I’m a bit sorry now that I didn’t capitalize the word “from” in my subtitle. While I’ve already said that
- the book is about ministries
- we want those ministries to change lives
- stories can form the basis for development of a ministry,
there is no doubt that most of the book is devoted to describing how a design can be derived from a story. Did you catch the from?
Stories about someone experiencing a ministry are packed full of information about the ministry. And, if we have a bunch of these stories, they not only provide more information, but also round out our understanding of the content of the ministry due to their variety of experiences. Stories can tell us how the person at least:
- Became acquainted with the ministry
- Engaged with the ministry
- Found his or her way through the ministry
- Experienced each part of the ministry
- Evaluated or felt about the ministry
- Moved on to some other ministry
From in the subtitle affirms that, if we have the stories, we can extract from them the ministry design they imply. Yes, the stories will suggest differences in design, and the team that is creating the ministry will have to choose between the stories’ alternatives. However, a good extraction process will highlight the alternatives and make selection easier.
And how can we extract a design? Well, my book gives the details, but the gist is this. Ministries always have parts; they have ingredients that make them up. We already observed this when we said people find their way through a ministry and experience each part. From the stories we can not only name the parts, but also we can say something about them. From the paths through the ministries we can find the relationships between the parts of the ministry. Together, these allow us to create a complete picture of our ministry, and, my friends, that is a ministry design. It comes from the stories.
Ministry Design 