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Sometimes church ministry looks a lot like being an event planner.
I’m positive that is not what Jesus had in mind, and it’s definitely not what He modeled.
Join me in this episode as we take a deep dive into how to shift from program-centered ministry to relational-centered ministry, and why it matters.
Events and programs can totally be part of a healthy ministry but we weren’t called to be event planners; we were called to be shepherds. Listen in to learn how.
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Laurie Graham 00:01
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry podcast.
Laurie Graham 00:15
Hey, welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast! We have an incredible episode today because we are talking about relational ministry. We’re going to make it super practical, super applicable so that you can walk away not only understanding relational ministry, but having some new tips to put this in place in your ministry, as well as in your life.
Laurie Graham 00:35
Now, we talk a lot about relational ministry here at Small Church Ministry. It is one of our core values. It is woven throughout everything we do, not just how we teach people to do small church ministry, but in the ministry that we have. We build connections; people are usually blown away even when they join the network that they get a personal call with me. It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t blow you away. Like, we should be used to meeting people, connecting with people, not just people we do business with, but people we do life with, building relationships that matter, because this is how Jesus did ministry.
Laurie Graham 01:11
Now in today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about relational ministry, what it means, and specifically what it looks like. In fact, by the end of the episode, you’re going to have at least 23 practical ways to begin dotting your ministry with more relational depth and connection. And if you put the things that we’re talking about into place in your ministry and in your life, you will see a huge change, not just in results of however you judge your ministry, but in how you feel about ministry, about how you feel about the calling on your life.
Laurie Graham 01:45
Now, the changes that you see are not overnight. We’re not talking about quick fixes. We’re not about quick fixes here at all, and neither was Jesus. What I’m talking about today is sustained transformational change, in the way that we do ministry and how we feel about ministry, in the impact we have, in the lasting transformational impact we are called to make on this planet, with people, with the people that God created around us every day.
Laurie Graham 02:15
Now, when you think about the life of Jesus, how he did ministry, how he spent his time, do you notice what I notice? It’s very organic. It’s totally relational. He wasn’t sitting around with his disciples planning what to do, how to entertain, how to promote the next men’s barbecue. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with events. I often love events. I think they can be a fabulous venue for building relationships, for going deeper in discipleship, for doing life together on this planet, but they’re not always.
Laurie Graham 02:56
Somewhere along the way, in this thing we call church, we have gotten some priorities pretty mixed up, generally speaking, how we evaluate success, how we evaluate what ministry is supposed to look like—successful ministry. But in the end, please see this: None of us are called to be event planners. We weren’t put on this planet to program events. What we’re called to be as shepherds, every single one of us, relating to people.
Laurie Graham 03:32
It’s funny, as I was putting this episode together, an old show popped through my head. I’m totally dating myself, but does anyone—do you remember The Love Boat? The Love Boat? You know, Julie was the cruise director and her face popped right into my mind. Now I have not thought about this show in decades. Okay. So literally, as I’m thinking about event planners and programmers, Julie, the cruise director, popped in my mind: the smile on her face, “Come this way! Look what we have for you! We’re here to take care of you!” Can I just say that is not our job in ministry. We were not called to be cruise directors. We’re called to be shepherds. It’s a close-up ministry. Sometimes it’s a dirty job.
Laurie Graham 04:16
We’re caring for one another.
Laurie Graham 04:19
Now, I also want to point out that it’s much easier to be an event planner. It’s easier to judge success. It’s easier to set things up the way that you like. It’s more controlled. Relationships aren’t controllable that way. They’re fluid. They’re organic. They go through seasons. They develop. They are difficult at times. So instead of asking, “How are your events? How are your programs going?” let’s start asking, “How are your relationships?”
Laurie Graham 04:56
This focus on numbers is so infiltrated throughout our churches. As, “How many events do you have? What are the number of events? What are the number of people coming? How about dates and times?” It’s more numbers, Mondays and budgets, more numbers. Now you can hear me talk in other episodes about how numbers are important. They do give us information. It’s not that numbers aren’t important. But let’s take a breather from all the numbers and talk about relational ministry: its importance, its eternal value, the modeling of Jesus Christ himself as he walked around the planet. It’s how he did ministry.
Laurie Graham 05:36
It’s also very easy to say, “We value relationships,” “Of course, we do!” You can be a church event where people say, “We value relationships.” But you may not see it, because it isn’t evidenced in a modern church culture that has morphed into event programming. Where we’ve been evaluating for generations based on numbers. I don’t care what you think about big church, small church, we still have big churches saying, “We’ve got this many people.” We have pastors gathering together at conferences who say literally, the first question is, “How big is your church? How many people come to your church?” Let’s take a breather from that.
Laurie Graham 06:19
What does relational ministry really look like? Because I want to say there is evidence of relational ministry. It’s not really that elusive. It is quantifiable. You can judge the success of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 06:37
Relational ministry looks like this: You know what the needs are around you. It’s not a place where everybody’s happy all the time, where people have a pasted smile on their face, saying, “God is good. I’m too blessed to be stressed.” That’s not relational ministry. Relational ministry, people actually share their needs, they feel safe to share their needs. Their stories are welcome in a relational ministry. So if people around you are saying, “I’m fine all the time,” “How are you?” “I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s a good day,” you may be missing a little bit there.
Laurie Graham 07:15
The leaders of a relational ministry are also not seen as invincible. They don’t put themselves on a pedestal, and neither do others. Now, I’m not saying they’re a mess, and we’re just bleeding all over the place, right? But there is a shared vulnerability because we are humans walking this life road together. There is a community of togetherness, where people share and help and care and shoulder loads together. That’s a general view of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 07:46
Now, I’m going to give you 23 specific things you can do. We’re going to get super, super practical. In this episode, today, there will probably be more than 23. But we’re going to start with 23 things. I’m going to click through them like a list to give you specific things that you can do today, tomorrow, ongoing. And these things are all things you can do. They are evidence of a relational Ministry of developing one. They are steps and strategies, things that we can do not just, “Hey, we’ll just see what God brings our way today.”
Laurie Graham 08:20
So I’m gonna start, number one: being present. Just being present with people, which means this: when somebody walks in a room, you put down what you are working on, or looking for, or hunting for, or stressed about, and you look them in the eye. I’ve talked about the Scripture recently in several podcasts, I believe, but just remember that Scripture, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. How many times do we see evidence in the life of Christ? He’s busy, crowds are pressed, and he turns and looks at somebody in the eye. So look at somebody in the eye. That’s number one. Look at people in the eye, stop what you’re doing, put things down. That is evidence of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 09:01
The second thing I’m going to throw it out at you is pray for people by name, in private, in quiet. I’m not saying when you are in public, and we’re going through a prayer list. I’m saying keep a list of people. Keep a list of their names. Pray for them by name. Make it a living list. Keep adding to it. At times, I put posters on my wall with people’s names on it. At times I’ve used a journal. At times I had little rocks, like river rocks, and I have people’s names printed on them, so I could hold them while I prayed individually. Hold one, put it down, hold another, put it down.
