In ministry, what two things could feel more different than TRAINING (good) and PROCEDURE (bad). Training is about empowering, equipping, coaching, mentoring, mobilising. It's lovely stuff. At least since the MTS movement in Australia, training is generally seen very positively.
But PROCEDURE? Yuck. That's bureaucratic. That's trellis work. That's wasting time that should be spent on real ministry (like training).
But if you stop and think about it, the two are much, much closer than that. Training and Procedure are really getting at the same things. They are just working at it from two directions. Two mutually reinforcing directions.
1. Training is bottom-up: It's about values, culture, the person. Training is building the kind of people who have the knowledge, values and skills to do what needs to be done. At its best it is deep, holistic and flexible.
But at its worst, training is patronising and simplistic or overly theoretical and irrelevant to everyday work. Even when it is good, training can be inefficient and can become a bottle-neck: because it creates capable, expert practitioners who reinvent the wheel with their well-trained skills – who are unable to pass their role onto others.
2. Procedure is top-down: it's about the systems, the requiements, the outcomes, the necessary steps. Procedure spells out way to do something that is clear, efficient and repeatable. At its best it is quick, thorough, easy to pass on to others and readily transferrable to similar scenarios.
But at its worst, procedure is patronising and simplistic or overly detailed, impenetrable or restrictive. Even when it is good, procedure can be ineffective because it doesn't enable to do things quickly and intuitively, taking short-cuts. And it can hobble skilled and creative by preventing them from trying new ways of doing things.
The best ministry is one that combines both training and procedure. The training develops the kind of people who can implement the procedure. The procedure guides training content and the trained people to fulfill their roles. And so the two work together to help us raise up the kind of people, fan into flame the kind of skills and work out the kind practices we need to glorify God and love people in the preaching of the gospel.
