The wrong kind of filter
There’s an interesting cultural phenomenon that Malcolm Gladwell made popular in his book Outliers: Nearly all players in the National Hockey League have birthdays in the first half of the year.
Why is that? Well, the Canadian hockey system groups kids together by age. So when you have a bunch of kids that all turn 8 in 2021, the ones that were born in January through June are going to be slightly bigger and more coordinated than the ones born in July through December.
The kids that are slightly bigger and better get a little more personal coaching, a little more ice time, and a little more encouragement. And eventually, when you multiply that by a decade, you have adults with birthdays in the first half of the year who have received significantly more practice and coaching.
Make sure you don’t miss this point: They didn’t receive more help and coaching because they were inherently better. They got the extra help because the system set them up. And the flip side of this is that the system filtered out six months of potential hockey players, only because of their birthday, something which they have no control over.
I’d like to propose that our ministry methods often filter out people systemically, not because some believers are inherently better at making disciples, sharing the Gospel, or planting churches. (Yes, there are giftings of the Holy Spirit, I’ll get to that in a second).
Jesus calls all of his followers to join his mission to make disciples of all nations. But today in many places, we’ve given that ministry (the ministry of sharing the Gospel, making disciples, and planting churches) to paid professionals. In doing so, we have a huge group of people that don’t even get a chance to practice (much less play) at ministry.
What if Canada changed its system to find hockey talent from the entire year? How many more talented hockey players would they discover?
What if the church opened up the work of the ministry* to the entire flock, not just the paid professionals? How many more gifted evangelists, disciple-makers, and church-planters would we find?
Yes, God gifts different people differently. I’m not saying that ALL believers are the Apostle Paul and Billy Graham in waiting. What I am saying is that because of our current approach to ministry in many places - starting with paid professionals - we may have Billy Grahams and Apostle Pauls among us that we’ve never discovered. I’m saying that God has given all believers a role to play in the kingdom, but we’re not opening up the opportunities for them to do it.
What if we turned the everyday believer loose in their marketplace, neighborhood, and families to make disciples? (Note: to really make disciples, not just invite people to church.) Every believer is called to make disciples right where we are, starting by sharing the Gospel and ending by launching those disciples to make disciples of their own.
*It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ… Ephesians 4:11-12 NET, emphasis mine.
Thanks to Jesse & Shanee on the Coworkers podcast for inspiring some of these thoughts. They are missionaries to the unreached peoples in south Asia and have found that some of their most fruitful evangelists come from the most unexpected places. It made me think: What if we’re discounting evangelists, disciple-makers, and church planters because they don’t look like we think they should? Or even worse, what if we are deliberately (unintentionally, but still deliberately) filtering them out due to our systems of ministry?
