's why we do what we do in church. And so, in the concept of the Sunday school, let's figure out, well, what can we do better in order to reach people? Number one, we've gotta take care of what we've got. Some of you on the webinar tonight probably have people in your Sunday school roll who have stopped attending. I know that's a shock to some of you, but honestly, I haven't been to a church yet in my 35 years of doing this with LifeWay Sunday School Board Tennessee Convention, I'm in a church unit where they had everybody there every week. So, there are people there that don't attend, they've dropped out for some reason, and what happened was their needs weren't met, I don't know what their needs were, we're gonna talk about this in just a minute about the needs, but their needs weren't met. So, we need to focus on taking care of what we've got before we start thinking about reaching others for Christ, which is our priority, which is our priority. So, we've gotta think about a change of philosophy. Instead of a roll expecting people to attend, our philosophy now is going to be, let's think about a ministry list so that we can minister to everybody on a weekly basis. And again, we'll talk about that a little bit more in a few minutes and kind of delve into how do we do that? But the why is the big deal, and I wanna say to the pastors and I know we don't have many of the pastors with us tonight, but if I could just say a word, the pastor is the why guy, we have to have the pastors input for this. The pastor has to explain to the congregation the why behind the Sunday school ministry list, why we're changing the name from the Sunday school roll to the ministry list. The pastor has to be the why guy, he's gotta say it, he's gotta say it again, he's gotta say it again. If it comes from the pulpit, the pastor's saying it then it becomes important to the congregation. So, we've gotta keep saying it over and over again, this is why we're doing this. I met in consultation with the church about two weeks ago and we started out the meeting with the why, why are we here? We're here to reach people for Christ, that's why we're here, that's why we have church. And it was great in that everything from then on in the consultation, in the staff meeting, from then on, staff members would yell, but we need to come back to the why. Yell, but we need to come back to the why. So, pastors need to be the why guy, they have to explain and keep it in front of us every week. Folks, listen, we're here in order to reach people for Christ, that's why we're doing these things that we do. So, the ministry list, I wanna talk to you a minute or two and on your outline here you'll see the function of the ministry list, attendance is not the issue, I already dealt with that, it's not our job to get people to attend. And a very important statements you need to highlight and underline, attendance always follows ministry. When you love all people, when you care for people, then you don't have to worry about whether or not they are attending. When their needs are met, they'll be there, when their needs are absent, guess what? They'll find somewhere else to go. The obligation, here's an interesting concept that happens in church and I know what happens in yours, it probably and I'm sure it happens in mine. When somebody joins your Sunday school class or somebody joins your church, we get the impression that they just obligated themselves to our church or they have obligated themselves to our class. Truth matter is, we just obligated ourself to them. When they agreed to become a member of that congregation, or a member of your Bible study class, your Sunday school class, you just obligated yourself to care for them to love on them, to do the things necessary, and we'll talk about those things that are necessary here in just a minute, to keep them engaged, to keep them serving as God would want them to serve in and through the life of the church. The organization, let me talk to you a little bit about the organization, we call the organization to minister to the class care groups not as a whole, that's an old term, I can't figure out a better one. You could call them ministry groups, I guess, I've had a couple of churches that are moving that route, but let's just say that you've got a class of 20 people that own the ministry list and by the way, since we're not emphasizing attendance, but we're emphasizing ministry, you don't have to worry about how big the ministry list is or is not. You immediately go to this idea of here's the criteria by which we measure success. Did we minister to everybody this week? Not did everybody show up for class, and if they didn't for three weeks in a row, we drop them and throw them in the trash can, or if they didn't show up for six months, they must not care, they're not interested, throw them in the trash can. The measurement here is, did we care for them and minister to them this week? So, every week, everybody has some kind of ministry contact. How do we do that? Teacher, is not your job to minister to everybody, we can't do that, I mean, you couldn't do that at all. Unless you kind of had a class of three or four or five, and then that's a lot of work. And you're robbing people of the opportunity to serve. So, we take the class ministry list and we put it in groups, if you're in a coed class like me, you could put eight people in a group, that's four couples there. My class has some singles in there, two widow ladies, I think, and there are a couple of other single men and other single lady, so we've got some single soul. we'll put a couple of couples and then a couple of singles and have about five to six, seven people in a group. So, you wanna take your class and divide it into groups. in a court, I count, I know some people disagree. I count a husband and wife as one contact, even though I know they have different prayer needs and different issues, usually if I call or contact the husband, he's gonna tell me a prayer need that he and his wife are sharing or if I call or contact the wife, she's gonna tell me her prayer need her and her husband are sharing. So, it's a shared responsibility there. So, I want it where that I can assign groups in my class, groups of five, six, seven people depending on the number of couples in the class. And each group has its own ministry group leader. So, we used to call those care group leaders, we still call them care group leaders, but each minister group leader. So, in a class of 20, you might have four groups of five and out of those four groups, one person from each group becomes a ministry group leader, and your job as ministry group leader is to contact the other four in the group every week for ministry, that's your job, that's all you gotta do. And there's no wrong way to contact, that's the great thing about this. You can contact them with email, with text, with a phone call, with a visit, any way that you possibly can contact them, then you do that on a weekly basis. Now, here's the contact, never ever contact somebody for attendance, don't ever contact somebody and say, "Where you been?" You don't wanna know, there's never a good reason and a good story coming out of, where have you been, especially if they hadn't been in six months or something. So, you contact people on a weekly basis for ministry. Let's say you start this in your church in a week or two, and you give me a list of four people to contact, and the first thing I do is I pick up the phone call, I call Fred, say, "Fred, this Ken Marler from your class "at church, I'm just letting you know "that I've got a couple of prayer requests from Sunday, "I wanna reiterate and just remind you, man, "these people need our prayer. "I hope that you got that on your list, and by the way, "if you got any pray needs I can share back with the class "that maybe you forgot to share Sunday "or that's on your heart, something I can share." And if Fred says no, I'll say, "Well, thanks and hang up." That's the ministry contact. Let's say that I get and I did this one time with a church in Atlanta, I was serving as a consultant with them and the church, by the way, if your church is running below 40% of the Sunday school enrollment, used to be enrollment, now it's the ministry list. If your church is running below 40%, that's a red flag, not a big deal for some places, for some places it is, but it's kind of a red flag for me, if I walk in as a consultant in your church, and I say, "Let me see you number, let me see your records," and it's below 40%, that's just kind of a red flag. All it says is you're not keeping care of what you got, why would God give you more? So, I went to this church in Atlanta, pretty big church. They were at 33% of their Sunday school enrollment. I said, "y'all are kind of, you're not keeping up." Nah, we probably got dead people on our roll, and guess what, they did. In some churches, the roll gets kind of pushed aside, and so I shared with them this concept of the ministry list is the roll, we wanna minister everybody, every week and they bought it, I mean, Sunday school leadership. I met with them on a Monday night and staff and Sunday school leaders and they said, "We've got to do a better job "of keeping care and we need to take care "of those people that are still on the roll, "but hadn't been in two years. "And then we've got people that have died, "we need to take them off the roll." And so, we went through this, so I went back on a Monday night to train the ministry group leaders and there was a guy in the room, I could tell he didn't wanna be there. He had been elected ministry group leader of a senior adult men's class, and I could tell his wife made him come to this meeting. He would rather somebody had taken a wet rubber hose and just whooped him good to make him come to this meeting. He didn't wanna be there. But he was there, he sat in the back about 3/4 of the way through, he said, "Let me get this straight," he held his hand up straight, let me get this straight, he said, "Now, I got a list here. "Six names," yes, sir. And they had already given him his list before he had trained. And he said, "You want meet to call "these other five men?" Yes, sir. "And you want be to say to them, "if you got any prayer needs, "here's a couple from Sunday I'm trying to remind you about "and that's it." I said, "yeah, sure, that's it, it's a ministry contact, "that's all you gotta," he's okay. He said, "But wait a minute, I've got a name on my list "hadn't been in eight years." And there was a man on his list, there's a miracle, that somebody stayed on the Sunday school roll eight years and wouldn't drop, but hadn't been in a year. So, I said, "Here's what you need to do," I said, "You gotta trade lightly with this guy, and that you should call him up just say, my name is so and so, Baptist church. 