How To Be Totally Effective Serving In The Local Church- Revised and Updated 235 pages
Churches need the ministry of helps. The time has come for church members to begin doing the work for the ministry, and let the pastors return to being what they have been called to do- be spokesmen for Jesus.
The Ministry of Helps Handbook by Dr. Buddy Bell is a unique combination of teaching, seminar guidelines and answers to often-asked questions. This useful and complete book provides pastors, and members, with the tools and insights to restore the ministry of helps to their church.
Finally, a book filled with useful information for Ushers, Greeters, Nursery Workers, Counselors all areas of your Church’s Ministry of Helps!
Purchase 10 or more and receive 25% off!
The Church’s Divine Design
by Dr. Buddy Bell
(Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from Dr. Bell’s
soon-to be-released updated and revised edition of The Ministry of Helps Handbook.)
Whether you’re a minister or a layperson — if you are a believer — you aren’t just any member of the Body of Christ. You’re a special member, or a “member in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). The following verse describes the various members that must function so the Body of Christ can perform its role in the earth under the direction of the Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that, miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
1 Corinthians 12:28
Among all these gifts and functions, I want to focus on one that is largely overlooked in the Body of Christ: the ministry of helps. This verse states that God Himself set the ministry of helps in the Church. Although my calling is to teach about and help develop the ministry of helps in local churches, neither I nor any man thought up this ministry gift or calling. It was clearly God-inspired.
I learned more than 25 years ago that the ministry of helps is a supernatural ministry every bit as valid and anointed as the office of a preacher or prophet. God does not value some people above others (Acts 10:34). In His eyes, every believer has a special role in the Body of Christ. And no matter where an individual fits in the Body, every believer is equal in God’s eyes.
Many view some callings in the Body of Christ as higher than others, Instead, we should thank God for all of them, because the Church needs every member working together if any of us is to be truly effective and successful over the long haul.
How effective can the Church be if we are all working together and doing our part? In Acts 6:7 and 8, we see what happened when the need for a special “helps ministry” was recognized and when that ministry was established in the Early Church.
- The Word of God increased.
- The number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.
- Great wonders and miracles were done among the people.
When the helps ministry was established, the Early Church began to change their world with renewed momentum! We could be equally effective today — and more effective — if believers understood and valued the various roles and functions within this vast Body and then did their own part with enthusiasm.
The Infinite Value
of the Humble Gospel Helpers’
What exactly is the ministry of “helps”? One dictionary defines the word “help” as to aid, assist, or bring a supply; to strengthen; to furnish toward promoting deliverance from difficulty or distress; to serve.
The well-known Bible scholar W. E. Vine defines the helps ministry as one of the ministrations in the local church, by way of rendering assistance, perhaps especially of help ministered to the weak and needy.1
Are you beginning to understand the great value of this ministry office called helps?
Let me put it this way: If you’ve ever been prompted in your heart to render assistance to the weak and the needy or to help someone in difficulty or distress, you were being prompted by the Holy Spirit to operate in this supernatural ministry of helps.
I’m sure you know people who have been crying out to God for years, “Oh, Lord, I want to do something for You.” Yet at some point the Spirit of God has probably spoken in their hearts, directing them to the helps ministry. Perhaps He whispered to them, “The church needs more ushers. Take food and clothing over to that needy family. Or, Help out in the church nursery. But they didn’t understand that ushering, working in the nursery, and providing other services are all supernatural ministries of God. Consequently, they ignored the Holy Spirit’s promptings, hoping for a pulpit ministry or something more “glorious.” So they just continued to cry out, “Oh, God! I want to do something for You!”
There is a well-known excuse in the Church today for avoiding Christian service. Whenever a need is presented, this response seems to rise up automatically — and once it leaves people’s lips, they think they’re free from serving. What’s the excuse? “I just don’t feel led to do that.”
When I hear that excuse, I sometimes tell the person, “Let me lead you.” And I show them Scripture, such as Ecclesiastics 9:10 (NIV), which says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might….”
The most outstanding definition for the ministry of helps I have ever read was written by Rev. W. B. Godbey, a nineteenth-century Pentecostal Holiness preacher. He wrote, in effect:
Oh! The infinite value of the humble Gospel helpers. Thousands of people who have no gifts as leaders are number-one helpers. How grand revival work moves along when red-hot platoons of fire-baptized helpers crowd around God’s heroic leaders of the embattled hosts.
What a definition for a dirty-diaper changer or an offering-bucket passer — or for anyone who serves in the church! When I first read this passage, I thought, Thank God, I’ve found someone excited about those who provide help to the weak and needy! Rev. Godbey defined the ministry of helps with excitement and enthusiasm. It’s obvious he highly valued this important ministry gift.
I read something else that accurately sums up the effect of the helps ministry on the overall function and well-being of a church. In essence, it said that to serve in the ministry of helps means to be usefully employed in various ways as an aid in promoting the temporal or spiritual welfare of the church. Yet so many people fail to see the connection between miracles, signs, and wonders and those “temporal” or mundane acts of serving others.
