Dealing with a team member who practices “wild” evangelism
Your Question:
“How do I deal with a CM team member who doesn’t abide by our procedure about leading children to the Lord?”
The Issues:
You want the CM to be evangelistic! You want to inspire children to a closer relationship with Jesus! But you also need to establish some guidelines and procedures that match the church’s views regarding evangelism. You don’t want to prevent your team members from influencing children for Jesus, but you must establish a process that unifies the ministry under the leadership of the church. If you haven’t already established these guidelines, getting “old dogs” to do “new tricks” might be challenging. When establishing the process, make sure you help every team member understand the purpose for the guidelines.
Scripture Foundation:
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28: 19, 20
“But all things should be done decently and in order.” 1Corinthians 14: 40
Short Answer:
This is such a sensitive challenge. If you already have an established process for leading children to the Lord, you may be able to deal with this challenge in an all-team meeting devoted to “refreshing” their memory of the process and answering any questions they may have. If this is possible, it will be easier to encourage the team member to use the established guidelines instead of simply criticizing him/her. If you need to speak just to the individual team member, compliment his/her passion to lead children to the Lord! Ask him/her to share some of his/her stories of children accepting the Lord in his/her classroom. Ask him/her about his/her connection to the parents either before or after the child accepted the Lord. (This should be a major step in the “approved” process! Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 establishes the parents’ role in leading their children to the Lord!) Review the approved process and ask him/her for any questions he/she may have. The team member may react to the process by saying something like, “This seems to limit the Holy Spirit.” Explain that the process is not designed to limit the Spirit but provide some “order” to the process. You might read Paul’s dealing with “order” in 1Corinthians 14:40. Remind him/her that you are under the authority of those over you and that this process has been approved by the church leadership. Let him/her know that every team member is under the same guidelines. If he/she resists submitting to this procedure, you may need to ask him/her to step away from the ministry. This would be a terrible loss, but a team member who refuses to work as a team is not a good team member. For more help, click on the links below.
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