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PASSING IT ON: THE MULTIPLYING DYNAMIC IN GOSPEL MINISTRY
SAM & JEN HERBERT
“So why Australia?” “Why did you travel over 10,000 miles?” These are the questions we’ve been asked since arriving in January for Sam to start the Bachelor of Divinity.
Multiply
In the last three months, life has folded in on itself, and, with College now online, we’ve (mostly with a laugh…) asked it of one another too: “Why did we come to study here?”. But our serious answer has consistently been: “Moore”. We came here for Moore College. We feel enormously privileged to have this opportunity to be trained for ministry at a place with such a long story of faithfully guarding the gospel. In the run-up to our coming here, however, we had to do some pretty regular calibrations. Why were we going? We had to keep checking our Bibles to see what could be so important as to make the journey worthwhile.
The good deposit
So the theme for this issue of Societas, ‘From Generation to Generation’, prompted us to revisit some well-trodden ground. Some of Paul’s instructions to Titus and Timothy stood out for us in particular. Here’s what we learned:
From the Great Commission and throughout the New Testament, the gospel is always on the move. Disciples make disciplemakers. Apostles entrust “the good deposit” to others who are, by the Holy Spirit, to guard it as a treasure. But not like the crown jewels hidden away in the tower. Guarding the gospel here means passing it on, whole and intact (2 Tim 1:14, 2:2).
With Paul in chains for the gospel, the baton passes to Timothy, and his work is to be high ‘upstream’: his ministry in Ephesus is to pass the gospel on to “reliable men” who’ll be able to teach others (2 Tim 2:2). Likewise, to win Crete for Christ, Titus is directed to deploy godly elders in every town (Titus 1).
Paul didn’t expect the gospel to stop with these reliable men and elders either. They were to “teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). And the ‘passing on’ should be happening within their congregations too, with teaching and word work taking place in a number of ways (e.g. Titus 2).
The multiplying dynamic
The gospel is guarded, passed on, and the result is… more teachers. It’s hard to resist the viral analogy here, but we’ll do our best. We’ll call it the multiplying dynamic. The multiplying dynamic says that every ministry is strategic. As we pray for more workers for the harvest fi eld, we’re praying for ministries that multiply. The more we thought about this, the more we were persuaded that the task of passing on the gospel in order for it to be passed on (and on, and on) meant we should seek the best possible training ourselves. Even if that meant updating our passports. So here we are at Moore. And this idea of a multiplying dynamic continues to have a number of implications for us as students now:
From our perspective as first years, being at Moore can feel like you’re part of something strong and robust. There are lots of bright, energetic people getting things done and doing them well. But we must remember that in a global context, we’re very small. Sydney is a long way from typical. There are towns, cities, entire countries with nothing close to an evangelical church, let alone a decent Bible college. The task is great, but we are not. He raises up both the harvest and the workers. Unless the Lord builds, we labour in vain. That means we must be on guard against complacency, and we must pray.
College so far has been heartwarming, intellectually stimulating and heaps of fun, but we’re engaged in a serious task. Our lectures shouldn’t terminate with us. From biblical studies to morning tea chats, Hebrew grammar to Moorewomen Talks, we want to be actively thinking about how what we learn now will equip us to pass on the gospel in the future. The church God is building will last for eternity, and our studies are preparing us to be part of that work.
We want to keep thinking about what the theological and cultural landscape might look like in a generation’s time. How will what we learn today help the next generation guard the gospel and pass it on? It’s exciting to think what the Lord could have in store for a ministry with this dynamic. How much more eff ective will pastoral care be when congregations are trained for ministry to one another? How much better could the burdens of ministry be shared by well-trained leaders? Could the next children’s or student worker come from within your congregation? Consider the potential impact, in the Lord’s hands, if your church sent just one individual into full-time ministry every fi ve years. And some ministries will be able to send more.
The multiplying dynamic also means thinking, like Paul, further upstream. Who on our radar should be in full-time pastoral ministry or heading into academic theology? Where should the next training colleges be planted and resourced in order to continue the training of workers? What needs to happen now for that to be possible in the future?
Our prayer is that we’ll be changed by our time at College and the things we learn will take root and produce the fruit of godliness in our lives, and enable us to serve others more richly in whatever future work the Lord has prepared for us. However, it doesn’t stop there. The multiplying dynamic means that those ministries will, Lord-willing, yield more teachers. So, as well as learning and growing, we’re also praying that we’ll be guarding the good deposit as we pass it on.