Laurie Graham 09:38
Number three practical tip, practical thought: Write a note each day or a text each day. A thank you note, an appreciation note. When I write thank you notes to people, I am usually overwhelmed with gratefulness and thankfulness. If you can take writing notes (and I say sending a text because I know a lot of people don’t like handwritten notes, but I love writing notes). If you can take that thought of writing somebody a thank you note or an appreciation note, take it away from that thought of, “Oh, it’s on my list, I have to get it done. It’s a to-do,” and make it a practice of gratefulness. Your words will change on the page. Write a note to somebody each day, mail it, drop it in their folder at church, or just send a text, an appreciation text.
Laurie Graham 10:26
Tip number four: Keep a living list of people within your reach. Now I know I talked about a list like a prayer list, this is a little different. In ministry, I think it’s really important just to keep in mind the people we are reaching, right? The people, the reason we’re doing what we’re doing. So keep a living list, which means you’re going to add to it all the time. If you take a certain journal to church on Sundays, to take notes, or maybe you, I don’t know, just keep a pad of paper in your car, wherever you have a list that’s available to you, just make it living. So this is what it means: you add to it all the time. Somebody pops into church, a friend of a friend, you just write their name on it. Maybe somebody’s bringing their granddaughter, maybe somebody brought their uncle to church, keep a list of people within your reach. Maybe you actually meet somebody at the grocery store, maybe the cashier, you learn their name, you just make a note of that person. And every now and then, just go over your list. Pray over it, consider it. Think of, “How can I, how can I be thoughtful for these people on this list?”
Laurie Graham 11:26
Okay, idea number five: Set event goals, with relationships and conversations in mind. So when you set event goals, you’re always going to evaluate by those goals. Or hopefully that would be the point is you have a goal and you evaluate by those goals. So make sure to include these types of goals and evaluations when you are doing events. “I’m going to meet so many people.” If you have four volunteers, make it part of their job description of the event to reach out to three people you’ve never reached out to before, have a conversation, discover needs. And then when you evaluate the event, say, “Hey, who did you meet?” Pretty simple, pretty quantifiable. We can throw that into organization and structure when you send an event, you’ll include relationships and conversations. “How many conversations did you have today?” Okay, that’s number five.
Laurie Graham 12:14
Sixth specific thing you can do: **Read the book Trauma in the Pews by Jeanette McCullough. Okay. It’s called Trauma in the Pews. I believe everybody in church ministry should read this, study it, just get to know it. Get familiar with this term called trauma today. And I want to say, I know sometimes things become kind of like a fad or like a buzzword, like everybody has ADHD today. Like I do. Okay, and I truly do. I’ve discovered I have ADHD because I was watching reels on Facebook. And I’m like, “Wow, this is so interesting.” It’s been life-changing for me.
But I hate even saying that because it feels like such a fad. Like everybody’s got ADHD today. Everybody’s got trauma today. If trauma—if that word “trauma” for you is hitting you like it’s a fad, or it’s just like a buzzword today—please go a little deeper and just read this book, Trauma in the Pews by Jeanette McCullough. Just absorb what you can, learn a little bit. There’s so much we are learning about trauma, about how our environment, about things we’ve been through in our lives. And we need to do better. We know more now, we need to do better. So just read the book. That’s number six.
Laurie Graham 13:17
Number seven: Learn about and practice empathy. Okay, empathy. And I’m going to give you a very specific example of this. I said to somebody recently, I shared a very difficult thing I just went through. It’s kind of silly, but it was really difficult, very hurtful to me. But I shared it with somebody. And one person said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. But you’ll be okay. God’s gonna do great things with that.” I’m going to tell you right now, that did not make me feel really good. I shared it with another friend. And she said, “I’m so sorry. How did that impact you?”
Laurie Graham 13:52
She asked questions and she listened. She said, “That’s not a good feeling.” Because that’s what empathy is. In modern church culture, I’m telling you, we’ve almost thrown empathy out the door because we just like to “Jesus-frosting” everything and say, “Oh, you’ll be okay. God is good.” This is true. And I’m going to say this is true. It is totally true. But when somebody is coming to you with a hard thing, it’s just not the time for that. Let’s just listen. Let’s just listen. Listen, give some empathy. So, learn about and practice empathy—little tiny thing.
Laurie Graham 14:24
Okay. Number eight thing to do if you want to grow in relational ministry, I highly encourage you to study the book Courageous Care by Kari Bartkus. Why? Because it opens up conversations. Care is relational ministry. It will bring up awareness; it also brings depth, thoughtfulness, and some self-examination. So that’s book number two I’m going to tell you to grab and read and study.
Laurie Graham 14:47
Step number nine: Grow in emotional awareness. Learn to develop authentic sharing and safety. This is part of emotional awareness. Getting comfortable with our emotions. Get an emotions wheel. I have one right by my desk all the time. I actually look at it; I refer to it often. Introduce this thought of emotional awareness in your groups and your classes, in your team trainings. Emotional awareness, being aware of the emotions that God created us with, that are throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament.
Let’s learn to understand our emotions. Did you know that you can actually develop your emotional intelligence? You know, the IQ, like your intelligence quotient, there’s something called EQ. And from what I’ve heard, you’re kind of stuck with your IQ—you’re only as smart as you’re born, right? Like you’ve got kind of a limit there. But emotional intelligence, you can grow in that. Build this vocabulary into your life, and just start growing in emotional awareness.
Laurie Graham 15:53
Okay, number 10, the 10th tip I have for you to start building relational ministry into your ministry and your life is to offer community workshops on all these things we’re talking about. Don’t just learn for you, offer workshops. You know, people keep talking about what’s the best outreach activity, “How can we reach our community?” I’m going to tell you right now, your community does not need another, I don’t know, like jumping castle, or another hot dog.
If you really want to meet needs in your community, quit giving them hot dogs, and give them workshops on understanding trauma, on growing in empathy and emotional awareness and being a good listener. Offer community workshops on dealing with grief. Think of deep relational things and offer community workshops. You don’t have to teach it; bring in an expert, bring in a counselor, bring in a therapist, you know, bring in people that understand these things. Personal Growth, it’s a good thing. God wants us to grow. God wants us to learn. God wants us to impact lives. I believe this is all so God-honoring.
