What will Aaron’s responsibilities be?

Scott found a description of responsibilities for a Vineyard cell church network in Ohio. I liked it so much that I have edited it to fit our situation.

“Micro-church Coordinator” doesn’t sound as sexy or respectable as “Preacher”, but “Coordinator” describes my new role much better (and maybe a better term will emerge). The term “preacher” has so much baggage attached to it that it no longer communicates what it originally meant. In the sense of a preacher being an overseer of the church along with the eldership team, it fits. In the American version of a “good preacher” that keeps the message to 20 minutes, shakes everybody’s hand and kisses all the babies at “church” on Sunday mornings, it doesn’t fit!

My new responsibilities will be simply to coordinate and equip—things I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but some of my current responsibilities have severely limited the time I’ve had to do so. I’m not to do all the pastoring, all the teaching, all the evangelism, etc. My role is to insure that the teachers teach, the counselors counsel, and administrators administrate (and so on) while everyone becomes and makes sold-out followers of Jesus. That’s what I mean by coordination. I don’t do all the work, but I am responsible for making sure it’s getting done.

This is incredibly freeing. First, because it’s incredibly biblical (see Ephesians 4:11-16). We see certain people in the Bible fulfilling similar roles—guys like Barnabas and Paul. They planted churches, equipped leaders, and served the wider body of Christ (i.e. beyond one city) in short spurts. Second, I know I’m not the best counselor or administrator (among other things) at Discovery Christian Church. This doesn’t remove my responsibility to counsel or administrate. I still get to do some. Like a team captain, I still get to play. But if others are more gifted, they should be encouraged to go for it and use their gift for God. I shouldn’t try to play all the positions on the field—a one man team is destined to lose!

When it comes to equipping I want to focus my training on equipping current leaders and raising up new leaders, who in turn can equip and raise up leaders, and so on. I want to find and equip the best planters of micro-churches and missionaries sent from DCC to “plow new fields” with our DNA.