'cause you're gonna have to remind him the name of the church, trust me, he's forgotten. And your Sunday school class, don't call it another, reminding your Sunday school class and we're starting a prayer ministry and we need your help. So, first of all, you have engaged this guy, you've told him he's valuable, you've told him you need his help, you've reminded him you're from his church. If he's joined another church, guess what? Okay, if he's joining another church, thank him, glad you're there, hope you serving the Lord there, hope you're doing well, let us know, take you out to Sunday school roll, You probably already joined that church so we can take you off our church roll, that kind. So, sure enough, I go back in about six weeks in that church do a follow up and this guy is at the next meeting. And I just knew he hadn't called this guy, hadn't been in eight years and believe it or not, I got there early, when I got there early, he was right behind me. And this guy, I come into the room. he walked up to me, "So, I did what you said." I said, "What'd you do?" he said, "I called all those other people, "on my roll, my ministry list." And he said, "I called the guy hadn't been in eight years." He said, "I did exactly what you said." he said, "I did change one thing." But he said, "I called him, I said my name is so and so, "your Sunday school class, so and so baptist church, "we're starting a ministry of prayer, "it's the preacher's idea." He said, I put it on preachers. I told him it was preachers idea, 'cause I knew the guy was gonna yell at me and be mad for messing up his evening but he said, "Here's some prayer requests "from last Sunday, have you got any prayer needs?" And he looked at me and he said, would you believe the guy said, "Yeah, I got a prayer." He said, "I really was glad I was sitting down when they guy on the phone on the other end, who hadn't been in eight years said, "Yes, I had a prayer need." I'm probably the first guy in eight years that asked him, did he have a prayer need And he said, "So I said to him, well, "give me your prayer need and I'll turn it into the class "Sunday, we'll start praying for that "if you'll pray for these couple of needs that we have." And the man said on the phone, hadn't been in eight years. "I wish you all would pray I get back in church." You never know what needs are out there. If we don't address them, trust me, they're not gonna get met. And he met that need that night with that phone call, so the ministry list becomes very important, and that's the how to do that. Make sure you organize your class to take care of who've you got, and you do it from the perspective of ministry, not attendance. You do it from the perspective of, let's start with a prayer need, that's the easiest need to start with and ask people in their way. So, the organization ought to be ought to be pretty clear for you. And it's fluid and flexible, you do it the way that seems best for you. Then the results are this, that first of all, needs are met. Now, there's four needs, There's four things that we wanna make sure take place through our ministry and Bible study. Life-changing Bible study. Obviously, that's important that our teachers give the time, energy. Secondly, weekly ministry. We've got to do that, if we're gonna have Sunday school, if we're gonna have Bible study, we're gonna have to make sure that the weekly ministry takes place. The third thing is we get to use our spiritual gifts and we give other people. See this guy hadn't been in two year, now we're gonna engage him, we make sure he gets back in the class, we're gonna make sure now that he gets to use his spiritual gifts, whatever they are, and then last, regular fellowship opportunities can happen with other believers. And I can't tell you how important. We understand that more now and in the COVID world, in the pandemic than ever before. Regular fellowship opportunities. The Zoom, thank the Lord for this technology that somebody other than me has come up with, but the truth of the matter is there's nothing like personal, there's nothing like face-to-face, and I know that people are itching to get back to face-to-face, and I'm glad we have what we have right now, but regular fellowship opportunities are important for ourselves. Those are the things that we have related to the ministry list. Now, the other thing that is an interesting thing here. And that's at the bottom of your page, how do we put people on ministry lists? Now, here's where I came up with this list, there is a list of 10 things. I had a group of 52 ministers of education in the meeting, and I had them get into groups and I said, "Guys, give me your best ways "to get people on the roll or the ministry list," after I'd talked to them about the ministry list. And these came from other people, these came from practicing ministers of education all across the nation. In fact, this came from ministers of education in Doriana and a Sunday school conference out there and at Ridgecrest at a Sunday school conference there. So, these are ideas of that ministers of education came up with, and I think they're great ideas as far as and you can take some of these, but how do we get people on ministry list? And this is building the enrollment, this is expanding. We're gonna take care of what we've got, and so we make sure that people are not being dropped from the roll, but are on the roll, they're own ministry lists, they've been cared for our ministry to every week. And we start from the concept and the perception of ministry, not attendance, all those kinds of things are important. But number one, practice open listing and encourage the members to carry ministry lists sign up cards, provide testimonies and worship services and servants highlighting the successes of the ministry list concept. Here's a family, here's a person, we reached through ministry and our Bible study class was able to administer this family in need, in the time of crisis, in the time of hurt, in the time of celebration. And we ministered to them and we're able to put them on our ministry list. People would tend to accept being put on a list for ministry quicker than they would a list for enrollment, 'cause then enrollment, all of a sudden, they think the obligation goes to them, they're obligated to attend, whereas the ministry list means that the class is obligated to us. Number two, donate size percentages, remember, we're not in percentage business, we're in the people business. Number three, celebrate new ministry list signups. When people get on the ministry list, celebrate that 'cause we know what's gonna happen, they're gonna get life-changing Bible study, weekly ministry, opportunity to use their spiritual gifts and regular fellowship opportunities, that's celebration right there. We can get them on the ministry list, here's four things we can promise you and they're listed under the results. Control the drop process, don't drop people from the ministry list or the roll list, they've joined another church, if they die, and you saw them at his funeral home, that would be best 'cause we've had people, I've been to churches before where we were trying to validate the roll and figure it out and sure enough, somebody in the room said, "Well, I think he died, didn't he?" And we dropped him, throw him in a trash can and guess what? He hadn't died, so control that process. Report all ministry lists progress and worship services. This is a good time to be doing that, you're in pandemic when we're not in Sunday school in person in church, how many people are we ministering to on a regular weekly basis now that we can't count attendance? What can we do to help in that process? And then number six, prepare a special Sunday school lesson on hospitality, perhaps using Acts 11, Barnabas went to Antioch and saw evidence of the grace of God. What did he say when he saw God's grace in evidence? It was a spirit of acceptance, and glad you're here and welcome, and that kind of thing. And then number seven, invite those enrolled in Bible school, a vacation Bible school, mother's day out, other ministries to be placed on the class ministry list for Bible study so that we can keep up with you and pray with you, and you can pray with us on ministry list. Number eight, provide a place in guest registration cards. Perhaps you use those cards in the Pew rank on Sunday morning. If you're a guest here today, we'd love to have a record of your attendance, we would love to put you on a ministry list, assigned to a Bible study class. It makes a lot more sense than enroll in our Sunday school. Number nine, contact people who are church members, but not Sunday school members, ask if they could be assigned to class via the ministry list. Now, this is not a you should attend list, it's a ministry list, and there's always those people. And then number 10, put people in the ministry list, their special interest groups. If your church hosts sport groups, other club type groups, it's within your ministry purpose to reach them, open ministry list placement and benefits of membership could reach some, mistype that right there. But have that open ministry list concept where you can put people in ministry list and not expect attendance, but guess what? We've already said it, attendance follows ministry. All right, Daniel, let's say, do we have any discussion, questions, anything like that? If there is something.

