Craig D.

McLeod
[Philosophy of Ministry]
As I examine the person God has created me to be today, I see that He has given me many natural talents and abilities that work well together in a way that encourages others to find their place in the Kingdom of God. Through my study of myself and my abilities over the past year, Ive come to this conclusion, this purpose statement for my life: I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, created to tell the stories of His grace, to invest in relationships defined by the Father's love, and to guide others to their place in the Kingdom through being present, listening well, and responding with the Spirit's wisdom. With this purpose and my talents in mind, God has equipped me to minister through relationships as well as to come along side others and help them tell the stories of Gods faithfulness to them through technology. Throughout my experience, I have found that I relate, and therefore minister, best to high school and college students, but I have been finding more opportunities and growing success working with adults. With students, I find that I speak best out of experience and am able to share how God has worked in my life in order to encourage students to take the chance to experience God. When I am given the opportunity to minister, my primary goal is discipleship; in other words, my goal is to build solid relationships with a group of a few people in order to invest in and challenge them with the intention of enabling the process continue with them. Through this process of discipleship, ministry is united in purpose and multiplied as disciples continue to make disciples. While discipleship seems to be a very popular word in the church these days, I truly believe life change happens after one experiences God and is then challenged through

relationship to adopt spiritual disciplines, live righteously, and actively share the Gospel with others. On a closely related note, another major goal of mine in ministry is evangelism. While the church consists of a Body of believers, and it is essential to invest in their spiritual growth, that Bodys active outreach to non-believers is just as mandated. That being said, personal evangelism is high on my priority list. I dont want to create a system where my students are just human invitations, asking their friends to come to hear me give some special presentation, but instead, I want to empower my students to go out and share their faith on their own, giving personal testimony to Gods love and grace, and plugging their friends into the always growing body of Christ. To this point, Ive only covered the concepts I want to maintain a priority in my ministry, but with these ends in mind, I want to structure my ministry to emphasize these goals. To begin, the ministry will have an outreach night where the students can invite friends to a safe, fun environment that is un-believer friendly yet still a place where we talk about God and relevant issues. My desire for this evening is to create a non-intimidating place for people to come and be themselves, to enter in to a conversation about Jesus that will create opportunities for students to continue discussion. In addition to this more seeker-friendly weekly event, I plan on having another event that ties in directly with the other event that allows us as a group to go deeper into the issue. This meeting will be focused heavily on discussion and getting deeper into what Scripture has to say as well as fleshing out what all of this will look like tonight, tomorrow, next week, and in a year. As you can tell, life change, not accumulating knowledge, is my goal, and my philosophy of ministry reflects my thinking. My two primary goals are discipleship and evangelism, which are

achieved through our two weekly events along with frequent leadership team meetings, investing in leaders who can be disciples who make disciples.