Beeson Podcast, Episode 480
Jeremy Maxfield
Jan. 21, 2020

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristin Padilla.

Doug Sweeney:       Welcome to a new episode of the Beeson podcast. I'm your host, Doug Sweeney and I'm sitting next to my cohost here in the studio, Kristen Padilla, and today we have one of our Beeson alums with us, to discuss a new book he has co-authored with Micah Fries, about how to multiply ministry by giving it away. Before we jump into today's conversation, let me thank you for listening and supporting us each week. Today is our 480th episode and it's because you listen that we continue this ministry. In order to help us reach new audiences and gain more visibility, we would love for you to leave us a review on iTunes, and of course we always love hearing from you. Whether you have a comment about a particular episode, or you have a recommendation for future guests or topics, email us@bdsinfoatsanford.edu. Now for today's conversation.

Kristen Padilla:    We have, as Doug mentioned, a Beeson alum on the podcast today. His name is Jeremy Maxfield. Jeremy is a freelance content developer, writer and consultant. Previously, he has served in local churches including at Brainerd Baptist in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was the discipleship pastor. As mentioned, Jeremy is a graduate of Beeson, having earned his Master of Theological Studies degree in 2005. He is married to Amanda, and they have three children. And also, as Doug mentioned, he is the co-author of a brand new book called Leveling The Church, Multiplying Your Ministry by Giving It Away, published by Moody Publishers, which is largely what we want to discuss today. So welcome, Jeremy, to the Beeson podcast.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Thank you, Kristin and Doug, I'm honored to be here.

Kristen Padilla:    We're glad to have you here and we always begin by asking our guests to tell us more about yourself. We're particularly interested in your call to ministry, and how you got from that call to Beeson, and then to the work that you're doing today. Perhaps you can fill in those details for us.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Sure. So, I grew up in the church, quite literally. My dad just retired from the second church he served, for almost 30 years.

Doug Sweeney:       Wonderful.

Jeremy Maxfield:    In the Atlanta area. And he joined a church staff two weeks before I was born, in Texas. So it was a Texas-sized mega church back in the 80s, so I was literally in church seven days a week between school, sports, worship schedule. So, in a lot of ways I grew up, church was what I knew, so in that sense, ministry, I was probably predisposed towards thinking about ministry as just a natural part of growing up, because that's what I saw in my family. But I also had that cliche, prodigal son rebellion as a teenager. I didn't just want to be my dad's kid, and all those extra responsibilities that came with his reputation.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Of course, now I'd, there's few things I'd love more than to be a man of integrity and serve in leadership that he's been over all the years. But at the time, I just was growing up as a kid in the church and through my teen years and into college. College was really when the Lord broke me of my own rebellion and arrogance and hypocrisy of thinking I had it figured out and everybody else was wrong. And I'd say that that was the turning point in my life, both as far as my relationship with God and also my call into ministry, so to speak. So that was December of '99, so I guess almost 20 years ago now, just over 20 years ago now, when I realized that my life was a gift of His grace.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so as a quick caveat, I would say that the two callings of salvation and ministry are one and the same. And that's part of what the book is about, in a way. We'll talk about that later. But I believe that all Christians are called to ministry, but as far as feeling a particular pull towards church leadership, God just sort of laid that out one step at a time for me. And that began by leading us to Beeson.

Doug Sweeney:       Yeah. Jeremy, tell us a little bit about how you got to Beeson. Why did you decide to come to Beeson, and how did Beeson help prepare you for the ministry you're doing these days?