- Yeah, Ken, everybody's being bashful right now, they've been listening and not asking questions, which I knew would happen. I'll say to some of them that I know, don't make me call you out, I know you got . but I have questions and I have comments. I put some comments in the chat box for panelists roll and underscored that you talked about that we contact people for ministry not attendance. Don't ask where you been, what you been doing? Instead, go with here are some prayer needs, do you have anything I can pray for you? I also said, remember that your ministry list, when we did it and still do it, we say this to people. We want you on our ministry list so that we can pray for you, and you said that, we can pray for you, share with you and care for you if you ever have a need. Now, Ken, I have heard you through the years share some stories where people have had some needs revealed and some of those folks that told you this wouldn't work, got a plan together, met a need and had some shouting time. Can you maybe share one or two of those that pops to mind?

- Oh sure in fact today, Dan Garland, who used to be my boss, he retired last year and he and I were playing golf. Dan was pastoring Kentucky before he came and worked Sunday school board, and I've shared some of this with Dan and he went back home and tried it. He was one of those pastors, he'd come to Ridgecrest and go to Sunday school week and he'd learn or go to a conference in Sunday school class. 'cause his a big sensitive guy. And sure enough, I was telling him about the prayer needs and going to every class and saying, "okay, here's the deal, we wanna pray people back." And again, that goes to the concept of taking care of what you got. If you don't take care of what you got, why would God give you more? I really think that's why some churches aren't growing, they're not caring for what they got, why would God give them more? So, Dan went back to his church and said, "okay, I want every Sunday school class "to go with this philosophy, you've got a ministry list." And he said, "The number one class that was the hard," and he said, "Ken, I did this." He was telling me about this later, he said, "I did this because I just wanted "to do something different," he said, "I had every Sunday school class, adult class "in the church make a poster "of their chronic absentees." He said, "These are people on the road." He said, "I wouldn't let them drop them out, "even though they wanted to drop," He said, "But these were people "on the Sunday school ministry list, "we had changed the name who hadn't been in six months." And usually, that's what we call a chronic absentee. Somebody who hadn't been in six months, and he said, "I gave them all poster board," and said, "I told the class, make a poster board, "put it up in your room, "these are the people we gotta be praying for "to take care of our own." And he looked at me and he said, "You ever tried to get a senior adult man's class "to make a poster board," he said that was pretty tough, and he said, "but I put the poster board in there, I told him this this aint grumble some of them kind of this and that. But he said, finally, one of the guys got down on the floor on his knees and said, "give me the poster board marker, we're not gonna do anything, get settling till we make this, so he looked at secretary and said, "Secretary," so the secretary said, "well, give me the names "of everybody hadn't been in six months," and he wrote their names with the marker poster board and stuck it in the window. And he said, the interesting thing about this man's class was that they were serious pray warriors. Oh my gosh, he said there was never a need in the church more taken care of prayerfully then what those men did 'cause you usually think of the lady saint Sunday school class, he said these men, they start praying. he said, a guy walks into class, that hadn't been several years, about 40 years I think he said. He hadn't been in class, the third Sunday. I think it was the third Sunday, maybe in the second. Anyway this guy walks in on Sunday morning he hadn't been in two or three years, he just walks in. And of course they all looking at him, they're all scramble to find him a chair 'cause everybody's got their own chair, so if you get people back, you gotta find them a chair, he said they scrambling went out in the hall, got him a chair and sat down. And he said, maybe this guy looked in the window and saw his name on the poster board, you know, like, okay. Curious, he said, "Oh, hey guys, what's my name doing on that poster board?" that day and the pastor said, every man in there like, broke out in the sweat, oh my gosh, what are we gonna do? So one of them, he said kind of has to fit, decides to tell the truth and said, "Well, it was the preacher's idea," which, again, the preacher always gets the blame. So, it's a list of people who hadn't been in a while and all the men are thinking out, wow It's been for years. So anyway, Dan said, the guy got up and walked over to the window, the guy that hadn't been in a couple of years, his name was on poster board, marker was still laying in the window. He took the marker, took the cap off and scraps his name out and he looked at the guys and said, "All right, let's pray the rest of them back." He got it before the class got it.

