Everyone Plug In
A master connector can bridge the gap between many different peoples and groups.
We must not overlook our role as a connector. We have the responsibility to bring people together for a common purpose. The most effective way to get this done is through relationships. The connector may consider themselves some sort of ministry match-maker. Browse your church long enough to find two people who might work well together. We need to be careful not to objectify those who we wish to connect. It would be nice if there interest in bible memory or prison ministry would be enough for them to forge a lasting relationship. The truth is that we are the most meaningful common-bond between the people who serve in our church.
Chris Ernst and Donna Chrobot-Mason wrote a book titled Boundary Spanning Leadership. They define a connector as someone who can, “forge ties that are anchored in strong relationships… authentic, trust-based relationships.”[1] A connector is someone who can unite two people relationally out of his or her own relationship with those two people. If my aim is to unite two different volunteers then I must begin with my own relationship with each volunteer. I think that pastors often think that they can skip this step and may feel like a sort of relational middle-man. Senior pastors, those who are responsible for the largest amount of leaders, have a special challenge in this regard. Many large churches host a large staff and the pastor must develop a strategy for connections to be made between key members of the staff. How are these connections made? They are made through mutual relationships with other leaders.
You must become an effective connector. Churches who lack this social function fail to span boundaries and become compartmentalized. Those who can master this skill open up many new and creative ways to be the church.
God is on a mission and we all play a part in His master plan. The Holy Spirit works in each of our lives to reveal the person of Jesus Christ and give us power to tell people about His good news. This evangelism takes place as a component of God’s Church, a continuation of the manifest body of Christ on earth. The Church plays a crucial role in the mission of God as a witness to His redemptive power. One day sin will suffer its final defeat and all of creation will be restored to glorify God.
Prayer results in action. Prayer is not a dead end spiritual discipline. Some people see prayer as an end to itself. Prayer is the act of aligning our hearts and desires with that of Christ. We enter into a conversation with Him that is more than any exchange of words. Praying with God draws us close to the heart of God so that the very pulse of our being is synced with Him. A life of prayer leads us to see things as God sees them; to be come emotionally engaged with the heart of God. This type of relationship can only have one result: action. Many of us, on the other hand, are too quick to act. We jump into our local church with the fury of an apostle and set out to change the world before consulting with God. Action must begin in prayer. Keating concludes in his book titled Intimacy with God that, “contemplative prayer with out action stagnates, and action without contemplative prayer leads to burnout or running around in circles.”
Prayer is something that I enter into and then happens to me. At the end of 