Dear Pastor

Barnabas Ministry

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A Letter from the Heart to the Pastor and/or Church Leadership

Dear Pastor and/or Church Leader:

First of all, thank you for your interest in Barnabas Ministry.

We here at Barnabas Ministry Network are enthusiastic and encouraged about what the Lord is doing through this exciting endeavor. We have seen people’s lives changed to Christ’s glory. We have seen many church members come alive in a new way through His work in using them in Barnabas Ministry - particularly leaders and, not surprisingly, many believers with a variety of underutilized spiritual gifts and natural abilities. We have also seen people who had left the church, or who did not attend church, engage or re-engage in their local church.

Barnabas Ministry is a tool for you to use in reaching people within and without the church through a deeper understanding of the application of diverse levels of encouragement and grace. This Barnabas perspective is from a Christ-centered combination of the spiritual and psychological understandings necessary for connecting to people in a substantive and meaningful way. We see Barnabas Ministry as much more than just a tool. We believe God has raised up this cultural approach to reach people at a basic, bottom line level: where they are real AND where they hurt AND are fearful. This is a level that most of us will never see via traditional approaches. Without reaching it, there won't be the deep needed ability to employ a meaningful, relational Christ-centered ministry for our particular culture. At best we'll be politely listened to and quietly dismissed. But with Barnabas Ministry we can vibrantly penetrate lives for Christ at a deep and Godly level. At its heart Barnabas Ministry equips the saints to understand and effectively reach people who are wounded psychologically an spiritually, who otherwise would only proportionately respond according to the depth of their personal levels of woundendess and inner pain.

We understand and respect your need to screen all programs to be considered by your church. That is why our website contains a large amount of information to allow you to get a pretty good idea of who we are and what we are all about. We’re also concerned about coming alongside you as pastor. We want to help you equip, encourage and employ your people for the work of the ministry to which God has called you.

As the pastor (or as the staff) you can be involved with this ministry as much OR as little as you would like! Certainly we want your use of Barnabas Ministry to be accountable to church leadership but your level of participation in the actual hands-on training and experience is up to you and your unique schedule, demands and availability. The same applies to your staff. We’ll gladly do all the hard stuff and provide all the necessary training and supportive materials - even hands-on, online supervision if so desired. Our goal is to make your life - and the life of your staff - easier AND more effective especially in terms of reaching and ministering to your people and to people all around you needing your involvement.

The idea is to assist you in equipping the saints for the work of encouragement and all ministry that the saints need to be doing - not just you, or your staff, doing for them. It trains responsive believers, who God will raise up, to understand and to reach people in a way that is compassionate and effective. Our staff can conduct the training on-site and be available thereafter via Internet hook-up for continued consultation and involvement. OR we can furnish materials and back-up support to allow your people to lead the training. We view Barnabas Ministry as an ongoing, interactive partnership between you, us and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Barnabas Ministry reaches everyone but especially those persons who endure inner wounds OR who are going through wounding circumstances. ALL of us carry various levels of inner wounds that impact our ability to follow, or to serve, Christ completely - even if such wounds begin with the very denial of those same wounds OR even if those wounds aren’t recognized or fully appreciated!

Barnabas Ministry doesn’t in any way change the WHAT part of the whole message of Christianity or your church vision. It respectfully endorses these messages. It does, however, address the HOW part: how to reach people that are otherwise not being reached or who need deeper levels of ministry due to personal needs or personal circumstances.

I’m sure as a pastor you’ve encountered a number of marital situations, like I have as a psychologist, wherein the well meaning husband quotes Ephesians 5:22 to you and expects you to jump-start intimacy in his marriage without much further effort from him.

As you well know, wives - even the best Christian wives - don’t respond that way! In much the same way, wounded people, or individuals experiencing wounding circumstances (e.g., sickness, loss of loved one, crisis, marital-family problems, job stress, etc.) , don’t respond very well either. Deep down they may desperately yearn for a relationship with Christ and others yet they won’t pursue it just because it is expected or desired. Bridges of communication and understanding have to take place first. Barnabas Ministry is in the business of equipping believers to construct those bridges.

The overall idea of Barnabas Ministry training is:

1. to equip servant-leaders in an in-depth ministry of encouragement wherein participants are taught how to encourage, counsel, understand, and speak a new language of woundedness. ("Woundedness" simply means having undergone, or being in the process of ongoing, injurious and/or stressful life circumstances ranging from illness to grief to dysfunction.)