During my years as a traveling minister, I’ve been amazed to see how some believers treat others in the Body of Christ. For example, in many churches across the country, I’ve observed people looking down on those who work in the nursery, clean the church, visit nursing homes, drive the church van, or serve as ushers and greeters.
These service-minded people often hear statements, such as, “What you’re doing is nice. Maybe one of these days, God will really use you.” Or, “I’m glad God spoke to you about working in the nursery and not me. I mean, you really have to be ‘anointed’ to work back there!”
Hosea 4:6 makes a simple yet powerful statement regarding this kind of ignorance: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge….” I wonder how much of what God desires to do in the lives of people is “destroyed” simply because of a lack of knowledge concerning His design and order in the local church, especially concerning this crucial ministry of helps!
Are Church Volunteers
Missing God?
Over the years my wife Kathy and I have met hundreds of wonderful Christians who love Jesus with all their hearts but who were “destroyed” by their lack of knowledge regarding the ministry of helps. Many times it wasn’t even their own lack of knowledge; rather, it was the ignorance of others around them who didn’t understand the power of words to create or destroy (see Proverbs 18:21).
Some of the most destructive words have been spoken to those in the helps ministry, especially after church! It seems people are quick to tell children’s workers, for example, “You missed it! We had a tremendous service! How long is God going to have you working back here, anyway?”
Many pastors wonder why they have such a hard time getting people to serve in the church outside the main sanctuary. One reason is that people who serve there are constantly being told that they’re missing God. But how can we miss God when we’re serving Him? We miss God when we sit around and do nothing — and we have no shortage of those kinds of people in local churches today!
As a new Christian many years ago, I searched for five and a half years trying to find my place in the Body of Christ. I would go to church and think, There has to be more than driving to a building, sitting in a room, listening to stories about God, and going home. There has to be more.
I’ll be honest with you. I even thought, If this is the sum total of my church experience, forget it! Eventually, I ran off to a Bible school and tried to be “the man of the hour” by pursuing a pulpit ministry. I soon discovered that this wasn’t my calling.
Then my wife and I became involved in a church where the pastor believed in raising up an army, not just an audience. To gather an audience, all a pastor must do is “tickle” people with a nice, feel-good sermon. But to build an army, a pastor must develop a skilled group of spiritual warriors. And in an army, soldiers’ toes are going to ache from time to time from being stepped on a lot!
After a couple of months in that church, I finally realized that my calling was in the helps ministry. One day I turned to my wife said, “Kathy, there really is more to church than just driving to a building, sitting in a room, listening to stories about God, and going home!” We began to put our hands to the plow in our newfound ministry calling, yet we weren’t exactly embraced in our endeavor. It seemed we were constantly being called weird, strange, and different. People would jokingly say to us, “God sure broke the mold when He made you two!” — all because we were at church every time the doors opened, ready to serve in the ministry of helps.
Kathy and I served in the nursery together. We also cleaned the church on Saturday night to get it ready for Sunday morning. And we never said we needed to “pray about it” when we were asked to do something. Whenever we’ve been asked to serve God, we always say yes.
During those years as a helps minister in that church, I would actually cry at times after I left church because of the things people called me. My pastor would try to comfort me by explaining their careless behavior. He would tell me that because they can’t identify with what motivates and compels people to help, they become critical of what they don’t understand. That explanation made sense, but it didn’t make me feel better.
Finding Your Place
One Sunday morning as I sat in church, my pastor began to read First Corinthians 12:28 to the congregation. When he got to that little word “helps,” he lingered and talked for a few minutes about the ministry of helps. That wasn’t even his message, but I’ll never forget that moment as long as I live. I sat there with tears in my eyes, and I thought, I’m not weird. I’m not strange. I’m not different. Most of all, God didn’t break the mold when He made me. That “mold” still in the Bible — in First Corinthians 12:28!
So after searching for five and a half years and experiencing confusion and frustration — and, many times, feelings of anger toward God — I had finally found my place. Nothing was wrong with me just because I got excited during the offering when it was my turn to hand out envelopes or pass the bucket — or when I wanted to serve with my wife in the nursery so that another family could hear the Word of God taught in the sanctuary.
That morning I discovered I had a ministry, and it was called the ministry of helps. That’s why every time I read that definition of helps ministry by Rev. Godbey, those words “humble Gospel helper” go off inside me like fireworks. Although he lived many years ago, Rev. Godbey was describing me and many believers like me in the Church today. He may have been describing you too!
God created His design for the Church in advance — and we all have a vital part in it. Whether our calling is to the pulpit or the nursery, we are called to serve the Lord with passion and excitement and to help strengthen our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
Remember, in order for the Church to function at “full power” and to its fullest potential, we must have all parts — both big and small — working in unison. If we as the Body of Christ will learn to value and respect each and every gift, we will witness incredible, life-changing results. Together we will shake the world around us — impacting nations with the saving message of Jesus Christ!
1 W. E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words. Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN. 2003.
