Equipping

Equipping involves preparing people for service, empowering them to serve and creating the context in which their ministry will thrive. In the New Testament the Greek word equip (katartismos/katartizō) means “to set things in order,” “to prepare,” “to form and shape” and “to point to the final goal of one’s faith.” The primary function of church leaders is to equip the saints (all the people of God) for ministry (Ephes. 4:11-12). But, as we shall see, equipping is not exclusively a clerical or leadership activity. Christians serve one another in the family of God: all should seek to draw out the ministry of others and make it thrive. Equipping is done in families through parenting and in businesses by management. This article concentrates on equipping in the church by asking three questions: “How come?” (the theology of equipping), “How to?” (the methodology of equipping) and “For what?” (the purpose and goal of equipping).

How Come?

God—the ultimate equipper. A theology of equipping starts with the liberating truth that God is the ultimate equipper. J. I. Packer says, “Equipping is an ongoing divine operation whereby God through the ministry of his word and the power of his Spirit fits his people for the living of servant-lives that commend the gospel and bear fruit for his praise” (lecture, Regent College). God does this in the church by profound self-giving, by supplying spiritual gifts so God’s own work can be done through God’s people and by leading the church with Christ as the head to its destination—a people that will glorify God in life and throughout the universe (Ephes. 1:12; Ephes. 4:10). So God graciously orchestrates, nurtures, supplies and guides, giving us everything needed to do what needs to be done in this world. Biblically the laity, the people of God as a whole, are an empowered people, a gifted people, a priestly people, a servant people, and continue God’s own ministry on earth. In the light of this, it would be arrogant for church leaders to think of themselves as anything more than underequippers.

Ministry in and through the church. Most of the metaphors used in the New Testament emphasize that the church exists for the kingdom, not itself. The church is a body that serves, a building that grows, a colony that points people to the homeland, an army that fights, ambassadors for Christ, and a bride that loves and serves the groom. The body of Christ is not the body beautiful that admires itself in a mirror but a body for service—to itself and to others. Equipping liberates the people of God from all that paralyzes service—whether theological, structural, relational, emotional or demonic—anything that restrains the full mature growth and loving impact of God’s people on earth.

God’s goal—growth and unity. God desires a fully equipped church as the centerpiece of a renewed creation. To this end the church must grow and be united. According to Ephes. 4:1-16, church growth has the following characteristics: unity in Christ, not in a charismatic personality (Ephes. 4:3); demonstrated interdependence of leadership gifts (Ephes. 4:11); being built primarily as an organism (Ephes. 4:12); experiential knowledge of Jesus by every member (Ephes. 4:13); maturity as a community and as individuals (Ephes. 4:13); corporate experience of the fullness of Christ (Ephes. 4:13); doctrinal discernment by all the members (Ephes. 4:14); relational integrity, that is, truth spoken in love (Ephes. 4:15); mutual dependence on the Head and interdependence with one another (Ephes. 4:15-16); and continuous mission (Ephes. 4:10). How far this diverges from the Western fascination with church growth in terms of simple numbers should be patently obvious. Unity and love are not mere means to an end to get the job done; they are the goal. The mysterious social unity of the people of God is like the unity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It includes Jews and Gentiles (as well as others) in a new international, multicultural community characterized by unity and peace (Ephes. 2:14-18). This complex social unity is the mystery of God’s secret redemptive purpose now revealed in Christ (Ephes. 3:4). So God, the ultimate equipper, is at work growing the people in unity.

Mature people—character development. God is also interested in equipping individual people in and through everyday life. James is eloquent on this subject: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance” (James 1:2-3). God works through hard times, transforming life experiences into sacraments so that believers may receive the ultimate gifts of wisdom (James 1:5) and the crown of life (James 1:12). Testing removes the dross of our spirituality and develops perseverance—the missing virtue in an instant-gratification Christianity and a culture that despises waiting. The ultimate end of divine equipping is that we will not lack anything in our characters, not that we will have well-honed ministry skills or heads stuffed with information. But God’s interest in equipping is larger than our personal development.

A glorified universe. Two books of the New Testament—Revelation and Colossians—especially proclaim God’s intention of ultimately renewing everything under the headship of Christ (Col. 1:20; see also Ephes. 1:22). The goal is not that we will escape from earth and its materiality to live in heaven as rarefied spirits but that we will enjoy a new heaven and a new earth in fully resurrected bodies (Rev. 21-22). Equipping prepares people for the new heaven and the new earth by finding God in the earthiness and materiality of everyday life. Equipping also aims at bringing renewal to the world around us through all legitimate spheres of work and service.

How To?

Having considered the “How come?” question, we turn to the question of methodology.