- Yeah.

- And he understood it before the class understood it that they did pray this man back. In fact, he told the guys, he said, "I'm here today and I don't have a reason. "I woke up this morning and decided, man, "this is a nice morning, I hadn't been to church "and well, I think I'd get up and go." And he said, now I understand it was God's Holy spirit prompting me. That I need to get back to church, and your prayers prompted me to be here today, and he saw it before the class saw it. So, when we care for what we, I mean, here again, they just had his name, they didn't have him and they could have sat around and talked about him. Oh, he ought to be here, he ought to know what to do, one time he was faithful, you can sit around and talk about people all day long, but until you do something to minister to 'em, then that's what the ministry list is all about.

- Yeah, well, like I said, I've been with you quite a bit up and down the road, heard some of these stories before, I started having my groups label that poster board most wanted.

- Oh cool, I like that.

- So when he had that question asked. why is my name up there? It's 'cause you're one of the people we've most wanted in our class, and we've been praying for you to come. And we had a similar experience where a fella came in and they said that you're one of the people we've been praying for, 'cause we most wanted you. And he said, "well, how's that work?" They said, "Well, we put your name up "actually about two weeks ago, "and the first thing we do "is we pray for you for three weeks and nothing else. "And then we reach out to you "and see how we can pray specifically for you "and begin to minister to you." And said, "We hadn't quite got to that point yet." And he said, "No, but he said I knew "I had to come to church this morning, now I know why."

- There you go.

- And then he turns around and says, "When can I put somebody's name up there That I want which was, I mean, really mind boggling. 'cause it's like, I get it. and now there's somebody I'd like to have come with me.

- Right.

- Can I put a name up there and y'all start praying for them?

- Yeah, and it's gone for me and reached out reached thin, now you're doing both.

- Because, in our most wanted doesn't necessarily include chronic absentees, it has some that are, some that have just kind of popped in, and attendance this day in time is getting pretty sporadic.

- Whoo, it's getting weird.

- And so, somebody misses three times in a row, if you're not ministering to them, they're gonna become a chronic absentee.

- Yeah.

- And so, sometimes it's somebody that they've reached out to you, they haven't been able to get them or whatever, they just begin the process as a class, we'll make a prayer list, people you wanna see and they'll put them on the most wanted and they'll begin to work together. So, it becomes kind of a ministry list and a missions list if you will.

- Yeah.

- So, I mean, there's some neat things that can happen with that, one of the big things I believe that happens out of it is just the visual reminds you every week of your responsibility,

- Yeah.

- I've gone into classes where their ministry lists, like, if you were the ministry group leader, your list would be up there with the four or five that you had responsibility for.

- Yeah.