2. to train church leaders and members how to minister in specific situations - without depending on the paid professionals to do it - to people undergoing wounding circumstances and/or personal pain due to inner wounds. The pastoral staff's role is to equip the people for ministry and Barnabas ministry is a powerful tool for accomplishing this.

3. to protect and respect the pastor and pastoral staff, and to assist with biblical ministry.

Thank you for checking us out. Please let us know how we may further assist you. We want to empower your leadership and ministry.

Sincerely,

Glenn P. Zaepfel, Ph.D.

Founder

Welcome to Barnabas Ministry

A Spiritual Hospital for Your Church

At this website you’ll learn about Barnabas Ministry, an in-depth discipleship ministry of encouragement to wounded people or to people in wounding circumstances.

It is helpful, as we start out, to think of Barnabas Ministry as a spiritual hospital. The pastoral staff can be viewed as specialists who are doing wonderful work in the operating rooms. Unfortunately the entire community has been affected by a bomb that has exploded in the same way as occurred at the New York Towers in 2001 but now to your church. As Pastor, you are already very busy. There is only so much of you and your staff to go around. That’s where Barnabas Ministry comes in.

Barnabas Ministry comes in to supply your church and community with additional hands and resources. We’ll train church members to be able to perform certain duties according to specific needs. We’ll teach some how to take vital signs; some to perform first aid; some for technical areas; and some for hands-on work like bandaging and splinting; some to hand out pain medication; some to carry the injured to the right room for help; and some to be there for necessary nursing care. We’ll provide a lab for testing; an emergency room for crisis cases; on the scene instruction and consultation; and outpatient follow-up. We’ll coordinate what we are doing with what you are doing around your needs, assessment, direction and availability.

Does this analogy seem too drastic? Well maybe so. However, it may be closer than we tend to think when we consider those physical wounds to be emotional -relational- psychological- spiritual wounds. There is one major bonus too: the people who are trained and used in ministry grow spiritually and psychologically themselves and are thereby blessed and further used by Christ. And this process occurs while pastor and staff continue their normal work. It should also be pointed out that Barnabas Ministry teaches leaders and caregivers how to honor and care for their pastoral staff and to understand their biblical roles for ministry which often are misunderstood due to faulty congregational expectations. Barnabas Ministry also helps those pastoral equippers to be better equippers while it engages members into service.

So why does my church need Barnabas Ministry?

- To identify and reach wounded people that are very often missed - and significantly wounded people who are always missed despite appearances.

- To more effectively assist people undergoing wounding circumstances.

- To employ church members in the work of the church thereby lessening the pastoral load and clarifying faulty or unreasonable expectations of church staff.

- To honor and protect the church staff while increasing ministry without adding extra work or burdens to the staff.

- To train leaders how to understand and effectively reach people who are wounded, or undergoing wounding circumstances and to recognize how current efforts may actually be unknowingly harmful.

- To assist an often overloaded pastor and staff in getting ministry done effectively without adding extra burden to pastor and staff.

- To ignite, at a deeper level, body life, comfort, caring and healing.

- To provide training, supervision and resources in an ongoing capacity without burdening existing staff or resources.

- To train leaders and responsive church members (who God will raise up) to reach people, connect to them, and minister to them like never before.

Won’t you come along?

LETTER TO CHURCH MEMBER AND/OR INTERESTED PARTIES IN PURSUING BARNABAS MINISTRY

Thank you for your interest in Barnabas Ministry. YOU might well be able to do more than your church can do. You certainly can help lighten their load. Have you ever been wounded by things in your past? in your church? Are you someone who understands - or who wants to learn about - such ideas of woundedness and shame and how such things get in the way of receiving ministry? Or of church involvement? Or of just day to day living?

Unfortunately many people in key places just don't get it at all, and they think they do. If humility and brokenness are part of your earnest desire in following Christ then you understand - or will understand - woundedness and its vital importance. You will also understand how reaching wounded people is so very precious to the Lord Jesus. Many wounded people are just scared of - or at least uncomfortable with - their churches or other authoritative bodies or any outreach. They may look receptive outwardly but nothing substantive occurs inwardly. Then they return to their roles of being overlooked and dropping through the cracks - or of just hiding in plain sight. They don't usually respond to outreach but when they do they would rather respond to a personal contact or invitation from a known source at a personal level occurring in a neighborhood or work related small group meeting. They need something more personable and casual - and less potentially foreboding for them.

