Building and maintaining networks of collaborative relationships is extremely valuable in many different areas of life. Networking is important not only in business and politics, but any activity that involves lots of groups of people, including Christian ministry. We all have immediate day-to-day relationships like family, friends, clients, students, colleagues and neighbours. Constructive networking goes beyond these, building relationships with acquaintances, contacts, potential connections, those in different teams or ministries and so on. The value of collaborative behaviour is amplified even more when it is expressed across larger groups. All sorts of new opportunities and benefits open up when networks bridge across organisations, businesses, different social demographics, geographic areas and denominations. Networking builds efficiency and effectiveness in our ministry efforts, and it can circumvent conflict and waste.
Working together in gospel ministry is upheld by our shared Christian faith and shared gospel vision (Lk 9:49–50; Eph 4:1–16). We know that Christ is ultimately building his heavenly church by his Spirit through his word, rather than we merely building institutional churches for this age (Matt 16:18–20, 28:16–20). This Christ-centred perspective should make us eager to partners together for God’s glory and the growth of the gospel.
But not many ministry leaders are good or consistent at networking.
We’re Not Very Good at Networking
Archie Poulos shared the findings of his doctoral research on The Pastor’s Heart in 2022, that few Sydney Anglican ministers considered networking a ministry strength. Poulos says this is a big deal: “I think that if we don’t get this right we won’t be here in thirty years as a Christian group, nor do deserve to be.”[1]
I believe one of the reasons that ministry leaders struggle with networking is it’s a high-level skill. In fact it is challenging because it is not only a skill but it also relies on discipline and is ideally animated by conviction and character. Where we lack skills and consistency, our ability to collaborate diminishes. We won’t remember to think in terms of wider ministry partnerships if we do not deeply value partnership. Without maturity of character we will find it difficult to sustain challenging and complex relational work that does not bring immediate benefits to us; and we will lack wisdom, grace and courage to manage conflict, compromise and persuasion.
A High-Level Skill
Real networking is not about schmoozing, shaking hands at conferences and sending LinkedIn invites. It is a demanding and sophisticated skill. Networking in ministry requires a level of abstraction in thinking about our own work and its relationship to the work of others. It requires us to think not just about the needs of individuals in our congregation, the exegetical issues in our next sermon, budget shortfalls and the items on our to-do list. Networking requires us to think about the mission we are pursuing and the way this intersects with other churches and ministries. And it then requires us to think about how these other churches and ministries are populated by people absorbed with pastoral, logistical, financial, strategic and theological concerns of their own.
Effective collaboration involves synthesising, too: seeing the way different ministries intersect, where they are interdependent, and identifying points of effective cooperation a well as points of divergence. Finding the best way forward often involves creative lateral thinking that seeks win–win solutions.
Holding all of this in our heads requires a good memory for names, organisations, programs. Facilitating partnerships requires solid relational skills for maintaining varying levels of connection with many different people, listening openly, reasoning persuasively and disagreeing respectfully. No wonder many of us struggle with effective ministry partnerships!
This blend of abstraction, synthesising, remembering and working well with others is what brings together genuinely fruitful and vibrant fellowships between churches in a suburb, city, region or nation; cooperative, give-and-take partnership between churches and parachurches; inter-denominational working groups that achieve meaningful gospel outcomes. When networking is done well, leaders and organisations feel understood, considered and involved; programs emerge that match their mission and meet their needs; toes don’t get trodden on, work doesn’t double up. Ministries are genuinely networked, rather than in competition or isolation.
The Need for Discipline and Consistency
Consistency is where a lot of attempts at networking fall flat. Without some consistency of keeping in touch, a ministry colleague becomes an acquaintance, then a contact, then just somebody that you used to know. Without consistency of follow-through, well-intentioned meetings and resolutions become mere castles in the air. In fact, without consistency of collaboration and partnership in our words and actions, we can actively contradict in practice what we commit to in principle: we forget, we compete, we irritate, we neglect, we undermine, we duplicate. General perseverance in Christian life, gospel ministry and doing good needs to find its way into perseverance in particular activities that serve gospel ministry, such as networking.
