Eric H.F. Law, Episcopal priest and internationally known consultant on multiculturalism, in his book, Inclusion: Making Room for Grace, invites congregational leaders to think of their church ministries in three components. The three ministry components and descriptions are:
Comparing congregational ministries to a three-legged stool, Sloan says “For a congregation to exercise its ministries effectively, it must achieve a balance of the components.†(p. 88) He stresses the need that each component must support the other two. If one is “shorter†than the other two the church’s effectiveness is minimized—like a stool that has one leg that is shorter than the other two. After working with over twenty churches through a process of clarifying the components and providing dialogue for church members to assess the ministries of their church, Sloan says, “I discovered that the most revealing, but usually the most difficult, part of the process is the ‘ministry to the church.’†(p.89)
How, in your congregational experience, do you see these three components supporting one another?
I like Law’s schema. It seem accurate for what it describes. While I agree that the three areas are interrelated and should integrate at points, I’m struggling with determining what constitutes an appropriate “balance.” Certainly balance does not mean “equal” in amount.
Given the natural necessity and tendency of congregations to give more attention to “IN” and “TO” the challenge often is to give more emphasis to developing the ministry “OF” the congregation as church.
To be unscientific and oversimplistic about it, I’ll posit that most congregations follow the 20/80 rule in terms of 80% of resources and ministries resting in the IN and TO areas. Therefore, the goal for “balance” may be to flip that so that at one point a congregation has 80% in the area of ministry OF with a sustaining 20% in the other two areas.
A lot also depends on the type, context, and culture of the particular congregation. All those areas are universally necessary—-but how they break down and are manifested in any particular congregation may have little to do with ideals and more to do with the reality of the nature of constraints.