9 Mininstry Principles

Our Core Values

The 9 Principles of Ministry Enablement

 Introduction

At Midtown Baptist Temple, we have principles from God’s Word that help us make right decisions in our areas of service and ministry. All of our services and ministries should adhere to these simple yet powerful principles. Doing so will keep us focused. Staying focused as we grow and serve is of great importance for us as individuals as well as corporately as a church. Many people and churches have lost sight of mission God has given to them. We hope to avoid this--these principles will help. Not only will our principles help us to stay focused on making disciples, they will help us to be accountable, praying, studying our Bibles, humble, and unified. That sounds like church God would bless, doesn’t it?

The principles are not designed to limit you; rather, they should enable you. We have been given a mission to make disciples, plant churches and send out missionaries, so training up leaders to “go” is a big focus for MBT. As leaders develop, they need to be able to minister without having to get every little decision checked off by a pastor or leader. Basically, we want your ministry to be run by principles, not run by some person’s approval.

There will always be things that should be discussed with a leader or pastor-- We are always here to help and are not trying to discourage proper and frequent communication. However, most decisions can and should be made by
ministry leaders based on our 9 guiding principles.

For example, let’s say that you would like to start a community Bible study and you are trying to choose what night to hold it. You have Tuesday and Thursday nights available. You do not need to ask anybody about this. Based on our first principle (“We are a House of Prayer”), you would pick Thursday for your Bible study because Tuesday night is our corporate prayer ministry, and because we prioritize this, you do not want to set up a competing agenda for Tuesday nights. That is a simple example, but it illustrates how the principle allows you to make a decision in how to move forward in ministry. Look again at principle #1. How else will this principle effect your decisions on your Bible study?

Consider:

  • You will want to have the church body praying for your Bible study. So you will need to coordinate that

  • You will need to make prayer a regular part of your Bible Study

  • You will want to encourage all the members of your Bible study to attend corporate prayer (our Tuesday night prayer meetings)

  • You will need to teach on and promote prayer in those on your leadership team as well as those attending the study.

As you move forward in your faith and your service and leadership expands within the church, these principles become more “real” as you consider such things as in the example above. With continued application they will become second nature as you learn to discern properly using the principles of the Word of God to make decisions (Heb. 5:14)

The other thing these principles do for us is to keep us “within bounds”. The church has the responsibility to keep its priorities right, its ministers humble and selfless, and its doctrine pure. Our principles will also help protect us from some of the common pitfalls of leadership as we all submit to the boundaries they provide. They will also help protect the church body from “wolves in sheep’s clothing” that would sneak in for their own selfish ambitions.