- And so literally when they convened their class, they'd go, "Ken, tell us "about your ministry list this morning." And he might say, "well, you'll see three of mine are here, "but Jamie, he's having to work this week "or he's got child at home or whatever." They put an extra emphasis on that ministry list matters.

- Oh, it does.

- A friend of ours, Allen Tyler used to say that if you don't have a platform, you don't perform, and I do believe that if you never ask your ministry leaders about their ministry list, then sooner or later, it's out of sight out of mind. So, I think that vision is important.

- Oh, it is, nothing too in this world, I mean, it's just widening, broadening. The thing is make sure your preschool and children and youth or student teachers are assigned adult classes for ministry. And so you could have a class of adults of empty nesters with four people on the ministry list who teach in preschool. And it's good for them to know, I got an adult class that cares about me and have somebody that don't class care for those associate members or missionary members, I call them missionary members, but care for those missionary or associate members through ministry.

- Right.

- And So it's good to have those that you don't count them as on your role or officially, but they can certainly be a part of your ministry list, not for attendance or anything, but for ministry, 'cause a lot of times, those people get ignored, the children in preschool and student teachers, and if they know they have an adult class caring for them on a weekly basis, then they know they're not forgotten.

- Yeah.

- I think that's important.

- Well, Ken, I say we have a question from John Temple, he said, and I think this is the John Temple you and I know. says could deacons focus on ministry care leaders instead of members?

- Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think through that. In other words, if a class of 20 had four care leaders, ministry group leaders will the deacons be responsible for caring for them, 'cause they do get kinda left out sometime. they would probably be a great concept, I think that somebody needs to. Usually, the person doing the blessing gets the blessing, but I would certainly think that's a great idea to put the four care group leaders in a group, in a class, in a group and then assign a deacon to them, that's a great idea.

- We've actually done that in a few places, John, where it helps with Deacon Family Ministry.

- Right.

- Because they've got some others that are making week to week phone calls, so if that class ministry leader makes the call and finds out somebody is gonna be in the hospital, they know the first person they should call is the deacon. So that you get a chain going. Hopefully, the class will visit them in the hospital, but also their Deacon Family Minister will have been alerted. And so, he will be able to go and make proper visit or proper ministry, whatever the case may be, we kinda had an incident this past week that the first thing we did was make some initial contacts that those that needed to know in addition to our group, some that are beyond. And so, John, I think that's an excellent idea. It takes a little more coordination, but I think we'd be well worth it, because Deacon Family Ministry, depending on the size of your church can be pretty daunting. So, if you have a Deacon that maybe only has to work with a couple of different classes, he could even go buy those classes on Sunday morning and catch the ministry leaders face-to-face and say, "give me update, is there anything I need to know? "Is there anybody I need to call this week from your group "that you're sensing needs a extra ministry touch." So, I think there's some real potential in there, John.

- Yeah, and it also has a deacon presence in every adult Sunday school class, which is a support, I mean, if I'm a ministry group leader in a class and all of a sudden, there's a ministry need coming up I need help with. I'm gonna call my deacon and say, "Hey, I need for you to go with me on this visit. "I have something here happening "and I just need some emotional support "and prayer support while I'm on this visit." So, that's another good aspect of that.

- Yeah.

- And ken, I know you teach a class now. So, in light of this social distancing and COVID and all and having to do Zoom Sunday school classes, what are some practical things that you can do to minister to your ministry role, your ministry list of folks there? As something we're all doing.

- Yeah, well, we're using email and text, primarily phone calls. I've got two ladies in our class that are steer write cards and use snail mail. It's really funny, but that's their ministry and that's what they wanna do and so we still have them with that. What has happened too is that the COVID thing has expanded ministry, because now with people not coming, you still have a list, and if the class sees the list, sometimes they're surprised. I didn't know that person was on our roll, I didn't know that person was on our list, 'cause they only look at who attends. Now, you look at who we really can minister to and so the expansion in my class, honestly, I've got more faithful attendance now than pre-COVID. Now, I don't know how long that, because for example, last Sunday morning, I had a couple, they have a lake house down at Tim Ford Lake, and they wouldn't have been in Sunday school lesson morning 'cause they were down there for the weekend, but guess where they were, they were in the Zoom class and they were sitting, with their back to the Lake, and that's just who they are. They're empty nesters, they got the money, they have a Lake house down Tim Ford. They're gonna go down there three out of four weekends in the summer. That's just what they're gonna do. And now, they can attend Sunday school and worship those three out of four weekends on Zoom. Now, again, I don't know, I think the novelty may have worn off by now, it's been what, eight, 10 weeks some what, but they're still hanging in there and they still look forward to seeing each other. And also, that's health. I got one guy in my class, I don't know why 'cause he does it all week and I think he's a Zoom burnout guy, but he has to do it all week long at work, he's a single guy and I went to visit him. In fact, I visited everybody on our Sunday school roll and there's about 40, I think 38, maybe 40. And because I delivered them all their Sunday school book, we do explore the Bible and I told him, so I'm coming to your house with a public shopping bag, in that bag and we're hanging on doors, catch your Sunday school book, I'm not knocking on your door, I don't wanna see you because you might have the virus, but I'm coming to your house. I had one lady put a big sign on her door. Thank you, Ken and Jan, for driving and delivering. So, I've delivered all of our books to everybody, kept the class entertained if you will, but that's one way that we've engaged everybody. The other was we've expanded the role. we have looked again at people and said, these are people we could pick up, maybe not in attendance, but we can pick up perhaps through the digital age. And I do think there's that possibility, and then the absenteeism for the summer, it's been nothing compared to other summers when our people are traveling and I even have a couple, where our worship services at nine now and it's open, but it's a building seats 2000 has 500 people in it, so I'm not sure I even wanna come and see that, that sounds teary eyed, there may be a way, this couple, they come to life group at eight o'clock, they come to the church parking lot, sit in their car and listen to me teach and watch Zoom so they can be there when big church starts at nine. we go from 8:00 to 8:50 on Zoom. Zoom, Sunday school classes are a lot shorter.

