Ministry is done through a variety of means in the local context. How ministry is done now, in some ways vary from how ministry was done years ago. Changes within the context would account for these changes that may be visible or invisible, today. As I observe what is taking place in my local context, I will share some of these highlights. We will look at some of these changes and offer some of the reasons for these changes and call them the big why.
Much of what happened in the church in earlier year have changed. A major change that has taken place in the life of the church is the length and structure of the church. As the church emerged out of the pandemic and its effects, we were asked to keep church at ninety-minutes. Although the restrictions are no longer there, when the service goes beyond the ninety-minutes, church feels like it is going on for too long. Consequently, church is generally under two hours long. Also, it is important that I add that the pandemic created the opportunity for the services to be streamed. This was so that persons can access the worship service from their homes. Quarantine or isolation did not hinder the process of faith formation.
Additionally, our church engages in discipleship group meetings. This was not always a
practice. However, the leadership of the district church believe that there should be intentional discipleship across all age groups. This is different from convert’s class and should be a lifelong process. The groups meet at least once per month and discuss the content from curriculum that has been disseminated to the leaders. Then, the discipleship groups would engage in evangelism by visiting an unsaved person to share the gospel. This was not always done either but there was the need to spread the gospel to those who may not come to the church. These forms of visitation closely resemble the door-to-door visitation that is traditionally done and are still practiced in our local context. The aim is to be effective.
In addition, the church would host small scale district events that may be organized by an auxiliary for example, the women or youth. The reason for this is mainly the size of our sanctuary which cannot comfortably host more than a little over one hundred persons. Also, our church is involved in every event that is organized by the district. The local church sees itself as a member of a wider body and is affected by the actions and inactions of the body. In the same way, the wider body is affected by the actions and inactions of the local church. There seem to be an attachment to the district church, even though there may be areas of dissent.
Moreover, after over sixty years in the community, the church is settled. The community’s relationship with the church is relatively good, but there is certainly room for improvement. There are some activities that the church hosts that is adequately supported by the church. The current relationship is based on the community’s image of the church. Some unfortunate things have happened in the church that may have caused church hurt. Some of these situations happened with previous pastors, and persons are still dealing with these. As a result, the church aims to regain the trust and positive view of the church through service and fellowship. We target each developmental stage in meaningful ways to reassure the community that the church is here for them.