Laurie Graham 17:08
Okay, number 11: Learn relational skills yourself. Now, a lot of people think we don’t need to learn relational skills. We’re born with people in our lives, and we grow up learning these things. But have you ever noticed that some people have more relational skills than other people? These are things we can learn. If you are shy, and you don’t like to initiate conversation, that’s a skill to learn. It’s not something you’re born with or not. If you’re a terrible listener, that is a skill you can learn. If you’re uncomfortable asking questions to other people to go deeper, to learn about them, that is a skill to learn. You can learn relational skills.
Laurie Graham 17:58
Spend time intentionally in one-on-one conversations, meet-ups, and set goals for this in your life. Maybe you’re the volunteer women’s ministry leader, maybe you’re a Sunday school teacher, maybe you are the pastor. Have you ever set goals for how many one-on-one conversations you’re going to have this week? One-on-one conversation, looking someone in the eye, asking them not just how their day has gone, but “How did that impact you? How are you feeling about this change in your life?” Let’s get beyond dates and times and what we’re doing to how we’re feeling. Spend time, make time, set time for one-on-one conversations. This absolutely could be a one-on-one meeting over coffee. This also could be just taking time at church in the midst of busy hustle. To not just say hi to 40 people, but to pull somebody aside in the hallway and say, “Hey, I want to know how you’re doing.”
Laurie Graham 19:02
Okay, number 13: Intentionally build sharing time for sharing in every event that you do, whether it’s a Sunday school class or, you know, a women’s ministry meet-up, a hike, or men’s barbecue, whatever, intentionally build sharing time in that event. Now, this is what I mean. We usually program our event from beginning to end. There’s no space in the middle. I want you to put space in it and make it intentional. Not just mixers or icebreakers. Icebreakers are great, but what do they do? Icebreakers do what they do: they break the ice. They literally just break the ice. They don’t go deep. So after you do an icebreaker, program some time into your event for sharing and conversation, and teach people how to do this well. Even things like a worship practice. “We do practice on Tuesday nights and we meet from six to 7:30.” Build in some time for relationships, for sharing. “Maybe we’re going to start at seven with a, you know, we always have like a 10-minute, I don’t know what they’d call it in the world, like a cocktail hour, right?” Where you’re just talking, like build those times in. You don’t skip that just to rush to sit down and get your job done. That relational time is so important. So intentionally build sharing into your events.
Laurie Graham 20:20
Oh my gosh, we’re running out of time. So I’m going to keep going here. Number 14: Quit talking at people so much. Quit talking at people so much. I feel like sometimes in ministry, we teach people to talk at people: “You’re presenting, you know, I don’t know, a teaching in your Sunday school class, or you’re at your program and you’re doing a tea party and you’re talking at people.” Quit doing that so much. Team trainings. Did you know if you are blessed enough to have a ministry team, when you do a training, how much do you talk? Quit talking at people so much. Do you know the other cool thing about this is? People actually don’t remember what you say to them. Did you know that? But they do remember what they do. So even if you’re training people with something, instead of talking and explaining and just, you know, just going at it. Be quiet and let people practice. Let them try, let them do, maybe even let them be the teacher. Quit talking at people so much. It’s a sign of a relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 21:27
Number 15, sign of a relational ministry strategy you can practice even starting today: Stop doing ministry alone. Whatever it is you’re doing, invite somebody to do it with you. Shopping for supplies, find somebody who was shopping with you, “Hey, let’s run to Costco. Let’s get stuff for this event.” Folding napkins, say, “Hey, I’m going to church to fold napkins. Would you come with me?” Alison Marco, who has been in our Small Church Network, she’s just such a student and learner. She literally transformed her ministry as a pastor’s wife, ministry, women’s ministry leader, by doing just this: she stopped doing ministry alone. She actually keeps a list of people in her church and just rotates through them. So everybody gets invited. Everybody doesn’t always say yes. But she invites somebody to come set up tables. If they say no, she just goes down the list. “Hey, do you want to come?” She said it has transformed her ministry. She’s having so much fun getting to know people while she is doing ministry. So stop doing ministry alone, invite people to do it with you.
Laurie Graham 22:32
Number 16: Always, always, always have a seat at the table to invite a new person onto your team, to help, to serve, to whatever. Always have an open seat for a new person and invite them. If your core team has been the same for a year, or two, or three, or 10, I can’t even tell you how many people come and say, “Oh my gosh, we can’t get new people on our team. We’ve been the same for 10 years.” If you’ve been the same for 10 years, or five or two, it is too long. Your team should be dynamic and moving. And if you’re going to say nobody wants to join you, like you’ve invited people, they’ve said no, there’s another issue there. Okay, so stick around for more on volunteers, go back through the podcast, listen to the volunteer type episodes, because there is a block there if that’s what’s happening, but have a seat at the table for someone new all the time.
Laurie Graham 23:27
Number 17. Love people. And I want to say love is not just a decision, like people say, “Oh, I love people. I’ve decided to love people. Love’s a decision. It’s not a feeling.” Love is not just a decision, everyone. Love is also a feeling. We feel love toward people. We feel compassion. Number 17 is love people. And I know it might sound elusive, but it’s not; grow in your skills of loving people. When you’re walking around the grocery store, when you are driving, are you loving people? Do you love the driver next to you? I know sometimes it’s hard. But there are actually skills in this. Some of those skills are a few things I’ve mentioned earlier like growing in empathy. Another skill is just looking for commonalities. Anytime you’re with somebody, start looking, whether you’re speaking it or just considering their stories. Look for what you have in common with them, whether it is a situation, a feeling, a struggle, a joy, a celebration. Learn to love people—we can grow in this. Listen to life stories, ask for more life stories. Ask people for their stories. This is how we learn to love people.
