THERE IS A “RULE” IN CHURCH WORK THAT STATES, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. This “rule” is often bantered around in minis-terial circles and at board meetings of church bodies, but is it truly a “rule” to be believed? I wonder. Sometimes I think it is thrown out as an ex-cuse without really considering what church work is all about.
As I write this I am running through my mind all those who faithfully serve here at Felton Bible Church. When I consider, AWANA staff, Wor-ship Team members, Sunday school teachers, ushers, greeters, kitchen workers, those who work with our youth, clean-up crews, those who pre-pare communion, VBS workers of all types, helpers at Parents Time Out and not to mention a good number of people who serve in ways we don’t know about, the number gets quite large. Now let’s add to that our Minis-try Team Coordinators and our custodians and the number grows in re-gards to those who keep this place running smoothly.
Now, I realize that there are some people who do more than one task, but even considering that, there are still many involved in the work of the kingdom, and that’s only the “seen” part of the Kingdom work.
What about the “unseen” part of the kingdom? The part where the real work of the kingdom of God is done. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus, “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12) Herein the real work is done, the work of prayer. And when I consider prayer as the most critical work of the church, we are truly blessed with a wonderful group of intercessors. There is a group of faithful pray-ers who meet every Wednesday, and almost 75 people on our telephone and e-prayer chains, not to mention those who “just pray” without “officially” being asked, and you have lots of people doing the work of the Kingdom.
I can happily announce that the Felton Bible Church is doing its very best to debunk the 80/20 rule! Does that mean we can sit back and re-lax? By no means! Not until the entire Body of Christ is mobilized, not until the task of making disciples of the nations in completed, not until the Lord returns, or calls us home, can we stop. We must be the answer to our Lord’s command, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his har-vest field.” (Matthew 9:37-38)
To all the workers, “Thanks!” And let us join together in praying for the harvest is great!