I’m not a gardener. I don’t know anything about flowers. In fact, I often run over the wrong thing when mowing the lawn, much to my wife’s dismay. In our backyard, we have a pretty pathetic grapevine. At least, it looks pathetic to me. But what do I know?

Here’s what I do know. That pathetic grapevine, that seems to hold on even though we don’t do anything with it, wouldn’t still be there if not for the trellis holding it up. It’s a simple trellis–a couple of posts and some cross-members–but it’s just enough to keep the vine alive. However, in the 3 years we’ve lived at this house, the vine hasn’t gotten any bigger or healthier. And if we cut down the trellis, the vine would surely die. The key with a trellis is having just enough so that the vine can grow, but not too much, so that maintaining the trellis requires all of your attention.

In a similar way, the maintaining of the ministry trellis can easily consume all of our energy, leaving the vine to fend for itself. A few years back, I read Colin Marshall and Tony Payne’s book The Trellis and the Vine. I then re-read it a few years later. In it, they draw out the analogy of the trellis and the vine by comparing them to programs and people. In the church, programs are the trellis. Really anything we do to help people follow Jesus can be part of that trellis. Small groups, Sunday school classes, worship services, nurseries. All can be good things, but all are means the end of helping people follow Jesus in all of life. That’s the vine work. But if we’re not careful, we’ll spend all of our time maintaining our trellis to the exclusion of the vine. Or worse yet, we just keep building the trellis bigger and bigger because it’s easier to do that than it is to get in the trenches with people and into the mess that is everyday life. I like the way Mike Breen puts it when he says “we are addicted to and obsessed with the work of the Kingdom, with little to no idea of how to be with the King.”

“We are addicted to and obsessed with the work of the Kingdom, with little to no idea of how to be with the King.”

Mike Breen

With the current situation in which we find ourselves given the global pandemic of COVID-19, I look around and I see the trellis crumbling right before our eyes. Some of the things that we spent so much time on in order to make our Sunday service happen are no longer needed.

Greeters…no one is coming in the doors.
Cafe workers…no coffee to be served.
Welcome Center workers…no one to direct where they need to go.
Nursery workers…no babies are there.
Sunday school teachers…classes are empty.
Kids ministry…they’re at home.

These are all things that we depend on during our Sunday services, and in many ways, we spend more time making sure these spots are filled than we do actually caring for people. It doesn’t mean these things are bad. In many cases, they’re needed and good.

But what about now? What about in the middle of this pandemic where we can’t gather together, we can’t hold services, we can’t offer children’s classes, and no one is standing at the door to greet us. What does it look like to facilitate vine work now? What does it look like to focus on being with the King, and helping others to be with the King, rather than just focusing on kingdom work.

I would like to suggest that our focus be turned towards how we can help people follow Jesus outside of church programs. Instead of church programs as the vehicle to help people follow Jesus, think of relationships as that vehicle. I’m thinking about both the existing relationships that we have, and the relationships that have yet to be formed with others because we’ve been so focused on the trellis of ministry work.

I can think of a few tangible ways that this can happen in a conversation, even in the midst of this pandemic.

Ask Heart-level Questions

Heart-level questions are not always the kinds of questions that we’re prone to ask, but they are the ones we need to ask if we are caring well for others. We all know what surface-level questions look like. How’s your family? How have the kids been dealing with school at home? How’s work been? Are you ready for things to get back to normal? These aren’t bad questions in and of themselves. They are actually good initial questions, but we can’t leave them there. If we take them a step further, they can lead to heart-level questions.

Questions like…

• How has this time affected the relationships in your family?
• How have you felt about the kids being home all this time?
• When your kids get upset at each other, what is your reaction?
• Has your boss been understanding about the difficulty of working from home?
• What have you found to be most difficult during this time?

These questions change the nature of the conversation and have the ability to let you in on how the person is processing life and perhaps where their heart is bent. If we rely on the Spirit to help us love others well, these heart-level questions can reveal ways that we can point others to follow Jesus in the midst of their struggles.

Actively Listen

Asking heart-level questions doesn’t do much good unless you actually listen to what people have to say. The point of asking a question is for you to be able to hear how the other person responds, and what that might tell you about their heart. Rather than just thinking about the next thing to say while the other person is talking, really try to listen to hear where they are coming from and what is causing them to explain things the way that they do. We would all do well to actively listen to those around us.

Follow Up with More Questions

As you ask initial questions, probe a little more with heart-level questions, and then actively listen to their response, follow up with additional questions that show you were listening to their answers. Try to avoid haphazard questions that just gather information. Instead, focus on engaging with their response by asking for clarification or even reiterating what they were saying to make sure you understand it. There are few things more frustrating in a conversation than when someone asks you a follow-up question that is completely unrelated to the answer you just gave. Were they even listening to what you were saying? If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves thinking more about us and our response rather than listening to ask good questions.

Point them to Jesus

As you ask heart-level questions and listen to their responses, look for opportunities to speak truth about Jesus into the broken realities of life. Especially in the coronavirus pandemic, many aspects of our lives are broken. Whether it’s economic difficulty, fear of the virus, frustration at government, or family tension, there is all kinds of bad news floating around. The good news of the gospel of Jesus is like balm for the wounded and fresh water to the thirsty. As ambassadors of this good news, we bring a much better solution than anyone else can offer. But often, it starts with a loving question about how their heart is processing what is happening in their life.

While we navigate what it looks like in the weeks and months ahead for churches to gather again, let’s remember that the crumbling trellis is not what needs attention. It’s the vine work, the people, that should have our attention.