Extended Interview: Mike Slaughter
Mike Slaughter, the lead pastor at Ginghamsburg Church (Tipp City, Ohio), is the three-decade dreamer of Ginghamsburg and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. His life-long passion to reach the lost and set the oppressed free has now made him a tireless and leading advocate for the children, women and men of Darfur, Sudan, named by the U.N. as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Mike's call to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted will challenge attendees to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. He will be speaking at the Bishop's Day event for the Heartland District in Mt. Pleasant on March 13. Editor RJ Walters recently spent some time talking with Mike.
Q: What are some of the current problems that you think disable the church worldwide and what are some of the techniques or strategies you've used to grow your own church?
A: The thing we all have to get back to in churches is discipleship and during what I like to call the "Church Growth era," which was really the 1980s and 90s where we became so numbers focused, and we showed some remarkable growth, Ginghamsburg grew from less than a hundred people to almost 4,000 people a weekend today. Many of the problems were caused at a time churches were "seeker sensitive" is we lowered the bar to commitment. It even began to happen to the institutional mainline churches in the 50s and 60s, where membership kind of meant your names were on a roll, you might've done some little service projects or whatever. But Jesus calls us not to make a decision, but a serious commitment to become a disciple. So we've got to get serious, even at the beginning of our membership process, with the call to discipleship, and that's one of the reasons why at Ginghamsburg you go through a 12-week class called "Followers Life" before becoming a member. The method is published, my wife wrote the resources. I think it begins there; not what you can do in one day, but really when we go back and aren't so anxious about what I call "a numbers obsession" in the church, we are still fearful of the number losses we're experiencing and we want shortcuts and creative ways to get people to the church Biblically it's not how creatively we can get people in the church, it's how we can get people already in the church serving to the world. It's what I call becoming a missional church. It's not about missions being one of the things you do, but missions on an on-going basis in relevant ways in your community and our country and world becoming who you are. I've got a new book just now being released, called "Change the World: Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus," and what I see needs to happen is for us to go away from the attractional model to more of a missional model.
Q: Like you said, one of the things the United Methodist Church, just like almost every denomination worldwide, is trying to do is stress numbers and having enough members to bring in money to do things. The United Methodist Church is really a connectional church though, based on trying to help others, all the way from the Wesleys up to today. How do just help re-focus people when our lives are already busy and our minds are trying to wrap around thing like mortgages, natural disasters and family issues?
A: I think all people, whether they can verbalize it or not, are looking for significance. They're not looking for "me things" to do, they are looking for meaning in their life. And what the church can do is show how people can find significance by being in service around their area and the world. Right now we even see, with all of the money, millions and millions of dollars for Haiti, what the church needs to do better is connect these people who are searching for meaning and significance. Nobody does it better when the church is at its best (than the UMC), at connecting people to meaning through being the hands and feet of Jesus, working with the needy and lost in relevant ways. We're doing very basic things on a daily basis at Ginghamsburg; tutoring in public schools has seen so many cutbacks and computer labs have no teachers, so we as church people start to look at how we can help or assist you to make sure you are supported. So we help staff a computer lab you can't afford teachers for, food pantries, we‚re feeding 1,500 families a week through food pantries here, gently used clothing stores, etc. All these things we started as a church of less than 100 people, and it's by reaching out to people in relevant ways that they begin to find the church as a place they can find significance.
Q: On Bishop's Day you'll be speaking to mainly current church members and clergy. What kind of things will be the basis of your message and what do you want people to focus on?
A: Two specific things. My first talk is going to be about the Biblical mandate for mission and why we exist. It's not to get people into the church to support the church, that was never the purpose of Jesus, but to get the church into the world for the sake of ministering to the needs of the least and the lost. And you don't have to be a big church to do that; a tiny church of under 40 people can begin to do things like food pantries, like clothing stores, like recovery ministries. We started several years ago on Saturday nights a recovery church. And we have 250 people a week now; we worship at 7:00, we have a time of fellowship at 6:15 with sandwiches and soft drinks and coffee and at 9 o'clock we have 12-step groups. And you know, ther'‚s a church that's probably three years old at one of the venues at Ginghamsburg and we have 250 people a week and that's because it's needs-focused. And the second thing we're going to talk about is the missional church and moving your church outside of itself and into the world.
Q: You do talk a lot about how mission work is mandated in the Bible and you also talk about using finances in a Biblical fashion. How do you get people to sit down and be honest about they can better use their money, because that is always a fiery subject whether you're talking about schools, government or churches.
A: I think we have to first understand the whole Biblical principle of money. Money is not evil, the love of money or being controlled by money is. And of the biggest things I see in the church is many of our members bring Jesus into their materialistic worldview, rather than to really be transformed into His. One of the things we do at Ginghamsburg is we have a massive involvement in Darfur. We've invested millions of dollars. And simply what we've told people is that Jesus taught "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and so at Christmas we say hey, it's not your birthday i'‚s Jesus‚ birthday. So whatever you spend on yourself, I don't know, maybe you spend $500 on parents and grandparents and children last Christmas, then you bring an equal amount for the worst humanitarian crisis in the world in Darfur. That's kind of the practice instead of doing little token type things we urge people to come to a place of sacrificial commitment. This year, in a blighted area, as you know being up there in Michigan, Dayton is an automobile city and almost every GM plant has left so we're in a pretty severe recession, yet our people at Christmas, mostly blue-collar folks, brought in almost $600,000 for Darfur.
Q: "Wow" doesn't quite do that number justice in my mind. Alright, I'm sure you've been asked this question a million times, but how do you, after writing books, after leading a movement in Darfur and after helping grow your church, still find time and energy to be spiritually and mentally healthy?
A: It's really important to think about. In my book "Momentum For Life" I talk about five practical disciplines I practice every day and I use the acronym D.R.I.V.E. The first is daily devotion with God, so early this morning, 5 or so, I was up in my study in my home meditating on the word and journaling and praying. Then I went to the gym. "R" is readiness for lifelong learning. I am constantly reading, going out to Web sites and stuff, studying the culture, theology, business, politics, whatever to see how we can have positive input in the world. "I" is investing in key relationships, so making sure my wife and kids are my priority and that ministry does not become a negative force. "V" is visioning for the future; always looking to where God is moving and what needs to be done. That's how I got involved in Darfur. And "E" is eating and exercise for life. So you know, I have an exercise program, I eat a healthy diet. I think you need, including eating and exercise for life, to make sure you've got time to make your spiritual life healthy as well.