Equipping the people as a whole. While pastors and other church leaders have the special responsibility and privilege of working with the whole congregation, even those who have only a small sphere of influence in the church can have a significant equipping impact by following the direction suggested here. This is sometimes called the systemic, in contrast to the programmatic, approach because it assumes that the church is a living system rather than a group of organizations. It is a body with interdependent members in which any desired effect is likely to be the result of multiple causes and factors. Every element of a system, like each member of the body, can influence all the others, like movement in a mobile. But the health of the whole system is critical, and the first thing to consider in equipping the saints. Simply put, a live, thriving and healthy church draws out the ministry of the members. A dying, stagnant and sick church cannot squeeze ministry out of people through a myriad of good programs. Instead of functioning as the body, some churches are more like a bouquet of believers (all different but without unity), a melting pot (merged into unity but with diversity lost) or, worse still, a seed package (with neither unity nor diversity). The problem is not solved with a well-packaged program.

The principles of working systemically with the whole church and caring for the subsystems within it have been explained elsewhere in detail (Collins and Stevens; Stevens 1992). Here I offer four analogies to help visualize equipping the people of God as a corporate unit rather than as a cluster of individual Christians.

First, encourage communication with Jesus, the head of the church, and with one another. The body of Christ has a common nervous system, and we should all be wired into it. Getting people to depend on the Lord, to seek God for themselves, to listen to the voice of God and to listen to one another are strategic equipping ministries. God gives gifts, vision and passion. Our work as equippers is to help people get in touch with the movement of God in their lives and in the church. Sometimes a church leader can ask people to indicate what they would really like to do if time, talent and training were not barriers. Time can be found; talent usually follows motivation; training is the easiest thing to arrange. The results may provide months of equipping work.

Second, encourage Bible learning and not mere Bible preaching. This is sometimes called the digestive system, since we are what we eat and the equipper is concerned with nurture and nourishment. For people to come to the end of their lives having heard two sermons a week but still not knowing how to open the Bible for themselves and hear God speak is a terrible tragedy. Some churches have found it useful to link the passage of Scripture to be taught on Sunday with the same passage studied in advance in small groups, thus encouraging learning in multiple settings. Others encourage their members to develop a conversational approach to Bible study, so freeing them to talk about the Bible the way they talk about everything else and to relate it naturally to their daily lives. Equipping pastors are sensitive to learning moments in congregational life when theological education can and should be done in the middle of a crisis or when a major decision must be made.

Third, cultivate an experimental culture. This is sometimes compared to the circulation of the blood that creates the climate of health for the body. We know that nonverbal symbols and clues communicate more powerfully than spoken messages. People discern almost immediately and often intuitively whether this is a congregation in which ministry is done by the experts and professionals or whether every member is prized and appreciated.

Fourth, develop structures that evoke ministry. This is like the bone-muscle system in the human body, providing structure for stability and movement. In the local congregation small groups and home churches provide one of the best structures to facilitate the development of every-member ministry. In face-to-face relationships, when people share their life journeys week by week, people equip one another. Committees also have potential for becoming equipping structures.

Equipping one another. Equipping is the responsibility of every Christian to draw out the ministry of others. We do this by sharing our journeys, confessing our needs to one another and being willing to receive the ministry of others. We also do it by fanning the coals of someone else’s interests, by affirming one another and by giving honest feedback. According to Ephes. 4:16 equipping takes place at the joints (RSV) or the ligaments (NIV). This does not mean that certain members, like the pastors, have the responsibility of making all the connections. Rather this means that real growth, personally and corporately, takes place at the point of real connection with other members.

In the New Testament Christian discipleship is corporate by nature (see Church Membership). There is no such thing as an individual Christian. Life together in the body of Christ is designed to be one of mutual blessing and mutual equipping. We do this by forgiving grievances (Col. 3:13) and loving (Col. 3:14), as well as by teaching and admonishing one another (Col. 3:16), carrying “each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2), looking out “not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4), “speaking the truth [about God] in love” to one another (Ephes. 4:15), “building others up according to their needs” through affirming, helpful speech (Ephes. 4:29) and encouraging “one another and build[ing] each other up” (1 Thes. 5:11).

So a methodology based on biblical theology takes seriously the truth that God is at work among his own people. Leaders work to create God-dependence among them and to encourage health in the body of Christ. Members draw out this ministry from other believers in this coequipping partnership with God. God gives the ministry. But what is it all for?

For What?

John Wesley once claimed that he feared most the situation of the “almost Christian.” In the same way we should be concerned for the almost-equipped Christian. This almost-liberated layperson is usually aided and abetted by clergy more than willing to accept the layperson’s help but not really committed to the layperson’s complete liberation to become a ministry colleague. The purpose of equipping is that the whole people of God should be empowered for service both in their gathered life as ekklēsia and their dispersed life as diaspora living twenty-four hours a day for God.

There is a spate of conferences, videos, books, journals, seminars and courses on equipping the saints, all designed to help the pastor mobilize the laity for his or her ministry. Why has there been so little substantial gain? There may be four reasons for short-circuited equipping today.