Laurie Graham 24:40
Number 18. Understand yourself better. Now this is a tough one. And many, many, many people go through life, they don’t want to understand their story, their life, who they are, because we’re overwhelmed by it. So we stay so busy so we don’t have to ask ourselves the tough questions. Be bold, be brave enough to understand yourself. Learn about your reactions. This might mean counseling. Yes, this might mean actually thinking about your story. Your story that you grew up with affects your story today. If you’re coming to the upcoming conference this weekend, please go sit through, go participate in Jeanette McCullough’s session. This is what her session is called. I love it. I can’t believe when she told me what she was titling her session for the women’s ministry conference. Her title is this: “What Happens When You Try to Help Others Before Healing Your Own Story?” She’s going to talk about why that’s not a good idea. And I have to be honest, I might even say that’s the majority of people in church ministry today. Because most people do not consider their story, go through a healing process through our blind spots. You are not immune. We are all affected by things we’ve been through, things that have happened to us, around us, in our environment, things that we’ve seen. So understand yourself better is a huge key in relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 26:05
Number 19. Do not ever, ever, ever let a conflict or a difficult person in the middle of that conflict? Don’t let a conflict go without offering empathy and compassion. Yes, it is not always received, but we can always offer it. Let’s say you’re in a meeting and there’s a conflict, there’s something difficult happening, you can see people shutting down. These are the kinds of questions you can ask: “Wow, what just happened? What was that about? How did that impact you?” Now if it was a high conflict, these are questions to ask in private. “Hey, Jenny, let’s talk for a minute, what happened in there? Tell me what that was about. How did that impact you?” And just listen, just listen. Other people in the group are often, are often highly affected by conflict that has nothing to do with them. Do you know that? There’s a conflict happening on this side of the room, the other people are listening, watching, and shutting down. This happens too much in our churches. This is the cause for silence, for unspoken things that fester. This is the cause of a lot of people leaving the church. There is often a lot of unhealed trauma around us all the time. And when we ignore it, you know what happens? It just stays there. It just stays like a big old elephant in the room. Now, you may not be able to fix it. But you can express empathy and compassion. And oftentimes, that is the beginning. That is the beginning of an awareness and an openness for healing.
Laurie Graham 27:43
Okay, number 20: Talk to people without an agenda to ask. Talk to people without an “ask.” You might ask about them. Yes. But quit asking for something every time you talk to people. If people avoid your phone calls, if people avoid you in the church hallway, it could be because you’re always asking them for something. Let’s have conversations where we’re not asking for a volunteer, where we’re not asking for help. We’re just asking about them.
Laurie Graham 28:16
Number 21: Please put an end to all the expectations that you have for everyone else around you. And just let people be. Let them choose. Let them live their life and you live yours. Now I’m not talking about discipleship setting, I’m talking about general church relationships. Those of us who carry a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight, highly responsible people, people who maybe have walked with Jesus for a while or we just want to fix things. We want to make things better. We have a way of oozing that onto others. They get to decide. Let them decide. Let them be. Jesus did not make you the boss of everyone; he didn’t. When we become that way, we actually turn people off. So this, this can be a really tough one. It might be the hardest one on there. But let people be.
Laurie Graham 29:08
Number 22, related but not totally, it’s completely separate: When you do have a request, make sure it’s a request and not a demand. Understand the difference. Here’s the biggest way to know if you’re if you’re requesting something of someone or if you’re demanding: If you are not okay with a “no,” it’s a demand. That’s a tough one, isn’t it? If you ask someone if they can help and they say no, if that’s going to bother you, it really wasn’t a request. If you’re not okay with a “no,” it’s a demand. So when you’re requesting something, when you’re asking something, make sure it is a request. If it’s not, take care of that first, you and Jesus. “How do I get to that place where I can be okay with a ‘no’?” Do that first.
Laurie Graham 29:51
Okay. And number 23. We’re almost done down the homestretch here. Number 23: Be healthier. You be healthier. This is a huge component in relational ministry, not just understanding your story, but just be healthier, take care of you. If you are not okay, you will not be okay with other people. You can only fake it for so long; it will come out. Live healthier. Model ministry health, personal health, time off, rest. Emotional care, physical care—this is a sign of relational ministry. Because believe it or not, you have a relationship with yourself. Think about it. Are you kind to you? Are you more kind to other people than you are to yourself? That’s a relationship. Are you harsh to yourself? Are you judgy? Are you compassionate with yourself? If you don’t have a good relationship with you, you cannot have a great relationship with other people.
Laurie Graham 30:57
Okay, it’s been 30 minutes, that was 23 things. And I have to wrap it up with this: Teach others everything I’m saying here. Teach other people around you, friends, family, team members, the people who come to your ministry gatherings. Everything I just talked about, we can teach to other people. We can teach people to be healthier, we can teach them. What’s the difference between a request and a demand? We can teach others to stop expecting so much of other people. So when somebody comes to a church and says, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe she said no again!” Maybe you can be the one to say, “Wow, let’s just let them be.” Right? Every single thing that I mentioned can be taught and shared with others. We are living this church life in community, or we’re supposed to be.
Laurie Graham 31:47
So these 23 things, these are signs of a relational ministry. Is it quantifiable? It actually is. You know if you’re being healthier or not. You know if when somebody walks in a room, you put something down and look at them, or if you don’t. So much of this is easily measured. We don’t like to measure it. But it’s easily measured, practical, applicable steps to take, ideas to grow and embrace and teach and spread this thing called relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 32:24
So what marks a relational ministry? Like what’s the difference between a relational ministry and a program ministry? Program-focused ministry, I want to say it’s not the number of programs. Sometimes people think, “Oh, if you have a relational ministry, you’re not doing all those programs.” That’s actually not what I’m saying. Now, oftentimes, a relational ministry might have fewer programs; it might. Programs aren’t required for relationships. However, programs could be a beautiful venue for relationships, like a conduit, the container, where relationships may be fostered and built. But oftentimes, here’s the sad news: Oftentimes, the events and programs we are creating are not because we’ve defaulted to bringing cookies, having an activity, leading this, doing this, saying this, because we’ve forgotten the depth of our calling. Because we’re not called to be event planners. We’re called to be shepherds.
Laurie Graham 33:24
The true impact of life on life, living in community, learning together, transparency, vulnerability, caring below the surface. Isn’t that the kind of ministry you want to be part of? I know I do. So let’s do better. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, this is not a quick fix, but it can be developed. Do you want more of this? Start making the changes in your own life, sharing them with your small circle, and then growing that out to be a larger, larger ripple effect. If you want to learn more of this, if you want to be surrounded by people who are committed to this, come hang out with us. This is a big part of what we do. If you’re listening when the show goes live, you can grab a free ticket today to the Women’s Ministry for Small Churches Conference. It’s happening this coming weekend, the last Saturday of January. Women’s Ministry for Small Churches Conference happening. Check out smallchurchsummits.com to grab your free ticket. We would love to have you there. Make sure to come be with us. If you miss the conference and you want even more, definitely check out the Small Church Network. It is available for you to join at any time. Just go to smallchurchministry.com/network. Come join us. We teach, we train, we do life together, we unpack the concepts, the things that we talk about in this podcast. And on our website, we go deep together. Every single mention in this episode is included, unpacked, and practiced with our learning community. We’d love to have you.