Jeremy Maxfield:    Sure. Beeson was, it really is a special divinity school. I can't imagine a better environment for me in that season of my life. I was a newlywed college grad. We moved, actually moved to Alabama on our one year anniversary with nowhere to live yet, which is every girl's dream, I'm sure.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And I was cozied up on the couch with Bonhoeffer's Life Together, getting ready for my first classes, but Beeson, what drew me to Beeson, I mentioned, I had that, I grew up in church, but had that prodigal stage, and had a love for the church, but also knew that I was unsettled and, and didn't know what had just been handed down to me. And what I really believed in was trying to learn to follow God in the way that He was leading. And though I have tremendous respect for denominational schools, I've even done a course toward doctoral work at a denominational school, at the time what I loved and needed was the ecumenical environment of Beeson, where I could learn to... Not only where I could learn to dialogue with people from a different perspective, where I could be taught how to think, not just what to think, and and also how others think, and how to respectfully interact and sort through what it means to be the larger family of God and how to love brothers and sisters in Christ well.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And I would say two things in particular about Beeson. One, just the nature of having different denominations represented. I believe I saw on the website the other day that there's roughly 20 denominations represented there at Beeson right now, and the career path that the Lord has led me on. I've served various churches along the way, as a result, though when I came, I didn't know what exactly the Lord was calling me to. I knew I had a heart for the church and I'd valued an education that would teach me how to speak God's word from a place of conviction, and a place of faithfulness to the word. And that had a history, but that wasn't going to be a specific denominational education. And it's exactly what I received at Beeson.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And as I began serving churches, I also began writing, and through my time at Beeson, one of my favorite classes had been a class co-lead with Denise George, who was just tremendously gracious and helpful as she taught me how to write and how to engage in the world of publishing and how to craft writing technically. And then the late Dr Kelvin Miller, who was just truly an artist and poet theologically, and just taught me to love sense of beauty and awe that we should [inaudible] company, correct theology and true devotion. And so, through their class and some of the experiences I received in their class, God used that, along with my church experience, to open the door into Christian publishing. So, I've held a few full-time church staff roles. And then I've also held a few bi-vocational interim roles while serving, I served for a decade in Christian publishing. And so, that's absolutely the result of my time at Beeson, where I learned to juggle, or how to maneuver, various voices and denominational perspectives.

Kristen Padilla:    Well, let's jump right into your book, Jeremy, Leveling The Church. Why did you write this book and what need do you see in church leadership that you and your co-author are trying to meet with the book?

Jeremy Maxfield:    Sure. I think that church leadership, the lead that we see, is the church leadership tends to lean to one extreme or another. Either we stake our flag too firmly in the ground of, "Just be faithful". In other words, just preach and teach the word, and leave the results up to God. And I'll explain what I mean. Or, we gobble up church growth and leadership books that are mostly business models and marketing strategies, and often measure success by worldly standards. And usually if we're reading church leadership books, we would gravitate towards the latter. So, what I mean by those two being an erroneous extreme is that the "just be faithful" mentality is often, if I'm honest, I've seen it even at seasons in my own life, where it's an excuse for, for lazy ministry. As long as we have great preaching and teaching.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And sometimes it's not even necessarily great. We just think as long as it's Biblical, meaning that the Bible was included, then nothing else is our job and that God will take care of the rest. And obviously, absolutely, we want to preach and teach with excellence. We want to be ready, in season and out of season, to give an account. And it's the Holy Spirit who saves. But Paul says that he became all things to all people so that he might win some to faith in the Gospel. And in the early church, was described as turning their communities upside down because they couldn't stop talking about the resurrection. And so our goal as pastors, or church leaders, whatever our role is, is not just to communicate information, but we want to see transformation among our people. And so, while we can't force that transformation, it is our job, like gardeners, in a sense, to foster that and to see fruitfulness.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Keller does a great job of clarifying faithfulness as fruitfulness that, while we can't produce that fruit of salvation in others, we should seek to develop spiritual fruit in our own lives and in the lives of others around us. And we should work diligently for fruitfulness in our churches regardless of upsides. We want to see individuals in the congregation growing healthier. So, that's what I mean by the error that we saw of, "just be faithful" and leave the results to God. And then the other error is, while we want to be wise stewards of the influence, and resources, and opportunities, and people that we've been entrusted with as church leaders, our measure of success is not the same as the world's. And so, our job is not to manipulate or coordinate growth and direct organizations. So, our vocation is to minister to the body of Christ within the church and to advance the mission of Christ in the world.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so, there are all kinds of practical insights and wisdom to be gleaned, just like there is from any area, as far as business principles or leadership principles. But the church is first and foremost the people of God, and so we have to look first and foremost to what the Bible says about our role as pastors, not just as directors and communicators and CEOs, so to speak. When we fall into that trap, of business principles and worldly leadership, we tend to become professionals who dispense religious goods and services to a group of consumers, and we believe that the church is more than a gathering of consumers, that we're a gathering of people who are all, in fact, ministers.

Doug Sweeney:       So much wisdom in what you've just said, Jeremy. One of the things that you note in the book is that you're eager to bring contemporary church leadership in line with the picture of leadership provided in the Bible. And of course lots of people listening to our podcast care a lot about what Scripture says. What do you think we need to hear about what the Bible itself teaches us about church leadership?

Jeremy Maxfield:    The driving message, the heart of the book, is from Ephesians 4, [draw] straight out of Ephesians 4 in the opening chapter, we break down what we see Paul describing to the churches there in the area of Ephesus. He says that he, meaning Jesus, he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's son, growing into maturity with the stature measured by Christ's fullness.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so, in that text it says, absolutely God calls certain people to hold specific roles of leadership, but they're not the ones that are called to do ministry. It says that they're called to equip the saints for the work of ministry. And so we believe that the Biblical model that we see here explicitly in this passage in Ephesians 4, and then when you keep that in mind it's evident throughout the New Testament, and what you see is God's people working together. And certain people are called to raise up and develop new leaders and and help them do the work that God has called every one of us to.

