Back to Basics

There is no one I know of who has thought more about the theology and practice of the local church than Mark Dever. So when Mark Dever says, “This is the best book I’ve read on the nature of church ministry” I pay attention.

And that’s exactly what he wrote on the back of The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything. Dever is right: this is a great book (though the Bible is the only book that changes everything). It’s not available through Amazon, but is currently 50% off at WTS Books.

The Basics

The premise of the book, co-authored by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, is simple. Every church needs a trellis–basic structure, systems, processes, and organization. But no matter how important the trellis is for the life of the plant, it can never be more important than tending to the vine–the ministry of the word that happens in the lives of our people and the lost.  According to Marshall and Payne, disciple-making–person-centered (rather than program centered) vine work–is the heart of church ministry.

Thus the goal of Christian ministry is quite simple, and in a sense measurable: are we making and nurturing genuine disciples of Christ? The church always tends towards institutionalism and secularization. The focus shifts to preserving traditional programs and structures, and the goal of discipleship is lost. The mandate of disciple-making provides the touchstone for whether our church is engaging in Christ’s mission…our goal is to grow the vine, not the trellis (14).

Marshall and Payne aren’t out to denigrate trellis work. As a pastor, I am convinced that good policies and programs really can foster discipleship and help churches avoid a lot of unnecessary pain and confusion. I am immensely grateful for the people at my church who know how to build and repair the trellis. But I also try to tell my congregation often that they have my permission, my strong encouragement in fact, to do less church related activities if it means they will have their neighbors over once a month for dinner, or spend time praying with a lonely widow, or read through Ephesians with a new believer. It is far too easy for pastors to see their congregation as little more than potential volunteers who need to keep the pastor’s church humming along.  This is why church leaders especially need to read this book.

The Word is Central

I appreciate that Marshall and Payne don’t minimize preaching in order to maximize the importance of discipleship. It’s clear they believe in the necessity and centrality of expositional preaching. But they also believe in the centrality of the word in a hundred other forms. When they talk about vine work they mean any context, whether in the pulpit or on the patio, where “a Christian brings truth from God’s word to someone else, praying that God would make a word bear fruit through the inward working of his Spirit. That’s vine work. Everything else is trellis” (39).

The burden of the book, then, is for every member in every church to be a disciple-making disciple, prayerfully speaking God’s word in a multitude of different ways and contexts (53). Programs have their place, but churches don’t make disciples. Disciples make disciples.

Good Ideas

You may be thinking “every member a minister–blah, blah, blah. We’ve heard this all before.” But what makes this book so helpful is (1) the focus on discipleship as opposed to talking about generic ministry, and (2) the practical strategies for doing discipleship effectively. For example, on page 56 there’s a chart with good ideas on how to minister the word one to one, in small groups, and in large groups in the home, in the congregation, and in the community. On page 78, they suggest that the nature and goal of training can be summarized with three C’s: conviction, character, competency. Nothing revolutionary, but very helpful.

Marshall and Payne encourage us to look at discipleship in four categories: outreach, follow-up, growth, training. They suggest that church leaders concentrate at moving people (by the Spirit and prayer of course) though these four stages. Likewise, they urge churches to do an honest audit of all programs, activities, and structures and ask: how many of these are still useful vehicles for outreach, follow-up, growth or training?

A Couple Cautions

There two dangers with a book like this. One is that people may overlook deed ministry in an effort to put word-discipleship ministry in its rightful place. It would have been nice to hear Marshall and Payne talk more about how disciples live and love when they aren’t busy making more disciples. With so much missional talk today, I was thankful that Marshall and Payne zero in on the Great Commission’s marching order: make disciples. No doubt, Matthew 28 establishes the priority for the church. But how do other worthwhile ministries fit in?

A second possible danger is that people will feel like they have to do things just as Marshall and Payne have laid out, with their terms, strategies, and emphases. That would be a mistake, and would not be in keeping with the intention of the book. Someone like me without the one-on-one mentoring gifts  that Marshall, Payne, and Dever have could pretty easily get discouraged, thinking “Why don’t I meet with more people?”

Good Read for the New Year

But all in all, I’m thankful for this accessible, under-the-radar book. You may not heard of it yet, but you should. It will challenged you and make you think. I hope to take our staff through the book in the new year, reading and discussing it every other week for the course of  semester. There are lot of good reminders and plenty of necessary provocations. Even if you don’t agree with every suggestion or end up doing things just like these two Australians do, every church can benefit from this The Trellis and the Vine. Colin Marshall and Tony Payne are focused on the main thing, and we should be too.

Update: I see Justin Taylor wrote about the same book this morning.  That was some real great planning on our part. It’s a little known secret that Justin and I have an E.T.-Elliot sort of connection. I won’t say who is whom.