Laurie Graham 35:16
All right, that’s what I got. Go back and re-listen to this whenever you need a refresher. 23 specific practical ways. I can’t believe I got that done in almost less than 30 minutes. Woo. All right. We’ll talk again next week. Be a light.
Hey, this is Laurie Graham. Welcome to the Small Church Ministry podcast.
Laurie Graham 00:15
Hey, welcome back to the Small Church Ministry Podcast! We have an incredible episode today because we are talking about relational ministry. We’re going to make it super practical, super applicable so that you can walk away not only understanding relational ministry, but having some new tips to put this in place in your ministry, as well as in your life.
Laurie Graham 00:35
Now, we talk a lot about relational ministry here at Small Church Ministry. It is one of our core values. It is woven throughout everything we do, not just how we teach people to do small church ministry, but in the ministry that we have. We build connections; people are usually blown away even when they join the network that they get a personal call with me. It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t blow you away. Like, we should be used to meeting people, connecting with people, not just people we do business with, but people we do life with, building relationships that matter, because this is how Jesus did ministry.
Laurie Graham 01:11
Now in today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about relational ministry, what it means, and specifically what it looks like. In fact, by the end of the episode, you’re going to have at least 23 practical ways to begin dotting your ministry with more relational depth and connection. And if you put the things that we’re talking about into place in your ministry and in your life, you will see a huge change, not just in results of however you judge your ministry, but in how you feel about ministry, about how you feel about the calling on your life.
Laurie Graham 01:45
Now, the changes that you see are not overnight. We’re not talking about quick fixes. We’re not about quick fixes here at all, and neither was Jesus. What I’m talking about today is sustained transformational change, in the way that we do ministry and how we feel about ministry, in the impact we have, in the lasting transformational impact we are called to make on this planet, with people, with the people that God created around us every day.
Laurie Graham 02:15
Now, when you think about the life of Jesus, how he did ministry, how he spent his time, do you notice what I notice? It’s very organic. It’s totally relational. He wasn’t sitting around with his disciples planning what to do, how to entertain, how to promote the next men’s barbecue. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with events. I often love events. I think they can be a fabulous venue for building relationships, for going deeper in discipleship, for doing life together on this planet, but they’re not always.
Laurie Graham 02:56
Somewhere along the way, in this thing we call church, we have gotten some priorities pretty mixed up, generally speaking, how we evaluate success, how we evaluate what ministry is supposed to look like—successful ministry. But in the end, please see this: None of us are called to be event planners. We weren’t put on this planet to program events. What we’re called to be as shepherds, every single one of us, relating to people.
Laurie Graham 03:32
It’s funny, as I was putting this episode together, an old show popped through my head. I’m totally dating myself, but does anyone—do you remember The Love Boat? The Love Boat? You know, Julie was the cruise director and her face popped right into my mind. Now I have not thought about this show in decades. Okay. So literally, as I’m thinking about event planners and programmers, Julie, the cruise director, popped in my mind: the smile on her face, “Come this way! Look what we have for you! We’re here to take care of you!” Can I just say that is not our job in ministry. We were not called to be cruise directors. We’re called to be shepherds. It’s a close-up ministry. Sometimes it’s a dirty job.
Laurie Graham 04:16
We’re caring for one another.
Laurie Graham 04:19
Now, I also want to point out that it’s much easier to be an event planner. It’s easier to judge success. It’s easier to set things up the way that you like. It’s more controlled. Relationships aren’t controllable that way. They’re fluid. They’re organic. They go through seasons. They develop. They are difficult at times. So instead of asking, “How are your events? How are your programs going?” let’s start asking, “How are your relationships?”
Laurie Graham 04:56
This focus on numbers is so infiltrated throughout our churches. As, “How many events do you have? What are the number of events? What are the number of people coming? How about dates and times?” It’s more numbers, Mondays and budgets, more numbers. Now you can hear me talk in other episodes about how numbers are important. They do give us information. It’s not that numbers aren’t important. But let’s take a breather from all the numbers and talk about relational ministry: its importance, its eternal value, the modeling of Jesus Christ himself as he walked around the planet. It’s how he did ministry.
Laurie Graham 05:36
It’s also very easy to say, “We value relationships,” “Of course, we do!” You can be a church event where people say, “We value relationships.” But you may not see it, because it isn’t evidenced in a modern church culture that has morphed into event programming. Where we’ve been evaluating for generations based on numbers. I don’t care what you think about big church, small church, we still have big churches saying, “We’ve got this many people.” We have pastors gathering together at conferences who say literally, the first question is, “How big is your church? How many people come to your church?” Let’s take a breather from that.
Laurie Graham 06:19
What does relational ministry really look like? Because I want to say there is evidence of relational ministry. It’s not really that elusive. It is quantifiable. You can judge the success of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 06:37
Relational ministry looks like this: You know what the needs are around you. It’s not a place where everybody’s happy all the time, where people have a pasted smile on their face, saying, “God is good. I’m too blessed to be stressed.” That’s not relational ministry. Relational ministry, people actually share their needs, they feel safe to share their needs. Their stories are welcome in a relational ministry. So if people around you are saying, “I’m fine all the time,” “How are you?” “I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s a good day,” you may be missing a little bit there.
Laurie Graham 07:15
The leaders of a relational ministry are also not seen as invincible. They don’t put themselves on a pedestal, and neither do others. Now, I’m not saying they’re a mess, and we’re just bleeding all over the place, right? But there is a shared vulnerability because we are humans walking this life road together. There is a community of togetherness, where people share and help and care and shoulder loads together. That’s a general view of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 07:46
Now, I’m going to give you 23 specific things you can do. We’re going to get super, super practical. In this episode, today, there will probably be more than 23. But we’re going to start with 23 things. I’m going to click through them like a list to give you specific things that you can do today, tomorrow, ongoing. And these things are all things you can do. They are evidence of a relational Ministry of developing one. They are steps and strategies, things that we can do not just, “Hey, we’ll just see what God brings our way today.”
Laurie Graham 08:20
So I’m gonna start, number one: being present. Just being present with people, which means this: when somebody walks in a room, you put down what you are working on, or looking for, or hunting for, or stressed about, and you look them in the eye. I’ve talked about the Scripture recently in several podcasts, I believe, but just remember that Scripture, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. How many times do we see evidence in the life of Christ? He’s busy, crowds are pressed, and he turns and looks at somebody in the eye. So look at somebody in the eye. That’s number one. Look at people in the eye, stop what you’re doing, put things down. That is evidence of relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 09:01
The second thing I’m going to throw it out at you is pray for people by name, in private, in quiet. I’m not saying when you are in public, and we’re going through a prayer list. I’m saying keep a list of people. Keep a list of their names. Pray for them by name. Make it a living list. Keep adding to it. At times, I put posters on my wall with people’s names on it. At times I’ve used a journal. At times I had little rocks, like river rocks, and I have people’s names printed on them, so I could hold them while I prayed individually. Hold one, put it down, hold another, put it down.
