LOVE THIS! “Top Down” or “Grassroots” Ministry?

In the early years of my seminary experience, I quickly began to realize that within the Calvinistic and Reformed Church at large there was something of a divide over whose role it was to carry out ministry in the local church. I would frequently hear members of broader churches saying things like, “The goal of the pastor should be to work himself out of a job” and “People in the church need to learn how to shepherd each other;” but then I would hear members of more stridently Reformed churches say things like, “God only appointed elders and deacons to minister in the church” and “I would be happy if the elders and deacons did all the work in the local church.” Broader churches often tend to focus on “every member ministry”–while minimizing the need for robust pastoral ministry–while more stringently Reformed churches tend to focus on the primacy of pastoral ministry–to the minimizing of vibrant congregational life and ministry. Both approaches often appear to be overreactions to perceived deficiencies or abuses in the outworking of the opposite approach. The question with which we are faced is this: “Should ministry in the local church be done from the ‘top down’ or should it be ‘grassroots?'”