The professional model helps create a productive economy—and there is nothing wrong with that. But ministry is not about making money or building the biggest building or touting the largest numbers. It’s easy to get confused about that in ministry, especially if the leader is confused about what kind of model to emulate. Ministry is about healing men and women and sending them out for the glory of God. As ministry leaders, we are not called to create a business or professional ethos.

However, the military and business/professional mindset still lurks in some ministers’ minds today. Should a senior pastor be friends with his executive pastor? The youth pastor? The women’s minister? The children’s director? His administrative assistant? How should ministry relationships function? What kind of ethos does the Lord want us to create?

The Family Model

The Bible uses family imagery to describe ministry relationships. Over and over, Paul addresses his readers as adelphoi, traditionally rendered “brothers” or “brethren” or, more accurately, “brothers and sisters.”^[i] Paul uses family language repeatedly to address the church. Read how he described the ethos he created in the Thessalonian church:

As apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle  among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to  live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory (1 Thessalonians 2:7, 8 and 10-12).

And don’t forget Paul’s instructions to Timothy:

Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity (1 Timothy 5:1, 2).

Yes, a personal or family ethos is more complicated. It is easier to relate to one another in the military or in business than to relate to one another as family or friends. The lines are clearer; the structure set. Personal relationships require love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control—the fruit of the Spirit. They demand wisdom as we create an ethos of care and respect. A ministry ethos is a supernatural ethos, superintended by the Holy Spirit. But life transformation and exciting spiritual adventure are the norm in a supernatural ethos—and that’s the kind of place where Jesus shows up and works wonders.