Laurie Graham 09:38
Number three practical tip, practical thought: Write a note each day or a text each day. A thank you note, an appreciation note. When I write thank you notes to people, I am usually overwhelmed with gratefulness and thankfulness. If you can take writing notes (and I say sending a text because I know a lot of people don’t like handwritten notes, but I love writing notes). If you can take that thought of writing somebody a thank you note or an appreciation note, take it away from that thought of, “Oh, it’s on my list, I have to get it done. It’s a to-do,” and make it a practice of gratefulness. Your words will change on the page. Write a note to somebody each day, mail it, drop it in their folder at church, or just send a text, an appreciation text.
Laurie Graham 10:26
Tip number four: Keep a living list of people within your reach. Now I know I talked about a list like a prayer list, this is a little different. In ministry, I think it’s really important just to keep in mind the people we are reaching, right? The people, the reason we’re doing what we’re doing. So keep a living list, which means you’re going to add to it all the time. If you take a certain journal to church on Sundays, to take notes, or maybe you, I don’t know, just keep a pad of paper in your car, wherever you have a list that’s available to you, just make it living. So this is what it means: you add to it all the time. Somebody pops into church, a friend of a friend, you just write their name on it. Maybe somebody’s bringing their granddaughter, maybe somebody brought their uncle to church, keep a list of people within your reach. Maybe you actually meet somebody at the grocery store, maybe the cashier, you learn their name, you just make a note of that person. And every now and then, just go over your list. Pray over it, consider it. Think of, “How can I, how can I be thoughtful for these people on this list?”
Laurie Graham 11:26
Okay, idea number five: Set event goals, with relationships and conversations in mind. So when you set event goals, you’re always going to evaluate by those goals. Or hopefully that would be the point is you have a goal and you evaluate by those goals. So make sure to include these types of goals and evaluations when you are doing events. “I’m going to meet so many people.” If you have four volunteers, make it part of their job description of the event to reach out to three people you’ve never reached out to before, have a conversation, discover needs. And then when you evaluate the event, say, “Hey, who did you meet?” Pretty simple, pretty quantifiable. We can throw that into organization and structure when you send an event, you’ll include relationships and conversations. “How many conversations did you have today?” Okay, that’s number five.
Laurie Graham 12:14
Sixth specific thing you can do: **Read the book Trauma in the Pews by Jeanette McCullough. Okay. It’s called Trauma in the Pews. I believe everybody in church ministry should read this, study it, just get to know it. Get familiar with this term called trauma today. And I want to say, I know sometimes things become kind of like a fad or like a buzzword, like everybody has ADHD today. Like I do. Okay, and I truly do. I’ve discovered I have ADHD because I was watching reels on Facebook. And I’m like, “Wow, this is so interesting.” It’s been life-changing for me.
But I hate even saying that because it feels like such a fad. Like everybody’s got ADHD today. Everybody’s got trauma today. If trauma—if that word “trauma” for you is hitting you like it’s a fad, or it’s just like a buzzword today—please go a little deeper and just read this book, Trauma in the Pews by Jeanette McCullough. Just absorb what you can, learn a little bit. There’s so much we are learning about trauma, about how our environment, about things we’ve been through in our lives. And we need to do better. We know more now, we need to do better. So just read the book. That’s number six.
Laurie Graham 13:17
Number seven: Learn about and practice empathy. Okay, empathy. And I’m going to give you a very specific example of this. I said to somebody recently, I shared a very difficult thing I just went through. It’s kind of silly, but it was really difficult, very hurtful to me. But I shared it with somebody. And one person said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. But you’ll be okay. God’s gonna do great things with that.” I’m going to tell you right now, that did not make me feel really good. I shared it with another friend. And she said, “I’m so sorry. How did that impact you?”
Laurie Graham 13:52
She asked questions and she listened. She said, “That’s not a good feeling.” Because that’s what empathy is. In modern church culture, I’m telling you, we’ve almost thrown empathy out the door because we just like to “Jesus-frosting” everything and say, “Oh, you’ll be okay. God is good.” This is true. And I’m going to say this is true. It is totally true. But when somebody is coming to you with a hard thing, it’s just not the time for that. Let’s just listen. Let’s just listen. Listen, give some empathy. So, learn about and practice empathy—little tiny thing.
Laurie Graham 14:24
Okay. Number eight thing to do if you want to grow in relational ministry, I highly encourage you to study the book Courageous Care by Kari Bartkus. Why? Because it opens up conversations. Care is relational ministry. It will bring up awareness; it also brings depth, thoughtfulness, and some self-examination. So that’s book number two I’m going to tell you to grab and read and study.
Laurie Graham 14:47
Step number nine: Grow in emotional awareness. Learn to develop authentic sharing and safety. This is part of emotional awareness. Getting comfortable with our emotions. Get an emotions wheel. I have one right by my desk all the time. I actually look at it; I refer to it often. Introduce this thought of emotional awareness in your groups and your classes, in your team trainings. Emotional awareness, being aware of the emotions that God created us with, that are throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament.
Let’s learn to understand our emotions. Did you know that you can actually develop your emotional intelligence? You know, the IQ, like your intelligence quotient, there’s something called EQ. And from what I’ve heard, you’re kind of stuck with your IQ—you’re only as smart as you’re born, right? Like you’ve got kind of a limit there. But emotional intelligence, you can grow in that. Build this vocabulary into your life, and just start growing in emotional awareness.
Laurie Graham 15:53
Okay, number 10, the 10th tip I have for you to start building relational ministry into your ministry and your life is to offer community workshops on all these things we’re talking about. Don’t just learn for you, offer workshops. You know, people keep talking about what’s the best outreach activity, “How can we reach our community?” I’m going to tell you right now, your community does not need another, I don’t know, like jumping castle, or another hot dog.
If you really want to meet needs in your community, quit giving them hot dogs, and give them workshops on understanding trauma, on growing in empathy and emotional awareness and being a good listener. Offer community workshops on dealing with grief. Think of deep relational things and offer community workshops. You don’t have to teach it; bring in an expert, bring in a counselor, bring in a therapist, you know, bring in people that understand these things. Personal Growth, it’s a good thing. God wants us to grow. God wants us to learn. God wants us to impact lives. I believe this is all so God-honoring.
