Propinquity

Excerpt from Colin Marshall:  Pastoral Ministry Requires Propinquity

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However, I suggest that our fellowships should be characterized by propinquity.

So what is propinquity and why is it important? According to the Oxford Dictionary, propinquity is "the state of being close to someone or something; proximity." (He kept his distance as though afraid propinquity might lead him into temptation).

What would it look like if each member had a personal pastor to help him or her grow, no matter how big the church becomes? Realistically our members will vary in how much they learn and apply from sermons. And most will benefit greatly from someone getting alongside them, listening and understanding, speaking the word of truth in love, praying, and being open about his or her own struggles. Many need the parent they never had, just to learn some basic wisdom in how to live.

There is biblical warrant for thinking of pastoral ministry in this personal way. Paul was a father to the Thessalonians, dealing with each of them as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging them to live lives worthy of God (1 Thess. 2:11-12). He writes to the Corinthians as his dear children, since he had become their father through the gospel, and they are to imitate him (1 Cor. 4:14-17). The overseers are to be known by the church as blameless in life and doctrine (1 Tim. 3:1-7). Timothy was to set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, in purity (1 Tim. 4:12). Peter exhorts the elders as shepherds, to be examples to God’s flock under their care (1 Pet. 5:1-4). Pastoral ministry requires propinquity.

So as the body of believers grows, how do we maintain this closeness of pastoral relationship? We need a different mental image of church.

If you had to draw a diagram that represented the ministry in your church, what would it look like? An organizational tree? A mind-map of different ministries and programs? A tangle of spaghetti

What if our mental image was not of an organization or a structure but of the people God has brought together in our church? And what if the key question we asked was: Who is getting alongside each person to invest in their lives and help them grow towards maturity in Christ?

This is a different vision of church—not as an organization, but as a community of disciple-making disciples. It’s the vision of ministry Tony Payne and I wrote about in The Trellis and the Vine—a ministry where we focus more on people than programs.

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