- Yeah.

- You know, and so we finished in 45 minutes, something like that, depending on the beginning discussion time and prayer time, but they're sitting in their car, doing Sunday school or doing life group as we call it then they go into worship. So, they're the only one there, well, I got maybe one other couple that go to the church for worship, everybody's just afraid, I mean, I'm past 65, most of the other class members are in their 60s and they're just frightened, they don't wanna get sick, they don't wanna get exposed and they're just not taking the chance, 'cause they have grandchildren and children, and they're just very careful.

- Nashville's is a hotspot right now too.

- Yeah, yeah, Williamson County even is, you know, so. But another couple of things, Jamie, I found that Zoom works great, everybody got it worked out, it does give the opportunity to turn the camera off, 'cause like I said, last Sunday morning when he had a couple of people that I knew, they were like, "Ah, we're in our pajamas, "or I hadn't done my makeup and I'm not, you know," but they can still hear and participate in that kind of thing.

- Let me ask a question, some folks might be. Excuse me, go ahead, Jamie.

- I was just gonna say I've heard this phrase several times that this has given us an opportunity to be the church instead of going to church. And so ministry is, it's a hot, hot button right now.

- Yeah, and we've got another class in our church that have people from outside of Tennessee that dial in on Zoom. I don't have any in my class yet but the other class does that they've picked from all over the country are coming to life group about Bible study Sunday school via Zoom. And so, it does do that. The fear I have is Zoom burnout, I'm getting tired of doing this. Secondly, is going to worship every week. This morning, let's go to another church, let's see what that church is like over there. And Jane, my wife and I talked to somebody the other day and this person has gone to two or three different churches Just say, one of the guys I played golf with today even said, you know, last week we went to Life Church, and I just wanted to see what they guys like, heard about it and I said, you can go to your church, nah. we're just sitting on the couch. And decided we'd tune into this other church and see. So, all of a sudden, guess what? eventually that's gonna take giving.

- Yeah.

- You know, and it affects your attendance in your church. So, those are some of the things I worry about. The Zoom is Zoom burnout. I do think that might be a possibility that we're just tired of doing it this way, we need to, you know, I hope not.

- We're hearing that, although some, it's beginning to get manageable, they've picked what will benefit them. And thankfully, many of them have picked that their group is one of the things they look forward to 'cause quite frankly, people need to be encouraged right now and they don't get that when they get on the Zoom meeting at work, they don't get it elsewhere. So, one of the things we're saying to classes, remember the ministry aspect working on Zoom. Even as people come on "Hey, John, how are you doing? "Hey bill, what's going on?" That kind of thing, let them say a word back. So, some has said we've built in a little bit of fellowship time, stale, or we go around and say, we wanna hear a word from everybody, just say you're okay and what's the best thing that happened this week or something like that.

- We've got a young adult class at Brentwood that meets Zoom on Wednesday night for fellowship only.

- okay. hey don't teach, they don't do anything but chit chat and fellowship, they may pray, I'm not even sure about that. But on Wednesday night, they have a certain time where they get together as a class, those that can and want to and just fellowship, how's it going? I missed out Sunday morning, I didn't get to say and ask you about your mama and them, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, I thought that was an interesting concept that, you know, Wednesday nights, our class, those that can, we're gonna Zoom in and just fellowship.

- That's a good thing. Even if you have ministry leaders, they could say, "Hey, set up a Zoom once a month," just 'cause your on your ministry list, okay. Couple more questions coming in. John asks, how do you deal with complaints that are beyond the life group, but a part of church dynamics? You see that, you want me to ask it again?

- No, I'm reading it right now. Beyond the life group. Oh, there's a bigger picture kind of a thing.

- Yeah.

- I guess we're talking about on Zoom, I'm trying to.

- Well, this is probably Zoom or beyond. Here's how I'm interpreting that, John, and then I'll let Tim tag in on top of that, but sometimes I've called somebody and how you doing? How can I pray for you? And they'll say, "Well, this person at church "really bothers me."

- Okay.

- And typically what I've trained my leaders to do, is say, "Well, according to the Bible, "you need to speak first to that person," okay?. Or if it's a dynamic that if you used Deacon Ministry, could I have your deacon call you? Because I don't want my ministry leaders to get burned out saying what they're asking questions or bringing up situations I can't answer. And so, I'll say your default is to say, I'm calling you to pray for you, to share with you and care for you and I'll be glad to do those, but if there's a personal problem, we need to biblically go first to that person. If there's something that you don't like in the church, then let me encourage you to talk to that ministry leader, if it's the ministry leader or the deacon chair or whoever it is. and then let me just, because they're praying, let leaders right now pray with you about that particular thing. So, I tell my ministry leaders, your job is to take it to prayer until you get there, so they say, Oh, I have a problem with Jamie. And he's say, well, I wanna encourage you this week to reach out to Jamie and you share with him, I don't even wanna know the problem, y'all work on it and if that doesn't work out, we'll suggest you talk with a deacon and you know, walk them through biblically, but here's what I wanna do right now, let's pray together and you start praying, God wants you to touch Ken's heart this week, that as he reaches out to Jamie, that the two of them can be reconciled. So, you deal with the prayer aspect, you're the ministry list leader, not the problem solver.

