The Three Amigos of Ministry: Message, Method, and Mode

Our God is a God of order.  We see his order everywhere we look.  Order is found in the smallest arrangement of the atom all the way to the largest galaxies.  Not only is it found in the physics of natural laws, but also in the order of personal relationships.  God has set up order for the family (headship), for society (government) and for churches (elders).  Now, we are all cognizant that the order of those personal relationships gets thrown into chaos every day by sinful people who act against God’s ordained order.  Nevertheless, God has an order, and when it is embraced there will be blessing.    

So what about ministry?  Is there an order of ministry?  In one sense there is.  1 Corinthians 12 says that the people of God are like a body and the Spirit himself distributes gifts according to his own will.  But there is another sense that I want to explore.  It is more of a feature of order.  It is the feature of consistency.  What kind of consistency are we talking about? 

There is a common statement made about ministry concerning the nature of method and message.  That statement goes something like this: the message stays the same, but the method is continually changing.  For instance, the message of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the needed response of faith and repentance must remain unchanged.  But the method of how it is communicated will not always be preaching, but can also be internet videos and puppet skits.  

This two-tiered thinking has paved the way for a flood of ministry variation.  For many, all of this variation is filed under one label: innovation.  It is new ways of sharing the unchanging message of the Bible.  But innovation is not the only word one could use.  It could also be called adulteration or contamination, as it brings in a method which is not consistent, and even contradictory, with the message.  

Before we look at the inconsistency, I want to add another element to the ministry order: mode.  Mode is the delivery within the method.  To illustrate this, we could say that the message is the gold, the method is the ship that moves the gold in a certain direction, and the mode is the crates the gold is held in.  So to be specific, the faith once for all delivered is the gold, one ship is the Sunday morning church service, and the mode is the style of music, the form of preaching, the lighting, the clothes the leaders are wearing, and all the other peripheral features of the service. 

My contention is that these three must have a consistency.  They must harmonize with one another or there will be a ministry dissonance.  You cannot do as you please with the method and mode because the nature of the message is all-encompassing.  In the church’s gospel message, one doctrine connects to the other doctrines, and they all connect to every aspect of life. The message must shape and color both the method and the mode or you do harm to the message.  If any one of those three is amiss, it spoils the whole batch.  

So first of all, if your message is wrong then it doesn’t matter if the method and the mode are correct.  That one is easy.  It gets more difficult with evaluating method and mode.   If your message is God’s word, and your mode is preaching it in clear and understandable language, but your method is targeting young successful suburbanites, that method of (practical) exclusion of diversity contradicts the message.   If your message is God’s word, and your method is building the saints in a local storefront building, but your mode is explaining exegetical minutia using erudite scholarly language, that mode is not going to serve the message which needs to be understood by common folk.  The gold is locked away and inaccessible in a crate of iron plates and steel rivets. 

Let’s go over some more specific examples.  If your message is the gospel that empowers love for neighbor, then a method of splitting a church into a contemporary service for younger people and a traditional service for older people would contradict the message.  If your message is that the Bible is the all-sufficient word of God, then a method of doing topical sermonettes that are akin to T.E.D. talks is a contradiction to the message.  Additionally, the mode could not be a chipper, story-filled address given in a take-it-or-leave-it style.  If your message is the centrality of Jesus Christ in worship and the building up of his body the church, then the method of a concert-style worship service with a high focus on the performers up front would contradict the message.  The rock star worship leaders would also be a mode that contradicts the message.  If your message is God’s word but your mode is to deliver it by using video clips from the Desperate Housewives show, that mode contradicts the message.  If your message is the gospel but your method is a cowboy church, that method is the same faulty method as the targeting of the young and successful.  

God is a God of order.  He is Lord over all.  We do not have free license to conduct worship or convey a message as we please.  God’s name is on the line.  His character is on display.  It all must match and be consistent.  This means there must be a premium upon knowing the holy character of God, being serious about doctrine and its constant application, and what separation from the world really means.  There will be variation, but it is not a limitless variation.  Innovation can happen, but it must be done within constraints, and those constraints are not budgetary or volunteer manpower.  Our constraint is all of the implications of the message.  Just because you can carry gold on a trashcan lid doesn’t mean you should.  We must be certain that all of our theology touches all of our practice.  It all must match.  It must harmonize.  It must fit hand-in-glove.  Our music, our buildings, our clothes, our outreaches, our resources, our goals…everything must match and harmonize with our message.