Barnabas Ministry is a legitimate evangelistic tool but it also is pre-evangelistic. It is a great way to reach out for Christ in order to get people back to Him and back to church - or to reflect Him in a more personal way. There also are a number of great folks with the gift of Mercy who really respond to this teaching and outreach. Usually these kinds of dear people wish they had more spectacular gifts or abilities to be used but instead back out of the way to allow others to do the work. But even the best leaders will profit from Barnabas Ministry training. These precious folks with spiritual gift of Mercy (and other "lesser" gifts - as if there was such a thing) have a lot to offer and seem to know that Christ is calling them. And despite how they feel about their abilities, Christ uses them in unbelievable ways. He thereby blesses the church through them.

Additionally, let's not forget the obvious: Christ wants to reach wounded people and people in wounding circumstances. He wants to use you. You don't need a Ph.D. to do this. This program is a let's-get-right-to-work program. The community church may have a lot of other things going on. You, however, can get things going pretty fast - and also very effectively. We don't have to wait for the paid professional to do the work. We are the ones called to minister. We can't put hurting people on hold or just shuffle them off to the church to get to them around their busy calendars. It is our responsibility - but our blessing as well.

Barnabas Ministry may be implemented through a formalized, sanctioned ministry of the local church or through a more informal and practical utilization at the applied level of our personal lives. It is important to note that Barnabas Ministry, though a powerful, loving and legitimate arm of the church, is not confined to the formality of the local church per se but is a reflection of the outreach of Christ’s people in the real world. We all know that the church, itself, is not the local building and grounds or operations of a physical structure in a confined location but rather God’s Spirit moving through members of the Body of Christ to accomplish His purposes.

In practical terms this means that God does not need to wait for committees, meetings or personalities to accomplish His purposes. This freedom of practical ministry even applies to something as relatively insignificant to us as a conversation or meeting with a wounded or needy person. He wants you to experience, reflect and represent Christ as best you can regardless of anyone else’s decisions for you about programs, levels of training, church politics or procedure. In the ideal church these operations go together lovingly and smoothly without hindering Christian growth or ministry. It is up to us as followers of Christ to do so and not wait, become side-tracked or pre-occupied, or procrastinate in following Him or representing Him. In a very real sense you are the best witness for Christ and example of Him that may be available for many, if not most, exchanges and interactions that encompass your day. So we must be personally responsible for how well and timely we do all things – especially our opportunities to minister. We must also consider the sobering recognition of lost ministry opportunities that we could have recognized or done more effectively to seeming ordinary people who God purposes to enter into our daily lives. We must take responsibility for developing our personal spiritual growth while God works out His will in us. This growth in Christ is in addition to corporate growth in and through the local church body.

In that light many individuals are implementing Barnabas Ministry in their private study and in their homes, neighborhoods and communities in order to learn how to better impact those people all around and near to us that need to experience Christ through His people reaching them in a hands-on way that is able to be received amidst personal or situational fear, anxiety, confusion, pain or mistrust. The hope of Barnabas Ministry is exactly this: to cut through all the social, psychological, political and religious red tape to reach wounded, needy people for Christ. This concept is at the very essence and behavioral manifestation of true understanding of “church” in the biblical sense as Scripture intended it to be.

So if you feel the Spirit of God tugging at your heart please contact us. Bill Powis (a retired pastor) will be glad to discuss all this with you - it really ministers to him as well. Really. So go ahead - give him a call. Join us as we seek to implement Barnabas Ministry in Jesus' name. You'll be glad that you did. Thank you.

Even in the worst of times opportunity is all around us. Having been a psychologist in private practice for over twenty five years and having done some form of professional counseling since the late 70s, I have consistently seen God bring people to a state where an opportunity is knocking at the very door of their psychological house afire. Clearly God is in the midst of their personal dilemma. If they can see God behind the opportunity then, as scary as subsequent actions may feel, they are blessed as they proceed.

However, left to our own devices we – all of us – individually and humankind - screw things up sooner or later. These kinds of problems often bring people to my door. But we aren’t left to our own devices. We merely choose them out of our own neediness, foolishness and deception. And, absurdity of all absurdities, many of us convince ourselves that we are doing just fine – thank you.

