GMOOT: A Proposal for a New Paradigm for Practical Ministry

It's been a while since I made my first post on tentmaking for ministry, so I thought I would use this post as a refresher and springboard into what I will be eventually turning into a 12-15 series of posts randomly inserted into P&P. Prefixed to the title will be the acronym GMOOT, which stands for "Getting the Most Out of Tentmaking". I will try to write in a sequential fashion, though each post could stand on its own. Let me explain what is about: For some time I have been thinking about the role of vocational ministry and how it has been structured. Typically in most Protestant or Evangelical churches, there are full-time staff (number of them varying on the size of the church) who basically do the work of the ministry there. Don't get me wrong: the church folk do volunteer to help out, but it can be clearly understood that the bulk of ministry is relegated to a certain few who are paid to do it. I can understand the reasoning for having full-time ministers to an extent. However, I would like to propose a new paradigm for ministry and kick it around to see what you think. Also, in my theses, I will be addressing benefits of the tentmaking approach as well as showing how it aligns more clearly with Scripture. Juxtaposed to this, one can see how the contemporary model of church leadership and staff, especially in larger churches, resembles more of corporate America than the New Testament. And to bring justification to the job description, there is the inclusion of tasks and roles which do not fit the biblical description of a pastor/elder. Furthermore, if you are not in "full-time" ministry and think that GMOOT has nothing relevant for you, don't sign me off too quick because I think that you will find some of the theses imminently relevant to you and how you plug into ministry. All this is stuff churning up in mind, and I would love to hear feedback and challenges to this approach (what I propose will be in fact a rough draft mode, and your editing/input would be greatly appreciated). I hope to complete GMOOT in a matter of a couple of months, given that I won't be writing them in consecutive order. Hope this makes sense, and I hope you find this paradigm outside the box and inside Scripture. Till then.