Lay People & the Ministry

This book is a definite must for pastors, church leaders, and all who desire to be of use in the house of the Lord. There are two worlds of ministry – full-time ministry and lay ministry. Dag Heward-Mills’ intention with this book is to help discover the reality of lay people doing the work of ministry. He started ministry as a lay person while he was still studying medicine. But God asked him to give up his job as a doctor and minister full-time. “It wasn’t an easy decision for me,” Dag Heward-Mills says. But God deals with everyone differently. God asked for Dag Heward-Mills’ profession, but he might ask something else of you. The author believes that before you enter full-time ministry, you must have a definite call to give up your treasured secular job. This is a different from the call to follow God. But it is important to remember that not every ministry needs a full-time pastor and he uses the pastor at their London church as an example – he developed the church into a congregation of several hundreds, with six branches before he became a full-time pastor. He talks about the bitterness and jealousy amongst full-time staff of many churches and says that is why he prefers a few full-time workers with the majority of lay people. The right balance between the two is usually the answer to a successful ministry.