This world is not getting better. It’s not going to get better. The good news is that we, as Christians, are not of this world. The better news is that we don’t have to be alone in our worldly mess. We can be lifted above it all. OR, in our existence of spiritual stuckness, we can settle for far less than what God wants for us. We can miss those opportunities God has specially prepared for us in order to bless us. We can also miss opportunities to minister in His name.

In this ever-changing, techno-politico-corporate world it is easy to get lost; to be swallowed up; to just try to hang on. We believe that we can’t be weak or we’ll be swallowed alive. That may be true but we misapply such thinking to our private side of life and to our personal relationships. We are also quite adept at letting our pride keep us from asking for personal and private help – from admitting our weaknesses – our vulnerabilities. But there is an incredible opportunity here in our very midst. In fact, the worse the world situation, the better our opportunity for real ministry.

The idea of ministry, itself, is in a time of persecution and transformation. The church – we who believe in Jesus Christ and His Word – must walk a delicate and thin line between keeping up with our fellow worldly man in the techno-political-business sense – (or at least not being eaten alive by him) and pursuing our personal and spiritual selves. We have to be able to relate to God, and to fellow man in his fallen stature and woundedness. Maybe some of those very same people are just as frightened by what they see – maybe even frightened of you.

It is all too easy to blur those lines. Technology makes it very easy to do. Let me be clear that I’m not against technology. I love it and use it. I’m against how it is sometimes used and how it can deceptively kill real ministry if we let it.

It is easy to see how technology allows false intimacy with things like pornography but it isn’t so easy to recognize other forms of pseudo-intimacy. It is easy to see how the worlds of politics and business make strange bedfellows. I would suggest that our culture is settling more and more for a counterfeit intimacy across a variety of so-called relationships. It is so easy to dupe ourselves – or be duped – into thinking there is more substance - more worth - than there really is. In many ways we have settled for superficial, speedy relationships forgetting what real relationships even are; forgetting that real relationships require depth, substance, and time. The lines become blurred between real relationships and survival relationships – those relationships we need to get business, politics etc. done. In many situations we settle for a relationship that is more of a convenient addiction covering the bare necessities, business or political agendas, and our selfishness. Real, substantive relationships are unnecessarily lost.

It is not just technology or business or politics that should concern us. It is easy to conceptualize but very tricky to see these forces as they occur. Rather, I am addressing the absolute necessity of real relationships and anything that gets in the way. The message of John 3:16 – indeed the entire Bible – is the importance of real relationship – and making it right.

Most of us don’t fully grasp the incredible value of God’s condescension to accomplish relationship. We somewhat get the idea. I don’t think that any of us is really able to fully grasp that kind of perfect, sacrificial love. It is an awesome thing to contemplate.

The ingredients for real and powerful ministry are more and more abounding. This kind of relational outreach is not the kind of ministry that becomes a best seller or makes a media personality. Rather, it is a quiet and peaceful operation of God the Holy Spirit working through those who are willing to respond to Him to reach those He has prepared to respond.

God gave His most precious possession – His one and only, beloved Son – to make relationship possible. It is that important to Him. It is at the heart of the gospel and at the very heart of God. If, then, some person or power wanted to combat God, or to hurt Him, doesn’t it make sense then that it would be a strategy to strike at, and to undermine, the very heart of God? Lost relationships mean lost souls. Wounded people mean lost relationships. We have to pursue Godly relationships. We have to reach wounded people.

Relax. This is not a course in quantum physics. You don’t have to become a psychologist either. Or a pastor. Rather, we shall focus on what I believe to be a pre-cursor; a pre-evangelism; preparing the way for relationships of substance. More than that, it also applies to those who are already justified through faith. In short, our target is reaching the wounded for God; reaching saved and lost; then letting God do His thing with those persons whatever those persons’ states. It’s about letting God use us to reach people through relationship – the kind and quality of relationship that really works – the kind of relationship that people are secretly craving – and the kind of relationship that reflects God and allows people to embrace God. Or said in another way Barnabas Ministry prepares the path to healing relationships – with God and with others, and even healing within oneself.

Sounds serious – and it is – but we’ll have fun along the way. God will bless you as you come along. Won’t you come along?

Copyright © 2011 Barnabas Ministry Last modified: January, 2011

Copyright © 2011 Barnabas Ministry
Last modified: January, 2011