Paul Planted, Apollos Watered, but God: Vulnerable Weakness in Ministry and Mission

By Jim Harries and Kenneth Nehrbass

The contrast could not be greater. Paul said, "Let no one boast in men" (1 Cor 3:21), because it is only "God who causes the growth" (1 Cor 3:7). But today's ministry is often platform-centered and program-bound. Jesus sent out the disciples "like sheep among wolves," but today this "weak" approach is replaced with powerful techniques emphasizing attraction. The result is that ministry/mission thought and praxis are subverted in a way that makes the ordinary individual believer wonder if and how they are to be involved in God's wonderful work. For Jesus, ministry was close and personal. He ate with friends, helped the hurting, and spoke the truth in love to any who would listen. Jesus embodied proclamation and ministry by depending on people (local resources), by being approachable and comprehensible (local tongues), and by spiritual gifts (the power of God). As weak and vulnerable as Jesus finds us, so does he desire to use us. Explore in this book the thought and practice of ministry and mission from the God-ordained and God-honoring perspective of vulnerable weakness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Dec 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666764291

Kenneth Nehrbass

Kenneth Nehrbass (PhD, Biola University) has taught missiology at Liberty University, Biola University, and Belhaven University. He is an anthropology and translation consultant for the Summer Institute of Linguistics in the Pacific Area. He has authored or edited over sixty missiological publications, including Advanced Missiology (Cascade), God’s Image and Global Cultures (Cascade), and Christianity and Animism in Melanesia (William Carey Library Press).

Book preview

Introduction

Christopher Sadowitz and Jim Harries

Ministry is the goal and joy of God for every one of God’s children. As our loving Heavenly Father works on us in Christ, God releases us to engage in ministry and mission in the world. In the pages that follow we will explore how—contrary to modern cultural values—God desires that we fulfill our ministry fully dependent on God.

Introduction by Christopher Sadowitz

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth (1 Cor 3:6, NASB1995). So the apostle Paul summarized mission and ministry in first century Greece. His concern was both the why and the how of ways in which the young Corinthian church should think about and carry out both mission and ministry.

Today God’s agenda for us remains the same as that which Paul articulated to the church at Rome, which is to conform us to the image of his Son, the first among many other brothers and sisters (Rom 8:28–30). Furthermore, such a conforming assumes God’s children will engage in ministry and mission out of an overflow of their relationship to the Father (Rom 15:13). What might be less conspicuous, is the glorification mentioned in verse 30 of Romans 8. Our being glorified is the culmination of our life of continuing Christoformity, defined by McKnight as, called to be conformed to Christ,¹ along with other Christoform siblings. In his high priestly prayer for the disciples, Jesus affirmed that he glorified the Father by doing all that the Father had commanded (John 17:4), and by implication he asserts that we also partake of and engage in ministry to the glory of God. As John Piper has aptly summarized following a lifetime of expounding God’s Word, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied with him.²

Unfortunately, and possibly unwittingly, accomplishment of the divine will to bring great glory to God is often hampered by a competing will to glorify mankind or even oneself. The world’s rebellious self-centeredness is deeply woven into cultures.³ Even a Christian’s ministry can be founded upon thought and praxis steeped in cultural values that may rob God of God’s glory. Paul was not remiss to notice this proclivity among the new Corinthian believers, and as a result he penned not one but two lengthy epistles to them as correction.

Paul’s own ministry mind and method among the Corinthians was carefully chosen: Christ crucified, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void (1 Cor 1:17, NASB1995). He reminded them (and us) that God chose not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble and that God has chosen the foolish things . . . and . . . the weak things (1 Cor 1:26–27, NASB1995), so that while engaging in cross-shaped ministry and mission no human could boast in the presence of God (1 Cor 1:29, ESV). If we view [the cross] as our means of salvation only . . . we shall fail to see how the cross stands as the test and standard of all vital Christian ministry.⁴

To face the challenges and make the most of today’s rapid globalization, Christian faith—centered in Christ crucified (and risen)—needs the Spirit’s refreshing and renewing work directed toward how we undertake the Great Commission. We should re-examine ministry and mission’s thought and practice through the lens of vulnerable weakness. This book is about ministry and mission vulnerability. It is about learning and adopting divine values that undergird our ministry/mission thought and praxis. Furthermore, it is a recognition that God often chooses to use vulnerable weakness as the means of furthering God’s ministry and mission. The Corinthian epistles are paradigmatic for a ministry and mission willingly entered into with vulnerable weakness. Paul could have adopted the Corinthian values of human power and human wisdom in ministry, but instead he chose to be among the Corinthians in weakness and in fear and in much trembling (1 Cor 2:3, NASB1995).

