Church PLANT Manual

Session 4: Bringing It All Together • 91

Seminar 10 Using Wisdom in Ministry 1

As you engage in the rigors of church planting you will find yourself caught up in many activities which, if you are not careful, will create a chaotic and consuming sense of busyness. Learning to manage your time well, prioritizing what needs to be done over what could be done, and applying wisdom in ministry will serve you well and keep you on track. Toward this end, one of the most helpful tools you will need in church planting is a formal process for evaluating your efforts. As subjectivity and feelings are poor measures of effectiveness, wise church planters will implement an objective process of assessing their progress. The following outline introduces and describes the need and value of the PWR (prepare, work, and review) process that will help you and your team evaluate your effectiveness. How CanWe Fulfill God’s Purpose? UsingWisdom in Ministry The Dialectic: Wisdom is choosing what is best between viable truths. Eph. 5:15-17 (ESV) – Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Prov. 24:3-6 (ESV) – By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, [6] for by

1 Adapted from seminars by Rev. Don Allsman in Ripe for Harvest , pp. 65-76, 457-460.