- Again, it goes back too to the why, we've got to go back to that big why are we here? We're really doing this so that we can reach more people. We've gotta take care of each other, we gotta administer to each other, but to truth matter is, we're doing this in the concept of we're trying to reach people for Christ, that's the why, that's why we're here. And so, that is one of those difficult things is the negative aspect or the people that don't feel like their needs are being met beyond Zoom, and again, it goes back to the pastor, he has to talk about this every week about the why.

- Yeah.

- I think it's important. I notice there was another question.

- Yeah, he has another question. How to get a teacher interested in using electronic technology, my Sunday school teacher is not interested.

- I would say, this is what I did. I found the guy in my class that likes technology, okay? Jim Cambay, that's his name. And I said, "Jim, I need for you to handle this. "I've never done Zoom. "I've never set up a Zoom meeting, "I did Zoom weekly at work at LifeWay, "but I was just like, click this." And Jim said in a minute, "Oh yeah, I can handle that." And now Jim takes the role, turns it into the church, he does everything, but he's the one and he's the one that calls the class to meeting on Sunday morning. He's the one that opens us up for prayer, takes prayer needs, does announcements, and then he just says, okay, Ken, lead us now in our class and that's what I do. And so, I don't have to do all the technology, but I got a guy in the class that loves it and he does it. Second thing is the alternative is you're missing out, you just don't get to do it. And so, the Sunday school teacher that's not interested, we may for an interim period of time, get somebody else to teach.

- Yeah.

- I mean, you know.

- Yeah, you would hate to do that, but that may be-

- Yeah.

- But point out something right now, Jamie and I both in the office of Sunday school, we've had learned more about Zoom in the past five months than we ever really wanted to know and I introduced everybody at the beginning to somebody that's behind the scenes, my daughter, who's there to keep this thing running technically smooth because we can only do so many different things, And so, I think that I could feel for your teacher, 'cause that's me, I just wanna to teach the Bible. I don't wanna have to worry about all the technology, somebody get me set up, get me on it, I'm good to go, I know what to do after that and I can relax and just enjoy myself. So, and I'll say that most of us, even before we have one of these meetings have a pre-meeting meeting, so we can kind of do a walk through and get comfortable. Everybody knows what's about to happen. And so, I think y'all should follow up with the teacher and see, hey, if we got a tech person to handle all that and did a few practice runs with just a small group, and would you still be willing to at least do a 15, 20 minute overview of the Sunday school materials for the Bible study. And see if he can do that and say 'cause it's important that we in this most difficult time connect, because even those people that are, we call them Zoombies, the Zoombie apocalypse, but they're about zoomed out, still need fellowship and ministry agent. And let me quickly say one of the interesting things during this is for most churches, the finances have not dropped, because people look at the church as the prime ministry during a crisis like this,

- Right.

- So, they're giving in a time of crisis to who they're expecting ministry from, and it's the church. So, I think we have this as a ministry issue, we've gotta step up and do ministry, and to be honest with you, Ken, we didn't go into some of the real fundamentals, but a lot of our churches got caught off guard because they had no ministry list, like we've got names and phone numbers and emails and those things necessary to even set up a Zoom or a Facebook or anything else. And so, some of the rambling and some people have gotten overlooked, 'cause they didn't know how to contact. So, if you don't have a ministry list, go to work, and piece one together.

- Yeah.

- All friends and friends to get the information that you need 'cause people desperately need ministry right now.

- No doubt, no doubt.

- Yeah, and I would encourage LCE, just what you said to, if we believe the scripture that they're gifted people, they have different gifts, different talents, different abilities, there very well could be, what was your guy's name? You know, Cambay, that in their class that not the teacher, but someone else that would be passionate about doing it.

- Right.

- If they were enlisted.

- Right.

- We look is our structure of what we have instead of removing our blinders and seeing there's all kinds of possibilities out there. Maybe if we would just look for them so that's good.

- One more there from Wayne, do you see that?

- Yeah, I do, yeah. The parable of the lost sheep, how does it apply to these principles? The 99 is opposed to one, it's all inclusive, I assumed the ministry list as the 99 and the one that at least he knew who that one was and the other 99, he knew were safe and kept, but the one that was not, he was able to go after and take care of. So, I don't think it's an either or it's both and, we have to take care of and minister to and love on those that we have, but at the same time, we have to understand the why we're here so that we can reach others for Christ and rescue those who are lost and dropped by the wayside. Go after that one while you're caring for the 99, he didn't turn the other 99 loose when he went to the one who was lost, so I think it's both end, great question, great parable.

- Absolutely, because the other thing is sometimes in the ministry list, you're gonna find the one who's hurting most and that's who needs some help right now. And so, nobody's being overlooked, so yeah, why not? I think that's a great analogy and it fits real well into the principles that ken's been sharing tonight, good catch. Okay, there are other questions. we'll give a few more minutes, Ken, I'm gonna prompt you on another story 'cause this was one of my favorites. They called a guy and I'm gonna make fuzzy, okay? these that hadn't been coming a long time and they would call and how can I pray for you? And I think a few times he just kind of brushed them off, I don't have anything, and finally they called and he had like an aunt Susie or something like that, that was gonna be in the hospital, and they followed up like, "well, do you know when and what hospital," and all of that. And I think this is you that tells a story. So, they decided that they would sign a card and send to the hospital. I think somebody even delivered some little bouquet or something on the day of her surgery or after, and then he went to visit himself and she started bragging on his Sunday school class. Do you remember.