In this book, the authors of each chapter endeavor to play his or her part in the majestic symphony, which is vulnerable weakness in ministry and mission, each in their own way teasing out theological and cultural melodies along the way. As a master conductor tunes his or her orchestra, so Paul in Corinthians tunes us to the key of Christ crucified, weakness, and foolishness as underlying values and standards for how we are to accomplish God’s will.

Practically speaking, what might vulnerable weakness look like today? To think, value, and act vulnerably in ministry and mission might include a willingness to serve while suffering, to endure loss, or to engage in a countercultural (world and church cultures) way of ministering. This kind of ministry and mission thinking favors simplicity, conversations, and relationships—sometimes with just a few people—over strategies dependent on large crowds, great musicians, flashy media displays, and chunky budgets. Today’s youth (and aged) can minister and live missionally with confidence and joy without the above-mentioned props.

The kind of paradigm shift needed to achieve this is possible because ministry is not first and foremost what one goes into . . . [it is] what comes out of the heart.⁵ Since we are all weak in many senses of the word, it is more than plausible that God desires ministry and mission be accomplished through human weakness. And even though in modern ministry vulnerably seems countercultural, it ironically displays the power of God. Carson, commenting on Jews demanding a powerful Messiah, said, In deep irony it is that moment of sublime weakness, the cross of Jesus Christ, that most greatly displays the power of God.⁶ Conversely, Gombis says, when modern ministry methods operate from human power and positions of strength,

[it] diminishes and marginalizes the power of the cross (

1

Cor

1

:

17

) and forfeits any access to the transforming power of God [in the gospel]. Paul ministered from a posture of vulnerability. . . . If that resulted in social shame, he embraced it. . . . If he attempted to minister from some other power or approach [rather than the gospel power of Romans

1

:

16

] he would not be drawing upon God’s resurrection power [italics added].⁷

A seismic shift will occur when this type of understanding and approach to ministry is owned, so that people’s faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Cor 2:5, NASB1995). A ministry that values money, size, programs, technology, various other cultural values, or any other power, will shift to an emphasis on gospel-centered change in people and an emphasis on simplicity. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth (1 Cor 3:6, NASB1995). That increase of course was populated by people who had been transformed by the power of the gospel, not by Paul’s own power or wisdom (Rom16; 1 Cor 16; Col 4). Other outcomes of such ministry transformation include correction to abuses in service and mission done through positions of strength (wealth, power, fame) and the situating of local ministry and mission activity back into the hands of everyday Christians living in an everyday world. Lastly, we recognize that ministry/mission in vulnerable weakness ironically places those who adopt it in a place of divine strength where they can agree with the prophet, Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts (Zech 4:6, NASB1995).

Recently a Korean pastor stopped by, and we discussed a future evangelistic event. He showed me the flyers and a made a point of telling me who the performers were, and why they were famous (singers, well known preachers, professional sports figures). This book is not about that form or thinking of ministry. This book aims to describe how vulnerable weakness in ministry/mission is informed by and worked out in theology, culture, and practice. It is a book for you and me, ordinary people who love God and want to share God’s love and engage in daily life ministry with others. This ministry does not necessarily reside solely in the hands of a few select successful clergy, accomplished academics, or megachurch gatherings. Nor does it necessarily result in fame, economic prosperity, or success according to the world. Ministry is the life choice and reproductive joy of everyone who comes to the cross and meets Jesus. This kind of ministry belongs to you and me. This kind of ministry and mission is most productive when it becomes as simple as planting and watering. One such planter and waterer for over thirty years in East Africa continues this introduction with his story of how God is giving the increase.

Introduction by Jim Harries

Missionaries need to be vulnerable, i.e., the success of what they are doing should depend on indigenous people’s freely volunteering to support them. Projects should thus be vulnerable to failure. Rather than being tied up by big foreign-led projects, missionaries should be vulnerable to local contexts which would give them time and cause to interact with African people on their own indigenous agendas. They must be vulnerable as far as other Westerners are concerned, as they do not build cocoons such as large smart buildings, cars, or health services around their ministries.

