Our third topic to explore in BNG’s Storytelling Projects initiative is “Signature Ministries.”

By studying ministers or churches who practice “Signature Ministries,” we learn from communities who respond to the needs around them, engaging and energizing members in specific ministries that turn them outward on the world. We will specifically profile ministers who lead through their passion and zeal for an interest or a skill that connects with their community outside of the role they would normally play as pastor, leading their congregants to see Christ in others and reaching the needs of the world around them.

Signature ministries: ‘The art of human contacts’

by Bill Leonard

In past times when families brought their children to be nurtured in the life of the gospel from an early age, or when revival crusades and direct evangelism drew young and old to conversion experiences, churches fostered ministry in those who first came to them. These days, that process often seems reversed — churches demonstrate their care and concern for persons in the world, and through those signature ministries make their gospel case through the “art of human contacts,” “seeing Christ in others,” as Peter Maurin insisted. Waiting on the Spirit to see what happens next. Read more.