Kristen Padilla:    Jeremy, building off of that, a book about multiplying one's ministry as the subtitle describes, might at first seem to imply that our to-do list, then, is about to get much longer. But you and your co-author Micah actually say that your goal is to help pastors, quote, narrow their focus in order to multiply their ministry. I'm building off what you just said about Ephesians. What do you mean and what does this look like, to multiply by giving it away?

Jeremy Maxfield:    Sure. So the title is intended to grab your attention. And one of the great compliments a friend had offered, regarding the book, is that it's not a typical church growth book. And we intentionally played with some of that language, that what we believe is that our role is as pastors and church leaders is often to stop doing so much of the ministry. And a working title that I had played with was, Stop Doing the Ministry. But the intent is, we believe that pastors and others in church leadership are often doing too much of the ministry. And what that means is that we're not equipping the people around us to join us in ministry. Like I shared before, that they're coming as consumers and they have an expectation that they come and they show up, and we provided sermons or lessons or programs for the families or whatever it is that we offer, all of which are all wonderful things.

Jeremy Maxfield:    But there's this invisible gap between people, to where there's a group of professionals who provide the services and there's a group of consumers. And we believe that it, ironically, we funnel... In the book, we use the illustration of a funnel, and then we have a ministry when filtered down through the pastors or leaders on behalf of the people, the pastors and leadership, we become a bottleneck for ministry, because one person can only be in so many places at a time. Some would say that even Jesus, when he was speaking to his disciples saying that, send my helper, and you will do greater things than I, we all have the Holy Spirit. The Bible talks about that same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is within each one of us. And if we limit the work of ministry just to the paid professional, then then we're not only robbing joy and fruitfulness from our congregations, and influence in our community, but we also run the risk of burning out, which we've seen plenty of as pastors.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so what we're proposing in the book is both a warning against the isolation, and the heavy expectations that come when pastors feel that it's their job to do everything for their churches, that it's their job to do the ministry. We believe that we all have a familial responsibility to do ministry. Every member of the family is expected to do ministry, but as leaders, like we saw in Ephesians 4, there are some who are called to equip the saints, in other words, to raise up people to grow in their ability to do ministry. And so, when we flip that perspective in our minds, instead of being, imagine a funnel, you know how it goes from largest down to the smallest point, when the pastor is no longer that small point of contact, and we instead flip it, imagine like a shower head.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Now we have the pastor who is pouring into other people, who can now spread their influence all over their communities and the church congregation. And so, we multiply our impact by choosing to focus on, "Okay, what is it that I am specifically called to in this role? What has God called me to do?" And part of that is to equip others for ministry. It's not my job to do everything for the people, but help me lead the way, and then entrust and empower them to begin doing ministry. And so when we do that, for many of us, it will be difficult at first to make that mental transition.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And there's all kinds of different terminology, where we talk about, people talk about mentoring others and oftentimes discipleship is segmented out as a separate part of the Christian life. It is just sort of educational. "This is where we teach people, right?" Theology, delegation. It's what we do with leadership responsibilities.

Jeremy Maxfield:    But what we propose in this book is that Christian discipleship, mentorship, and all of those things, go together in the role of a pastor or a church leader. That part of your role is, as you disciple people, you're modeling for them, and you're entrusting to them ministry responsibilities, you're handing off some of the responsibilities, not so that you aren't doing anything anymore, and not in the corporate sense that the further up you go, you can pass off the tasks that you don't want to do anymore, because you've earned that right, now, as the professional whose opinion and time is more valuable, but in the sense that I'm helping others grow in the fullness and maturity of their own gifts, and to see the spirit of God flourish in their own lives. To see them come alive with the different gifts and abilities that God has entrusted to them, and the whole body benefits when that happens.

Jeremy Maxfield:    But it takes a change, where we have to say, "My job isn't to do all the ministry. My job is to help everyone see that it's all of our responsibility to minister to one another. And now, how can I specifically help you take on those responsibilities?"

Doug Sweeney:       One other interesting thing that you and Micah do in the book, is talk about four role models of ministry from the Bible itself, Jesus, and Moses, and Paul and Timothy. An interesting combination of role models there. Just real briefly, Jeremy, what do you and Micah want us to learn from those role models about ministry leadership in our churches?