From 1988 to 1991 I was a secondary school teacher within an international evangelical mission in Zambia. The way in which my Zambian colleagues were thinking about everything going on in the mission was vastly different both to my understanding of mission ministry and to that of American missionaries working alongside me. Differences in cultural values were deep and striking to me, and the implications for how ministry was to be done seemed to be enormous. I often shared my concerns on these implications with my missionary colleagues. Many of them seemed oblivious to these issues and they proffered no easy solutions.

Questions such as, Could the mission hospital survive if handed over to Zambian management, were bandied around. Definitely not! I thought. Not unless Zambian people were to imitate behaviors foreign to them that they did not innately value or understand. In a sense my thoughts were dangerous, almost treasonous. After all, the missionary who had founded the hospital was widely heralded as a hero. Was I saying he had been mistaken? Was the hospital a liability to the mission? Was the running of a hospital like that merely a White man’s thing?

The root of the problem was that Western cultural values instead of Zambian cultural values drove both ministry method and ministry goals. Thus the dominant response to this dilemma of transitioning the hospital from missionary hands to Zambian hands (if Westerners even perceived it) was to dictate terms. Funding came from the West on condition that the hospital did what donors wanted and saved lives. And while Zambian people were being trained to work in the hospital, outside control was deemed necessary to keep things running properly. Hospitals are great. How to have them come under local ministry ownership without foreign control, is a challenge. As an example, consider the cultural gap in the concept of healing. Sensitive listening to local people’s thoughts on things like healing will, in my experience, reveal that they see things in their own way. Translations of the term, healing, into African languages often refer to healing of relationships. This is because relational damage is considered to result in misfortune, including poor health. My African colleagues are correct—poor relationships are at the root of many human ills. Contemporary hospitals, however, seem to bypass the connection between relationship issues as precursor and focus mainly on correcting the physical problem. For nationals to own the medical processes concerned, communicating effectively across the cultural gap is a major challenge of our day.

A prerequisite to facing this challenge effectively and helpfully, I suggest, is a profound knowledge of the indigenous language, i.e., of pre-existing ways of thinking and understanding. For example, in my ministry setting, ministers and missionaries have often chosen to use their own languages rather than the language of the host nations. This choice was predicated on the fact that they saw themselves as teachers rather than choosing to be listeners and learners in the host country. Choosing to operate in a stance of ministry weakness, by using the host culture’s language, would have avoided the unwanted result of an unequal relationship of myself as expert native-speaker, and them as aspiring to be like me. Because English was almost universally used for official purposes, huge cultural gaps were being occluded as Zambians learned to say the right things, imitating rather than expressing heartfelt convictions.

Missionary thoughts and actions in this scenario represented an intrusion of cultural values from their point of origin. Impositions of foreign models of education and finance often create inequality, division, and dependence. Intense economic pressure was being exerted for Blacks to become like Whites. Zero Whites aspired to be like Africans—always the other way around! That is enormous White chauvinism, I thought. Could I sit and do nothing about that lopsided situation, that frankly continues globally today? I asked myself then and continue to ask myself now. Could there be a Westerner who related to African people other than as a donor? Could there be a Westerner who, by relating to local people using only indigenous languages, would gain a deeper understanding and ability to listen well? My next thought was, What about me? I was single. I was reasonably healthy. I had British churches backing me—that is to say, I had enough support not to have to spend a lot of time earning a living. Could I spend my time and energy attempting to become a part of an African community, on a level playing field? Why not? Some certainly looked on that as a crazy idea.

The degree and power of foreign control in Africa was, and is, massive. Please note that I do not deplore that! Without it there might be an enormous economic collapse. That foreigners no longer control Africa is not my appeal. Rather it is for some foreigners to change sides, thus, to become a part of enabling African people to fend for themselves in contemporary contexts. Those foreigners need to become vulnerable to African communities.

In light of the cross, it is hard to imagine people motivated by the gospel of Jesus not doing the above for an extended period. It is also hard to imagine African people accepting a true gospel from those who are not vulnerable. Furthermore, in the African context, not-vulnerable people producing converts becomes another form of the prosperity gospel—imitating their spiritual leaders will require new believers to first seek to become wealthy.