It takes effort to be always looking through the networking lens, evaluating your work with reference to wider ministry partnerships and vision. It is mentally demanding to go beyond what is at the front of your mind, to think of other ministries, to interrogate plans and explore solutions that work for everyone. Communicating and consulting well, month after month and year after year, takes effort. Diligently paying attention to and responding to the communication of those in your networks requires the precious expenditure of your time and attention.
It is hard to be good at networking because it is not a once-off or occasional work. It requires disciplined consistency to really make a difference. Such discipline is, to a certain degree, sacrificial: it costs our time, attention, prayer and care factor. Gospel networks will often lay claim to your ministry’s money and people, as well. It requires discipline to commit to counting those costs over the long term.
Such discipline is best maintained by Christian convictions and character.
Networking Convictions
A fundamental ministry partnership conviction is that we are all serving the Lord Jesus Christ in the spread of the gospel, not in the business of growing our specific church, parachurch or denomination. The particular focus of our ministry is secondary to the cause of Christ. This outlook can be seen in a way Acts describes the growth of the church: “the word of God spread” (Acts 6:7, 12:24, 13:49, 19:20; see also Col 1:6).
Such convictions ought to find expression in practice. Consider for example, some of the “Ministry mind-shifts” that Colin Marshall and Tony Payne describe in The Trellis and the Vine:
3. From using people to growing people
The danger of having such willing volunteers is that we use them, exploit them and forget to train them. Then they burn out, their ministry is curtailed, and we find that we have failed to develop their Christian life and ministry potential …
4. From filling gaps to training new workers
If we just focus on gap filling, we’ll never move out of maintenance mode: we’re just keeping existing ministries afloat instead of branching out into new ones. We should start with the people God has given us, not our programs … So instead of thinking, “Who can fill this gap in our personnel?”, perhaps the question we need to consider is “What ministry could this member exercise?” …
11. From seeking church growth to desiring gospel growth
Once we’ve spent time and resources training our leaders, we soon fear losing them. However, one of our goals in training people should be to encourage some of them into … denominational or missionary ministry. We must be exporters of trained people instead of hoarders of trained people … Our view of gospel work must be global as well as local: the goal isn’t church growth … but gospel growth.[2]
Convictions about the kingdom of God will lead to a commitment to mentoring and releasing leaders, to seeking to multiply gospel ministry, rather than simply defending and growing our own local work.
The Role of Character in Collaboration
There are many people who are masters at networking but are motivated by self-interest. You can broker beneficial relationships and seek win–win solutions in cynical or even manipulative ways. But broad ministry collaboration can also be fuelled and moulded by Christlike character.
Sadly, one of the reasons Christian leaders fall short in the area of networking is that we are self-interested—not necessarily self-consciously, but at the level of instinct. Convictions and discipline can bring to light our default selfishness and make the choice to build partnerships more intentional. But godly character works from the bottom up, stirring the affections and making us more receptive to the holy incentives of gospel generosity.
Without realising it, we are often motivated in ministry by what we do, by our usefulness and fruitfulness for the kingdom. We pay most attention to those things that are relevant, threatening, beneficial or interesting to us. But it is possible to grow in our appreciation for and satisfaction in the spread of the gospel beyond our immediate activity and responsibility. We can become interested in the growth of the gospel in our city, region, nation—and the world. This will make us eager to be gospel-generous and less inclined to become defensive and territorial.
Networking is a difficult skill, that also requires us to be disciplined. Gospel partnership is also best driven by conviction and character, not just competence. Networking is not easy. But this does not let us off the hook. Rather, it is an opportunity to repent, learn, grow, improve, practise and level up, to God’s glory.
[1] Archie Poulos’s full thesis is available here.
[2] Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift That Changes Everything (Mathias Media, 2009), 17–26.
