Another declared value to guide the doing of ministry in Vallejo International is that we seek to be effective. Effectiveness is about achieving success in producing a desired or intended result. The critical basis of evaluating effectiveness is the goal of ministry. This points us back to the three-fold purpose of exalting God, empowering disciples, and engaging the unchurched with the gospel. At the same time, it leads us to the vision statement of “making Christ the central focus in people’s lives.” In other words, effectiveness is determined by our purpose and vision as a church—whether or not we fulfill them.
Ministry should never be about activities and events that are accomplished for their own sake. It’s not about having a to-do list that we can check off each week, and then pat ourselves on the back for having done ministry. The declared value of being effective in ministry demands from the church much more than this.
Effectiveness has to do with placing the proper focus on the things that really matter. The apostle Paul exemplifies this kind of focus when he writes about his personal commitment to Christ: “Not that I have secured it already, nor yet reached my goal, but I am still pursuing it in the attempt to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not reckon myself as having taken hold of it; I can only say that forgetting all that lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies in front, I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3.12–14 NJB). The writer of the letter to the Hebrews echoes the same perspective: “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12.1–2 TNIV).
In the actual practice of ministry, being effective should at least mean that the church’s purpose and vision determine whether we adopt, retain, or eliminate structures, programs, strategies, or activities. We can become sentimental about the things that we are already doing and so continue in them even if they no longer achieve the intended goals. The result is poor stewardship of church resources—manpower, effort, time, and money.
Well-attended events, impressive programs, well-maintained buildings, and state-of-the-art equipment … these are good and desirable things. But these do not in themselves constitute effective ministry. Only when these things become tools that enhance our worship and our service, only when these things help to produce transformed lives that testify to the power of the gospel, only then can we claim to have an effective ministry.
—Keith Y. Jainga