Jeremy Maxfield:    What we did not want this book to be, was taking our ideas, even drawn from, okay, this is what we believe Ephesians 4 says, then how does this play out in our church leadership? And organizationally? We wanted to continue to look at, okay, how have we seen, in the Bible? Where do we see leadership in a way that is pouring into others so that the entire community can grow and flourish?

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so first, obviously as believers, and as pastors and leaders, first and foremost, we want to look to the example of Christ. And so we see, in Christ's own example, we see this primary concept of limiting his focus, that he narrowed his focus in order to really multiply his impact. We know that the church movement, Christianity as we know it today all over the world, began at Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit coming down on the disciples. And Peter stood up as the primary spokesman.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And while we know that there were many people following Jesus during his earthly ministry, many of whom the Bible even refers to as disciples, including in Acts, we see the 120, and there's the sending out of the 70 pairs and, but we know that he focused the bulk of his time, and all the Gospels mention that he focused the bulk of his time on the capital D disciples, the 12, and so he focused his time primarily on these 12 men. And again, we know there were other women and family members and other people who followed closely, but he invested specifically in these 12 men. And then from there, even more specifically, in three, Peter, James and John and we know from there even most specifically, in Peter, and said, upon Peter's confession of Christ, that upon this rock I will build my church.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And I believe that's the confession of Christ. We know that he did use Peter to preach that first sermon. And so, we see in Jesus example that despite all the people he ministered to and all of those that followed him closely, and that all that were considered disciples, he would narrow his focus on 12. And then at times on three, on special occasions, like the transfiguration and different miracles. And then, even more specifically, he had a deeper relationship with Peter, one that was preparing him for the tasks that they would carry on after he was gone. And so that's what we encourage people to do first and foremost. Identify those that you can pour into most specifically, not to the neglect of all the other people, but who are your key leaders that you can look to and begin pouring into, in order to see ministry continue well after you're gone.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Secondly, we look at Moses. And the concept of Moses is this idea of delegation. If you remember in the story of Moses, the people have been led out of Egypt and he's in this period where he's just, his father-in-law comes out to visit them, and to see what God has done and as he sees everyone, he's, it says that he's the [welder 00:00:24:35]. Just what is, what are you doing? You have these people coming to you, asking you to solve all their problems, and you're serving as judge over all these people for all of these things, and in a way that God often does and speaks to us through through others, his father-in-law suggests, "Why don't you appoint other judges in other areas to deal with people on different levels? And you can devote your time to certain matters, but you don't need to be doing every single thing for every single person. You're going to wear yourself out."

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so that's where we look at the principles of, as a pastor, your role is not to do every single thing for every single person. It's unreasonable to expect that, and it's impossible to do that. We're not superheroes. We have to entrust not just responsibility, but authority and ability to others, to make decisions and to do things trusting that the Holy Spirit will guide them as well. And so with Moses, we looked at that idea of delegating responsibility and authority, because we can't do everything.

Jeremy Maxfield:    The next example, we look at Paul and we look at Timothy. And specifically with Paul, we look at his example of, that it's not just that he spent a life pouring into others, that when Christ told him in the ministry, and as clear as anybody, there's an example of the fact that his salvation, that turning point in his life was also his calling to ministry, in a very radical way.

Jeremy Maxfield:    We see that as he began following Christ and serving Christ, that he was not only teaching others, but he was investing in others as he would go. And he would plan his life somewhere for a while, and he would journey, and he would keep up with the different communities. And you would feel these different names of leaders and people that were either with him or that he was sending greeting back to. And while Paul provides the bulk of our clear theology in the New Testament, the theological writings in the New Testament, we see in the life of Paul, this practicing the presence, of being with people, having people with him. And just that relational aspect that, for Paul, including his relationship with Timothy, most explicitly, we see that he was not just entrusting truth to people, that he was modeling the fact that this is life.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And for me, that was my big hangup as someone who grew up in church, that the big turning points for me in my own life was, I can't just believe these things to be true about God, and as long as I have these right doctrines checked off, do I believe in the Virgin birth? Yes. Check. Do I believe in the resurrection? Check. Do I believe that he died for my sins and was raised three days later? Yes. Check. I believed all of those things, but I was living completely for myself, as a young person, and when God broke me of that and showed me that I couldn't just say that I believe certain things to be true, while living however I wanted, it changed my life forever. It was like where James says, "Okay, you believe in the one true God, good. Even the [dedans] believe that, and they shudder. They have an emotional response." Even so with Paul, we see that he wasn't concerned simply with teaching people the truth, so he was radically committed to the truth, but he was investing in their lives.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Showing that all of life was a spiritual practice, not just what we say we believe in our minds, and we saw that most explicitly in Timothy and in the chapter dealing with Timothy's example, we look at equipping people to know the word of God for themselves. One of the questions we ask in the book is, if you were, say you're the preacher, you're the pastor of your church. If you were to retire, if you were to move on, if you were to have someone else in the pulpit for the week, would your people recognize if someone began leading them in a different direction? And while we want to honor the pulpit and the position of a pastor, we want our ultimate authority, like the [Bereans] in Acts to say, "We heard what you said and we've measured it against God's word. And so we know it to be true and we want to know more."