From these early experiences in Africa and the potential confusion to the true gospel that was arising, the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission (AVM) was founded in 2007. While having its start in a foreign mission context, the principle of vulnerability in mission is paradigmatic for all true gospel ministry. Vulnerability in ministry ought to be paradigmatic for all, from teenagers in Europe, to clergy in South America, and everyone in between. The vision of the AVM is that there should be vulnerable Western missionaries (and not just Western missionaries) around the globe. It asks, Can those who carry out ministry and mission do so vulnerably, no matter what that ministry is? That is to say, can there be missionaries who carry out their ministry entirely using local languages with the people they are reaching? Simultaneously can these missionaries desist from investing funds that originate from their own people so as to do mission other than from an economically superior pedestal?

The above was, in brief, my route to comprehending the need for a vulnerability that enables me to listen to the African people I am working with. I seek to implement principles of vulnerability in my ongoing ministry in Kenya and Tanzania. Relating to people based on their resources and using their languages has had mind-blowing consequences. By God’s grace I can nowadays minister (preach, teach, and hear what people are saying) using the Luo and Swahili African languages. Although my comprehension is still too limited in some ways, the depth of ability God has allowed me over thirty-five years raises questions and issues over how mission should be done today. I talk more about this in the chapter I contribute to this compendium. Contributors to this book articulate their own stories of missionary and ministry vulnerability, and outcomes to these stories, in their various chapters.

Vulnerability and Weakness in Mission and Ministry (VWMM)

Theology, culture, and practice form the structure of this book and serve not only as an outline, but as an acknowledgement that ministry and mission lived and practiced in vulnerability and weakness is more than just another ministry method or fad coming down the pike. Rather, gospel ministry dependence is a life fully engaged with the Lord. Constructing a theological basis for VWMM counters the world’s pejorative assertion/assumption that dependency is a problem.⁸ VWMM also counters the myth of culture that suggests there is some kind of standard (personal or ministerial) of normalcy, i.e., what it means to be normal.⁹ At the same time, a theologically grounded VWMM asserts the value and practice of a great commission that is rooted in a vulnerability accented expression of Imago Dei, and a creation marked by vulnerability.¹⁰

While a construction of a theology of VWMM is previous, there is a simultaneous recognition that such an exercise gives birth to VWMM values and practice that are submersed in and worked out within the cultures of the world, which in turn helps practitioners see both the complexity and richness of God’s plan for humanity’s blessing and divinity’s glory. Andrew Walls suggested that each culture looks at the gospel, and by extension gospel ministry, in a different way.¹¹ As a result, each culture asks different questions of the gospel and applies it to their context, and along the way struggles in the process of indigenizing the gospel. As Christianity advances over time and place it is possible to notice the gospel’s universalizing effect on humanity in ministry by thriving in vulnerable weakness and inability, and inviting each culture once again to the warm embrace of divine dependence. The result of divine mandate comingled through human instrument is that the gospel tends to look more like fractured stained glass rather than a clear windowpane.

No one culture (or individual) gets ministry completely right, just as one shard of colored glass remains isolated, incomplete unless it is brought into connection with all the other pieces. We can however look upon one another’s cultures and be both admonished and encouraged, which is why this book includes a third section on VWMM case studies. Our hope is that by observing each other’s attempts we can grow in Christ-like ministry dependence. Such dependence will surely result in our small and isolated (yet vital) ministry shards catching the brilliant light of the Son and together with other pieces fill up the earth with the glory due only to the Father of light, for as Paul summarized ministry, but God was causing the growth (1 Cor 3:6, NASB1995).

Through God’s gracious fortunate events, God has led this project. Our fellow authors have borne the lion’s share of what you are about to read. Each of the men and women who have contributed to this volume come with a wealth of ministry experience and yet from varied backgrounds, giving the book a sort of kaleidoscopic view of vulnerable weakness in ministry and mission. Despite the differences, a strong unity of God’s person and glory reminds us that the ministry and mission we talk and write about are first and foremost God’s. Some authors are more well-known than others, yet none of them would desire to thought of as such. Some have advanced degrees, others do not. Some have large ministries and others do not. By God’s good pleasure we have writers from four different ethnic back grounds representing a visible ministry scope of over eleven countries. Each of these men and women join us in welcoming you into the reality of vulnerable weakness in ministry and mission, as well as coming to learn ourselves that we are just scratching the surface of this wonderful ministry and mission orientation.