Beyond discretionary-time ministry. It is a good thing to release all the people of God for every-member ministry in the local church. But if we define ministry in terms of evangelizing the lost and edifying the found, the laypersons will only be doing ministry during their free time and will fail to be equipped for ministry in the workplace, home, neighborhood and public arena. Unfortunately, we have largely relegated ministry to the layperson’s discretionary hours, the five to ten hours per week he or she may give to church work. Roman Catholic author Leonard Doohan notes, “Ironically with the increase of lay ministry in Church positions, we run the risk of diminishing lay transformation of the world” (p. 60). But the church is a rhythm of gathering and dispersion, like the gathering and dispersion of the blood from the heart in the human body. Elton Trueblood once said, “ ‘Church-goer’ is a vulgar, ignorant word and should never be used. You cannot go to church. You are the church wherever you go.”

Beyond tokenism. It is a good thing for pastors and Christian leaders to learn how to recruit and manage volunteers. But this may easily be tokenism through which pastors use laypersons to accomplish their own goals by means of their people. In contrast, equipping pastors make as their primary concern learning what can be done to release laypersons to engage in their own ministries, not recruiting and training people to help pastors with their ministries. The layperson is not called to assist the pastor: the pastor is called to assist the layperson.

Beyond the technology of equipping. It is a good thing for pastors and lay leaders to develop programs and activities through which individual laypersons will be released in ministry. But unless the church is equipped as a whole in its total life (environment, goals, communication patterns and structure), it may counteract the effect of the programs. An unequipped laity is a systemic, not a programmatic, problem. It is the church itself as an organism that must be equipped and prepared for ministry. Take, for example, the situation of a pastor who preaches a high view of married life and runs marriage-enrichment programs but finds his own marriage destroyed by the idolatrous, addictive life of the local church. If we equip the church, then the church will equip the saints under the headship of Jesus.

Beyond pop theology. It is a good thing to develop a theology for laypersons, to market the fruit of the theologian’s study on the level of the nonscholar. But a theology of the laity must start with the assumption that the whole people of God (the laos) are called by God to live out their vocation through service and mission in the world. What is needed is a lay theology that takes the ordinary Christian’s dignity and calling in the world with utter seriousness. Much that passes for a theology for the laity amounts to pop theology, watering down heavy theological tomes so that people unschooled in the language of the experts may nevertheless get a few drops. But the drops people get are relatively unrelated to their real life in the world.

A theology of and by the laity must concentrate on what the Bible says about the layperson’s life and calling—doing theology “from above.” But a theology of and by the laity must also concentrate on the questions being asked by ordinary Christians in the context of their work—doing theology “from below.” Samples of questions raised in the marketplace include the following: Is persuasion a legitimate and God-pleasing field of work? Can a Christian rightly be ambitious? Is it right to negotiate for the highest salary? When we do this, are we bartering for self-worth or for our needs? Is it possible to function with complete integrity within the capitalist system? Is it possible to humanize an impersonal workplace? Is leaving the only way to cope with the idolatrous demands of a corporation? What is it that makes our work pleasing to God—the quality, the excellence, our zeal, its intrinsic value, its function in meeting real needs or the life of prayer that undergirds it? These questions call for a theology of everyday life, a theology of and by the laity that must be written in each generation by a partnership of biblically thoughtful Christians with life experience and theologically trained leaders seeking relevance to life.

In their classic work God’s Frozen People, T. Ralph Morton and Mark Gibbs make a stunning comparison: they say that thawing out “the frozen assets of the Church would be for us like the discovery of a new continent or a new element” (p. 158). Equipping has this lofty goal. Fortunately God is more concerned to liberate God’s own people than we are.

» See also: Discipleship

» See also: Laity

» See also: Leadership, Church

» See also: Management

» See also: Ministry

» See also: Parenting

» See also: Spiritual Gifts

» See also: Talents

References and Resources

P. Collins and R. P. Stevens, The Equipping Pastor (Washington, D.C.: Alban Institute, 1993); L. Doohan, The Lay-Centered Church: Theology and Spirituality (Minneapolis: Winston, 1984); M. Gibbs and T. Ralph Morton, God’s Frozen People (London: Fontana Books, 1964); B. Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1988); G. Martin and L. Richards, Lay Ministry: Empowering the People of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981); G. Ogden, The New Reformation: Returning the Ministry to the People of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990); J. H. Ok, Called to Awaken the Laymen (Seoul, Korea: Tyrannus Press, 1984); W. J. Rademacher, Lay Ministry: A Theological, Spiritual and Pastoral Handbook (New York: Crossroad, 1991); A. Rowthorn, The Liberation of the Laity (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1986); R. E. Slocum, Maximize Your Ministry: How You as a Lay Person Can Impact Your World for Jesus Christ (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1986); M. J. Steinbron, Can the Pastor Do It Alone? A Model for Preparing Lay People for Lay Pastoring (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1987); R. P. Stevens, The Equipper’s Guide to Every-Member Ministry (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1992); R. P. Stevens, Liberating the Laity (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1985); H. W. Stone, The Caring Church: A Guide for Lay Pastoral Care (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983); F. R. Tillapaugh, Unleashing the Church (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1982); J. H. Yoder, The Fullness of Christ: Paul’s Vision of Universal Ministry (Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Press, 1987).

—R. Paul Stevens