Laurie Graham 17:08
Okay, number 11: Learn relational skills yourself. Now, a lot of people think we don’t need to learn relational skills. We’re born with people in our lives, and we grow up learning these things. But have you ever noticed that some people have more relational skills than other people? These are things we can learn. If you are shy, and you don’t like to initiate conversation, that’s a skill to learn. It’s not something you’re born with or not. If you’re a terrible listener, that is a skill you can learn. If you’re uncomfortable asking questions to other people to go deeper, to learn about them, that is a skill to learn. You can learn relational skills.
Laurie Graham 17:58
Spend time intentionally in one-on-one conversations, meet-ups, and set goals for this in your life. Maybe you’re the volunteer women’s ministry leader, maybe you’re a Sunday school teacher, maybe you are the pastor. Have you ever set goals for how many one-on-one conversations you’re going to have this week? One-on-one conversation, looking someone in the eye, asking them not just how their day has gone, but “How did that impact you? How are you feeling about this change in your life?” Let’s get beyond dates and times and what we’re doing to how we’re feeling. Spend time, make time, set time for one-on-one conversations. This absolutely could be a one-on-one meeting over coffee. This also could be just taking time at church in the midst of busy hustle. To not just say hi to 40 people, but to pull somebody aside in the hallway and say, “Hey, I want to know how you’re doing.”
Laurie Graham 19:02
Okay, number 13: Intentionally build sharing time for sharing in every event that you do, whether it’s a Sunday school class or, you know, a women’s ministry meet-up, a hike, or men’s barbecue, whatever, intentionally build sharing time in that event. Now, this is what I mean. We usually program our event from beginning to end. There’s no space in the middle. I want you to put space in it and make it intentional. Not just mixers or icebreakers. Icebreakers are great, but what do they do? Icebreakers do what they do: they break the ice. They literally just break the ice. They don’t go deep. So after you do an icebreaker, program some time into your event for sharing and conversation, and teach people how to do this well. Even things like a worship practice. “We do practice on Tuesday nights and we meet from six to 7:30.” Build in some time for relationships, for sharing. “Maybe we’re going to start at seven with a, you know, we always have like a 10-minute, I don’t know what they’d call it in the world, like a cocktail hour, right?” Where you’re just talking, like build those times in. You don’t skip that just to rush to sit down and get your job done. That relational time is so important. So intentionally build sharing into your events.
Laurie Graham 20:20
Oh my gosh, we’re running out of time. So I’m going to keep going here. Number 14: Quit talking at people so much. Quit talking at people so much. I feel like sometimes in ministry, we teach people to talk at people: “You’re presenting, you know, I don’t know, a teaching in your Sunday school class, or you’re at your program and you’re doing a tea party and you’re talking at people.” Quit doing that so much. Team trainings. Did you know if you are blessed enough to have a ministry team, when you do a training, how much do you talk? Quit talking at people so much. Do you know the other cool thing about this is? People actually don’t remember what you say to them. Did you know that? But they do remember what they do. So even if you’re training people with something, instead of talking and explaining and just, you know, just going at it. Be quiet and let people practice. Let them try, let them do, maybe even let them be the teacher. Quit talking at people so much. It’s a sign of a relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 21:27
Number 15, sign of a relational ministry strategy you can practice even starting today: Stop doing ministry alone. Whatever it is you’re doing, invite somebody to do it with you. Shopping for supplies, find somebody who was shopping with you, “Hey, let’s run to Costco. Let’s get stuff for this event.” Folding napkins, say, “Hey, I’m going to church to fold napkins. Would you come with me?” Alison Marco, who has been in our Small Church Network, she’s just such a student and learner. She literally transformed her ministry as a pastor’s wife, ministry, women’s ministry leader, by doing just this: she stopped doing ministry alone. She actually keeps a list of people in her church and just rotates through them. So everybody gets invited. Everybody doesn’t always say yes. But she invites somebody to come set up tables. If they say no, she just goes down the list. “Hey, do you want to come?” She said it has transformed her ministry. She’s having so much fun getting to know people while she is doing ministry. So stop doing ministry alone, invite people to do it with you.
Laurie Graham 22:32
Number 16: Always, always, always have a seat at the table to invite a new person onto your team, to help, to serve, to whatever. Always have an open seat for a new person and invite them. If your core team has been the same for a year, or two, or three, or 10, I can’t even tell you how many people come and say, “Oh my gosh, we can’t get new people on our team. We’ve been the same for 10 years.” If you’ve been the same for 10 years, or five or two, it is too long. Your team should be dynamic and moving. And if you’re going to say nobody wants to join you, like you’ve invited people, they’ve said no, there’s another issue there. Okay, so stick around for more on volunteers, go back through the podcast, listen to the volunteer type episodes, because there is a block there if that’s what’s happening, but have a seat at the table for someone new all the time.
Laurie Graham 23:27
Number 17. Love people. And I want to say love is not just a decision, like people say, “Oh, I love people. I’ve decided to love people. Love’s a decision. It’s not a feeling.” Love is not just a decision, everyone. Love is also a feeling. We feel love toward people. We feel compassion. Number 17 is love people. And I know it might sound elusive, but it’s not; grow in your skills of loving people. When you’re walking around the grocery store, when you are driving, are you loving people? Do you love the driver next to you? I know sometimes it’s hard. But there are actually skills in this. Some of those skills are a few things I’ve mentioned earlier like growing in empathy. Another skill is just looking for commonalities. Anytime you’re with somebody, start looking, whether you’re speaking it or just considering their stories. Look for what you have in common with them, whether it is a situation, a feeling, a struggle, a joy, a celebration. Learn to love people—we can grow in this. Listen to life stories, ask for more life stories. Ask people for their stories. This is how we learn to love people.