Over forty years ago Frank Tillapaugh suggested in his book, Unleashing the Church,¹² that the power of the church (which the gates of hell cannot withstand) is found in ordinary Christian people just like you and me, if only we could be set free from enslaving ministry paradigms that overlook the position of royal priesthood and ministry mandate which belongs to each believer. Setting free every follower of Jesus to serve, help, speak (you fill in the blank), is what this book is for. We hope to show a way forward, a way of power not founded upon human cultural techniques, value, or ability, but in total reliance on God and available to every believer. Simultaneously, we are confident that this dependence on God, when engaged with ministry/mission, will inevitably begin to look more like weakness and vulnerability to the world but power to those who are being saved.

Today "42.4 percent of the world’s population¹³ has a less than 5 percent Christian community to minister to it.¹⁴ The call for us to heed the words of our Lord remains: Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field" (Matt 9:38, NIV). As Tillapaugh’s book title suggests, we need to unleash the ministry potential of every man, woman, and child.

Think about the following questions:

•Has the church or churches you have attended shaped your definition of ministry and how it is to be accomplished?

•Do you find yourself filling the role of spectator or attender rather than that of an active participant?

•Do you notice needs of people around you that no one else seems to notice?

•Do you ever wish you could do something more for someone but feel inadequate?

•Do you ever inwardly say, I could never do what those people on the church platform are doing?

•Is it possible that ministry has been made to seem more difficult than it really is?

•Is ministry, as you perceive it, really out of reach for the average person?

For the first century Christians in Corinth, Paul answered these questions by likening ministry to agriculture: I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth (1 Cor 3:6, NASB1995). Anyone can plant a seed; anyone can water a plant, but no one can cause growth. This book is an invitation to understand the simple fact that God chooses to use weak people and vulnerable ways to bring the growth. We feel this book will put ministry back into the hands of average everyday people and explain a way forward.

No introduction would be complete without a warm invitation to future readers and fellow servants. This paragraph, this book, is for you. Man or woman, boy or girl, young or old, it doesn’t matter. Being a wide-eyed novice in the faith or a time-weathered saint, that too doesn’t matter. Your country, your job, your feelings, your abilities matter little when compared to the question of how and why God is calling you and me to minister to those around us. The authors in this book wholeheartedly desire to encourage you with the truth that God does indeed desire you to minister to someone, anyone, everyone (Eph 4:11–12)!

Welcome! Join us!

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Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Baker,

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Edwards, Roger. Why Being Self-sufficient Isn’t Your Best Strategy. Discipleship Journal

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Gombis, Timothy G. Power in Weakness: Paul’s Transformed Vision for Ministry. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,

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Henderson, D. Michael. Making Disciples One Conversation at a Time. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill,

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Iozzio, Mary Jo. A Review of ‘Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality.’ Journal of Religion, Disability, and Health 12

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Joshua Project. Bringing Definition to the Unfinished Task. https://joshuaproject.net/.

———. Definitions. https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions#unreached.

McKnight, Scot. Pastor Paul: Nurturing a Culture of Christoformity in the Church. Grand Rapids: Brazos,

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Piper, John. Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. Grand Rapids: Baker,

1993

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Reynolds, Thomas E. Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality. Grand Rapids: Brazos,

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Tillapaugh, Frank R. Unleashing the Church: Getting People Out of the Fortress and into Ministry. Raleigh, NC: Regal,

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Walls, Andrew F. The Cross-Cultural Process in Christian History. Maryknoll: Orbis,

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. Edwards, Why Being,

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. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion. See also chapter

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Part One

Theology of Vulnerable Weakness in Mission and Ministry

1

Toward a Theology of Vulnerable Weakness in Ministry and Mission

Christopher Sadowitz

Somewhere in my past a teacher admonished our class, saying, the only dumb question is the one you didn’t ask. Similarly, I recall my father applauding inquisitive behavior with a life observation that all they could say is no. In other words, it never hurts to ask. When it comes to the exercise of theologizing vulnerable weakness in ministry and mission (VWMM), questions are admittedly easier to ask than answer. For example, how does one create a theology of anything? To answer my own question, I am always bemused that my students in Asia are surprised when I announce to them that the Bible does not equal theology nor the other way around. To be sure, good theology is based on the Word of God, but theology also brings with it an element of subjectivity via human limitation and interpretation. Only the Bible in its original autographs is inspired, but this does not mean we have a less accurate message from God or that we cannot understand it. Praise God that his redemption of us in Christ includes the renewing of our minds so that we can rightly and confidently interpret, and which gives this author the confidence and joy to undertake the writing of this chapter.

Getting the foundations of theologizing right is