25 Jan Preparing Your Church for Immeasurable Impact by Jim Graff
Preparing Your Church for Immeasurable Impact
by Pastor Jim Graff
One aspect I love about the ministry is how impossible it is to calculate our eternal worth. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus talks about our call to give to others and describes our return as being good measure and running over. None of us will ever know fully what our efforts have accomplished until we reach heaven.
I’ll never forget Mary, a single mother who gave her life to Christ at our church. She was the mother of teenagers, one of whom she was particularly burdened for. Joseph had struggled for years with depression and a severe cocaine addiction.
Mary’s heart ached to see her son free and began to learn about the power of prayer and standing for her family. And though it looked as if nothing were changing for Joseph, she continued to witness and pray for him.
One evening a call came that Joseph had overdosed and was in our local hospital. While in the ambulance, in and out of consciousness Joseph cried out to this Jesus his mother so often spoke of.
Once in ICU Joseph was met by our youth pastor who prayed with him, encouraged him and later took him under his wing.
Joseph’s life steadily began to change. He attended church, made new friends and found that love and acceptance he had longed for. Although he stumbled occasionally, he always got back up.
Joseph went on to Bible School and being a gifted musician sensed this was how God would use him to share his story of hope and freedom.
Joseph and his friends formed a Christian rock band called Seventh Day Slumber. For years now they have traveled ministering hope to their generation – especially those addicted, suicidal, and those who cut themselves in their pain.
I recently learned they won the prestigious dove award. But more importantly they’ve won 75,000 hearts to Jesus Christ. Their story makes me realize how immeasurable our eternal impact is.
Though this is true, we as ministers are called in scripture to have clear targets we’re aiming for.
Here are some helpful ways to do that:
Expect: to make a difference at home.
In Luke chapter 14 Jesus talks about going through the streets and country roads of our towns looking for the poor, crippled, lame and blind. He encourages us not only to invite people, but to bring them and even urge them to come to a place they can find nourishment and strength in God.
We all know people who are poor and need to be richly resourced with the gospel; we know those crippled by life, who need brought to a place of healing, the lame who need the strength of others to walk again and the blind who need their eyes opened to the light of the gospel. Jesus wants our Jerusalem to experience His life changing power.
Extend ministry to our region.
Success in an area should inspire us to look beyond to other
churches and ministries we can help.
A vital aspect of our church network is identifying mentor churches in different regions of the country. These mentor churches can help other churches within the region become stronger and more effective.
I read a statistic where 90 percent of businesses succeed when started by someone who had previous success in business. Whereas, 90 percent of businesses fail when people are doing it for the very first time. It’s extremely beneficial for pastors to have mentors in life who have succeeded at growing healthy churches.
Expand ministry to include international partnerships.
One of the best ways to bear more fruit is to find people
with proven ministries internationally to begin partnering with.
We began partnering with pioneer missionaries in India years ago and it’s amazing how many hundreds of churches have been built and how many thousands of people have been reached in areas previously unreached.
Jesus told us to target our Jerusalem (home), our Judea and Samaria (region) and the uttermost parts of the earth (international) believing to be fruitful (Acts 1:8).
At the end of the day, the lives changed will remind our hearts the effort is all worth it!