Laurie Graham 24:40
Number 18. Understand yourself better. Now this is a tough one. And many, many, many people go through life, they don’t want to understand their story, their life, who they are, because we’re overwhelmed by it. So we stay so busy so we don’t have to ask ourselves the tough questions. Be bold, be brave enough to understand yourself. Learn about your reactions. This might mean counseling. Yes, this might mean actually thinking about your story. Your story that you grew up with affects your story today. If you’re coming to the upcoming conference this weekend, please go sit through, go participate in Jeanette McCullough’s session. This is what her session is called. I love it. I can’t believe when she told me what she was titling her session for the women’s ministry conference. Her title is this: “What Happens When You Try to Help Others Before Healing Your Own Story?” She’s going to talk about why that’s not a good idea. And I have to be honest, I might even say that’s the majority of people in church ministry today. Because most people do not consider their story, go through a healing process through our blind spots. You are not immune. We are all affected by things we’ve been through, things that have happened to us, around us, in our environment, things that we’ve seen. So understand yourself better is a huge key in relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 26:05
Number 19. Do not ever, ever, ever let a conflict or a difficult person in the middle of that conflict? Don’t let a conflict go without offering empathy and compassion. Yes, it is not always received, but we can always offer it. Let’s say you’re in a meeting and there’s a conflict, there’s something difficult happening, you can see people shutting down. These are the kinds of questions you can ask: “Wow, what just happened? What was that about? How did that impact you?” Now if it was a high conflict, these are questions to ask in private. “Hey, Jenny, let’s talk for a minute, what happened in there? Tell me what that was about. How did that impact you?” And just listen, just listen. Other people in the group are often, are often highly affected by conflict that has nothing to do with them. Do you know that? There’s a conflict happening on this side of the room, the other people are listening, watching, and shutting down. This happens too much in our churches. This is the cause for silence, for unspoken things that fester. This is the cause of a lot of people leaving the church. There is often a lot of unhealed trauma around us all the time. And when we ignore it, you know what happens? It just stays there. It just stays like a big old elephant in the room. Now, you may not be able to fix it. But you can express empathy and compassion. And oftentimes, that is the beginning. That is the beginning of an awareness and an openness for healing.
Laurie Graham 27:43
Okay, number 20: Talk to people without an agenda to ask. Talk to people without an “ask.” You might ask about them. Yes. But quit asking for something every time you talk to people. If people avoid your phone calls, if people avoid you in the church hallway, it could be because you’re always asking them for something. Let’s have conversations where we’re not asking for a volunteer, where we’re not asking for help. We’re just asking about them.
Laurie Graham 28:16
Number 21: Please put an end to all the expectations that you have for everyone else around you. And just let people be. Let them choose. Let them live their life and you live yours. Now I’m not talking about discipleship setting, I’m talking about general church relationships. Those of us who carry a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight, highly responsible people, people who maybe have walked with Jesus for a while or we just want to fix things. We want to make things better. We have a way of oozing that onto others. They get to decide. Let them decide. Let them be. Jesus did not make you the boss of everyone; he didn’t. When we become that way, we actually turn people off. So this, this can be a really tough one. It might be the hardest one on there. But let people be.
Laurie Graham 29:08
Number 22, related but not totally, it’s completely separate: When you do have a request, make sure it’s a request and not a demand. Understand the difference. Here’s the biggest way to know if you’re if you’re requesting something of someone or if you’re demanding: If you are not okay with a “no,” it’s a demand. That’s a tough one, isn’t it? If you ask someone if they can help and they say no, if that’s going to bother you, it really wasn’t a request. If you’re not okay with a “no,” it’s a demand. So when you’re requesting something, when you’re asking something, make sure it is a request. If it’s not, take care of that first, you and Jesus. “How do I get to that place where I can be okay with a ‘no’?” Do that first.
Laurie Graham 29:51
Okay. And number 23. We’re almost done down the homestretch here. Number 23: Be healthier. You be healthier. This is a huge component in relational ministry, not just understanding your story, but just be healthier, take care of you. If you are not okay, you will not be okay with other people. You can only fake it for so long; it will come out. Live healthier. Model ministry health, personal health, time off, rest. Emotional care, physical care—this is a sign of relational ministry. Because believe it or not, you have a relationship with yourself. Think about it. Are you kind to you? Are you more kind to other people than you are to yourself? That’s a relationship. Are you harsh to yourself? Are you judgy? Are you compassionate with yourself? If you don’t have a good relationship with you, you cannot have a great relationship with other people.
Laurie Graham 30:57
Okay, it’s been 30 minutes, that was 23 things. And I have to wrap it up with this: Teach others everything I’m saying here. Teach other people around you, friends, family, team members, the people who come to your ministry gatherings. Everything I just talked about, we can teach to other people. We can teach people to be healthier, we can teach them. What’s the difference between a request and a demand? We can teach others to stop expecting so much of other people. So when somebody comes to a church and says, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe she said no again!” Maybe you can be the one to say, “Wow, let’s just let them be.” Right? Every single thing that I mentioned can be taught and shared with others. We are living this church life in community, or we’re supposed to be.
Laurie Graham 31:47
So these 23 things, these are signs of a relational ministry. Is it quantifiable? It actually is. You know if you’re being healthier or not. You know if when somebody walks in a room, you put something down and look at them, or if you don’t. So much of this is easily measured. We don’t like to measure it. But it’s easily measured, practical, applicable steps to take, ideas to grow and embrace and teach and spread this thing called relational ministry.
Laurie Graham 32:24
So what marks a relational ministry? Like what’s the difference between a relational ministry and a program ministry? Program-focused ministry, I want to say it’s not the number of programs. Sometimes people think, “Oh, if you have a relational ministry, you’re not doing all those programs.” That’s actually not what I’m saying. Now, oftentimes, a relational ministry might have fewer programs; it might. Programs aren’t required for relationships. However, programs could be a beautiful venue for relationships, like a conduit, the container, where relationships may be fostered and built. But oftentimes, here’s the sad news: Oftentimes, the events and programs we are creating are not because we’ve defaulted to bringing cookies, having an activity, leading this, doing this, saying this, because we’ve forgotten the depth of our calling. Because we’re not called to be event planners. We’re called to be shepherds.
Laurie Graham 33:24
The true impact of life on life, living in community, learning together, transparency, vulnerability, caring below the surface. Isn’t that the kind of ministry you want to be part of? I know I do. So let’s do better. Again, as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, this is not a quick fix, but it can be developed. Do you want more of this? Start making the changes in your own life, sharing them with your small circle, and then growing that out to be a larger, larger ripple effect. If you want to learn more of this, if you want to be surrounded by people who are committed to this, come hang out with us. This is a big part of what we do. If you’re listening when the show goes live, you can grab a free ticket today to the Women’s Ministry for Small Churches Conference. It’s happening this coming weekend, the last Saturday of January. Women’s Ministry for Small Churches Conference happening. Check out smallchurchsummits.com to grab your free ticket. We would love to have you there. Make sure to come be with us. If you miss the conference and you want even more, definitely check out the Small Church Network. It is available for you to join at any time. Just go to smallchurchministry.com/network. Come join us. We teach, we train, we do life together, we unpack the concepts, the things that we talk about in this podcast. And on our website, we go deep together. Every single mention in this episode is included, unpacked, and practiced with our learning community. We’d love to have you.
Laurie Graham 35:16
All right, that’s what I got. Go back and re-listen to this whenever you need a refresher. 23 specific practical ways. I can’t believe I got that done in almost less than 30 minutes. Woo. All right. We’ll talk again next week. Be a light.