Scaffolding and Ministry Platforms



A ministry platform is a program, service or endeavor that we put in place to give us entre’ to new relationships within the surrounding culture. An attractional approach to ministry will build programmatic platforms within our ministry– so that people will be attracted to us. The logic is, perhaps some men will like our fishing ministry enough to also try attending service too, or perhaps a relationship will develop that leads to a faith introduction. One program leading to our core programs. An externally focused approach, or a missional approach seeks to put us in the culture, instead of bringing the culture to us.

Ministry platforms have been used for decades in foreign missions, but they are now becoming normal course of business for domestic ministries. Business as mission, is an expression of this in which business people see their work as mission. This is not an institutional effort, it is a personal expression of mission. Community service efforts, and the needs assessment offered by Compassion by Design are more examples of ministry platforms in which we enter the culture through service doorways.

What about ministry platforms that take believers into places domestically where they have never been before? If we believe the researchers who tell us that the American Church cannot reach 65% of the population, then we need to take a hard look at where else we need to go, and a platform approach is just outside the box enough that it might help us reach more.  In the process, we might also find that we have more “missionaries” cut from a business cloth than we ever imagined.

Linked here please find an excellent article written by David Befus, past president of Latin American Mission (permission requested).   He writes, “  Productive economic activity is a means to enhance and support Christian ministry. This phenomenon of “Kingdom business,” though relatively unknown, has seen successful implementation in the church since the Apostle Paul first discussed his own work habits in his letters to young churches.”

One way to view a business oriented ministry platform is as “cultural scaffolding.”  You erect scaffolding to get access to places inaccessible to get something done.  And right now, 65% of our culture is inaccessible.  A business oriented ministry platform can offer than scaffolding so that we can engage culture where we currently cannot reach.