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so, in Timothy's example, we see that he was charged by Paul to teach the things, that had been entrusted to him, to others who were worthy and capable of teaching others. And so this idea of multiplying ministry through how are we really equipping people to know, study, the word of God for themselves. Can the average person not just believe what you say as a teacher, or as a preacher, and then live a pretty good life, but can they open up the word of God for themselves and can they read it and understand it and can they converse with others? Can they teach it to others? Can they share their faith? Not just based on what they feel and what they believe, but can they point to the word of God and say, "This is how God is working in my life and this is what is true," as they share that with others.

Jeremy Maxfield:    And so something that I had begun doing, gosh, years ago, shortly after my time in Beeson, I was working with college students at the University of Montebello primarily, and working with a young church [plant] at a meeting in a warehouse. And the worship pastor was, we were all bi-vocational, and the worship pastor, his full-time work was with a church-planting organization that dealt largely in restricted countries, in the Middle East and North Africa. And I was intrigued by the movement of God in these areas, where it was so difficult to be a Christian, and the simple concepts of discipleship, and obedience-based discipleship and principles of, can you take what you've learned and teach it to someone else, and obey what you've learned.

Jeremy Maxfield:    So, as I was working with college students and wanting to help them begin to own their faith and live out their influence there in their own circles, communities, began employing just a real simple acronym. We had looked at Timothy's writings about how all Scripture's God-breathed, and it's like, okay, if we really believe that, not just the air of preach the word and leave the results to God, that how can we really look to Scripture and teach people to read and study Scripture on their own, and for that to be powerful and effective in their lives? And so, a modified inductive Bible study just used a real simple acronym of word of God, where word, someone would say, okay, what is the main point of this text? Who is it written to? What are they trying to say? And letting that set the guide rails so we don't go off on our own. Well to me this means no, what is, what is the point of the text?

Jeremy Maxfield:    And then from there using G-O-D as the three points of, first and foremost, we always want to see what does the text say about the word of God. First and foremost, what does the text say about God? We want to approach Scripture in a desire to meet with God, to hear from God, to see God. So, before we begin studying, before we begin looking for application, we first and foremost want to seek God in the text. So word being, what is the main point? G, God. How do we see God in the text, either explicitly or implicitly? What do we see about His character and how He works and moves?

Jeremy Maxfield:    Then, after we see God rightly in the text, then we can rightly see ourselves in the text. So, O is ourselves. So where does this show me tendencies in my own heart. How do I relate to someone or situation? Where do I feel a sense of conviction or encouragement?

Jeremy Maxfield:    And then D, do. What do I do in response to how I've seen God and how I've seen myself in the text? And do's not always a practical, I need to go out and tell this person I minister, I need to go out and ask for forgiveness. Sometimes it's more affective. I need to be awe of God's grace for me today. I need to appreciate the fact that word of God is living in [act 00:00:32:59]. I need to recognize that just like He provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, He's going to take care of all of my practical needs as well. But we always want, we don't want to leave Scripture without a response, and in a group discipleship setting, or in a community setting, without that, we tend to just grow in knowledge and we don't tend to grow in maturity, because we're not following up with, "Okay, now what are we doing with what we learned?"

Jeremy Maxfield:    You saw God in this way, and you felt convicted or encouraged or challenged in this way. Now, how are we becoming more like Christ than when we first approached? And so that's what we do at that fourth point, is encourage churches, whether with that simple acronym or with other tools, "What are you doing to really equip your people so that they can all study the word, interact with the word, discuss the word of God simply with other people, either in a group setting or one-on-one, can they look at Scripture and say, can they handle it with integrity?"

Kristen Padilla:    Thank you, Jeremy, for just your insight into Scripture and into church leadership and we want to recommend to our listeners your new book called Leveling The Church, Multiplying Your Ministry by Giving It Away, published by Moody Publishers. Jeremy, it's been a pleasure to reconnect with you and to have you on the Beeson podcast. Thank you so much.

Jeremy Maxfield:    Thank you for having me.

Kristen Padilla:    You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham, of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast, or on iTunes.