Ushering in your local church involves much more than shaking hands and shining your shoes. Some churches think that ushers are just bucket passers, so they grab anybody to pass the bucket. “Let’s just grab ol’ Larry when he comes walking in. Let’s just get anybody.”
You don’t want to get just anybody, because you don’t want an anybody offering. You have been selected as an usher; you are in the ministry of helps, employed by Almighty God.
“And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, HELPS, governments, diversities of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:28).
Many people have never noticed the ministry of helps in the Bible. They have noticed apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, tongues and interpretation. But when it comes to helps and governments, many people say, “I must have blinked and missed that one.”
They blinked because “helps” didn’t sound very important.
But God has set the ministry of helps into the Church. You as an usher in your church, fall within the ministry of helps category.
This scripture reveals several important truths:
- Your ministry is ordained and anointed by God Himself. You have been divinely set in the Church for a purpose.
- Your ministry in helps is just as important as other leadership offices such as the apostle and prophet.
- It is a supernatural ministry like miracles and healing.
The word helps comes from the Greek word antilepsis or antilempsis which means “a laying hold of, an exchange [lay hold of, so as to support].” Its literal meaning is “one who gives assistance.”
Helps describes, “One of the ministrations in the local church, by way of rendering assistance, perhaps especially of help ministered to the weak and needy.”
In other words, if you are helping anyone in the church or assisting the weak and needy, you are operating in the ministry of helps.
Is Ushering Biblical?
Envisioning an usher usually conjures up an image of a white-shirted, gloved man wandering through a movie theater with a flashlight. Church people think of bucket-passers and hand shakers, but the Bible reveals ushers to be trusted men who handle the many details of ruling and serving God’s people.
The Great word diakonos used in 1 Timothy 3:8 and throughout the New Testament describes the first deacons in the church.
Their responsibilities included waiting on tables, feeding widows in the church, and relieving the church leaders from the encumbering details of daily church operation. Today the office of deacon is most commonly filled by the usher.
Just like the first century deacons, today’s deacons rarely hold policy-making power. Their commission entails faithfully carrying out the desires and instructions of the pastor through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Remember the biblical account in Acts regarding the disciples’ search for men to serve tables:
Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.
(Acts 6:3-5)
This passage in Acts 6 sets the divine pattern for ushering in the Church. If Stephen was known and chosen because he was full of faith and the Holy Ghost, how much more should you strive for this status and reputation?
But Stephen didn’t stop there:
“And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people” (Acts 6:8).
In Acts 7, he boldly preached the Gospel to the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of the Jewish people, that condemned Jesus and imprisoned Peter and the other apostles in Acts 5:17-40.
So as you can see, ushering is a very important task for you and your church. It is a necessary helps ministry that has been introduced and ordained by God.
Excerpt permission granted by Ministry of Helps International, Inc.
"A Pastor's Friend" Since 1977, Dr. Buddy Bell has been serving pastors and families in the local church. Because of his faithfulness and commitment to serve, God has anointed him to teach on the Ministry of Helps.
In 1986, he founded Ministry of Helps International, Inc. in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he serves as president. His insights into the much-needed message of the Ministry of Helps have enabled countless people to find and fulfill their place in the Body of Christ. In June of 2006, Dr. George Walters, president of Faith Theological Seminary and Christian College in Tampa, Florida, and its Board of Directors, presented Dr. Buddy Bell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Dr. Bell is also an international teacher, trainer of champions, and a successful author, with the books The Ministry of Helps Handbook, revealing how to be totally effective serving in the Ministry of Helps; Ushering 101, which is the most complete manual available for ushers today; and Greeting 101, giving easy steps to greeting in the local church. In addition, he has produced Usher Training System 101, Development of Local Church Membership, Development of Local Church Leadership, and 20 teaching DVD's. More than 10,000 churches worldwide are utilizing these materials. Dr. Bell has traveled to over 3,000 churches, teaching and helping church staff and congregations work together with far greater effectiveness. With humor, zeal, and an anointing from God to present the Ministry of Helps, he motivates people by awakening them to the power and plan of the Holy Spirit for accomplishing the work of the ministry through every believer.