- Yeah, yeah. the class was actually ahead of him in ministering to his loved one. And it impressed him so much that they cared for his aunt, and I think it was an aunt, and he cared so much for her, but only because of him.

- Yeah.

- They would have never ministered to her had it not been for his prayer requests that they hounded him for eight years but it's exactly what they kept doing, and it's almost like he came to that point, if I'm gonna make a request up, if y'all don't leave me alone. And so, he remembered that aunt Susie and that wasn't her name, anyway, he remembered her. Yeah, she's gonna have surgery, and this person was persistent in the class, what hospital? When is she gonna be there and so forth. Class got together, they had a flower fund or something and they did flowering cards, when he came to the hospital, his Sunday school class knew he didn't want anything to be a part of was ahead of him, and had already been there, prayed with her and the other members of the family and he got the credit for it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- yeah, yeah, that was the deal. So, you never know how aggressive to be or not to be, you use your instincts and God's spirit's prompting to, if God prompts you to do it, do it. And this was that kind of a care group leader or minister group leader.

- I got mileage out of that story and others, I basically say when you call and you do find a ministry need

- Right.

- Respond.

- Right.

- You might not be able to do a lot, but do something, do whatever you can do.

- Right, it's just like everybody, you got those people in your class that are good at that.

- Yeah.

- You know, Jim, the guy in my class that does our technology with Zoom and all that, man, he is fabulous at administration, and in fact, when I took this class five years ago, we had 11 people and we're up to about 38 or something now. And first thing I did was I went to him and said, "I need you to be the administrator of the class. "I want you to call it to order, "I want you to administer it. "I just want to teach it and love on them and that." and he saw, "Yeah, I can do that." And so, he's the administrator, he's what we used to call the president of the class. And I wouldn't send him over hospital visits, you know? I mean, there's other people that do that. I can do that, you know, but he can flat out administrate the class and take care of those kinds of administrative needs and keep the class going, man, he'll call time, he'll say, okay, it's time to give the class to Ken to teach. If you have any prayer needs, email them to me, I'll get them out to the class, I mean, he just owned it. the candidate administrator that you need. And so, everybody has those gifts like that and you gotta find the right people in the right spot.

- We had a guy that was administrator, but had to step in and take on a ministry list too, his name was Steve. Jamie actually knows him, I won't call his whole name, but Steve, when he makes his call, he's like, "Hey, here's a couple of needs you can pray for." If you got a prayer request and I'd say, "Well, no, Steve," he said, "Well, I'm busy and you're busy, so God bless you, have a great day, click, I mean, boom, boom, boom. Sometimes he don't wanna call, man. But you know, Steve's like, I understand, man, we got things going on, we're not involved in our language, we just want the facts, Hey, I got a couple of prayer, and there's nothing wrong with that, so one day he calls and he says, and so and so, this is going on, he said, "Could y'all bring a dish to here?" Or whatever it was and I said, "sure, we can do that." He said, "Good, y'all doing okay, you got a prayer need?" And I mean, that whole thing, getting me committed, even bring a dish to take or whatever it was, a minute, okay?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And so some folks appreciate that, but I said in my class one time, the ministry leader given report, he said, "Well, I found out why the Jones's, whoever it was, had been out for six weeks," He said, "They're building a new house "and in order to save money, they go over on Sundays "and they pick up all the nails and loose boards "and the this and the that, and they sweep and clean "and so forth, they did what they can do to save money, "but as soon as they get that house built "and moved in, they'll be back." said no, they won't. I said, you know, it's gonna be 10 weeks for that thing's done.

- Oh, yeah.

- And by the end, like developed a horrible habit, so here's what I need you to do. I said, "Class, I wanna have the ministry leader call "and we're gonna ask them to pick a Saturday, "and we're all gonna go over there on Saturday "after the construction crews over "and we're gonna get everything cleaned and done "so Sunday they can be with us in church." And then when moving day comes, we're gonna do what we can do to help move and so they'll be plugged in cause they know that we care 'cause we're there.

- There you go, that's a great illustration, yeah.

- You gotta use those needs that you discover.

- Right.

- You can't just ignore them.

- Yeah.

- You gotta act on them. And so, even if it's, hey, I want you to pray about this job situation, hey, send them a text, an email or follow up phone call during the week, say I've been praying, has it gotten any better? You know, what's

- Yeah.

- At least respond appropriately in some kind of follow up fashion.

- Right.

- And so that people know this isn't just going through the motions, oh, well, somebody told you to call ask for my prayer request and I don't have any, leave me alone.

- Right, you gotta find the right people, yeah, right. People to do that ministry.

- Yeah, and I think that's why it's good sometimes if you have a coed class for husband and wife team, because you'll have maybe one of them has the gift of hospitality, the other one administration, whatever, but they compliment each other and they can see the need and respond in appropriate ways, and certainly like you said, occasionally, it's just an old fashioned, send them a card that says I'm praying for you.

- Right.

- And sometimes the ministry need is bigger than the ministry group, for example, there's some people in my class that are very good about ministry, but when there is a huge need, we crisscross ministry groups. My mom passed away about three weeks ago, and I didn't hear just from my group, I heard from everybody.

- Yeah.

- So, there are times when we all need to jump in and pile on when it comes to ministry, but those weekly needs, we need to make sure somebody is caring for me and that kind of thing. And so, there are some, yeah.

- I always tell the ministry leaders, don't feel like you suddenly have to take it all on.

- Right.

- Call some others in your ministry list, call some of the rest of us 'cause sometimes, it's gonna take all of us to jump in. And this is another thing he brought up that fits in well with what John asked about early on, let the deacon know, let other folks beyond your group know.