Marshall, C & Payne T, The Trellis & The Vine, (Matthias Media, Sydney, 2009). 166 pages plus appendices. Available in various formats through Matthias Media: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/the-trellis-and-the-vine. Reviewed by David Burke.

This little book has only been out for two years but is packing a punch. Ministry leaders from around the globe and in various traditions acclaim it and the language of ‘trellis and vine’ has become a standard ministry metaphor.

The subtitle indicates the book’s goals: The ministry mind-shift that changes everything. Talk about ambition! In summary, Col Marshall and Tony Payne call for disciple-making and disciple-growth to be at the centre of the church’s energies and to be at the heart of pastors and church leaders. The book makes a strong case for this from various Scriptures and then turns to the practicalities.

Nothing new?
In one sense there is nothing new in the book. Since Jesus took the 12 aside for deeper lessons and Paul did the same for Timothy, wise leaders have invested themselves in the growth and training of believers with potential. And I’d guess that most Christian leaders would speak about the importance of someone who took them aside at a formative stage and invested in their growth. In this respect, the book is applied exposition of 2 Tim 2:2 and Eph 4:11-12.

What’s new?
What’s new in this book is the passion with which the case for training is argued and the careful outworking of the training agenda and process. The ministry of training is developed through a vision for recruiting gospel-partners and moving them through phases of growth and service, concluding with a vision for full-on ministry apprenticeships. Marshall and Payne write with many years experience in Christian training. This shows as they work through the details and anticipate challenges.

Quotable quotes
Here are some quotes to whet the appetite (but you really need to read the book to get the point):

• Is there anything more vital to be doing in our world? It is more important than our jobs, our families, our pastimes – yes, even more important than the comfort and security of familiar church life. (p38)

• … what happens is the same: a Christian brings a truth from God’s word to someone else, praying that God would make that word bear fruit through the inwards working of the Spirit. That’s vine work. Everything else is trellis. (p39)

• To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker. (p43)

• We have to conclude that a Christian with no passion for the lost is in serious need of self-examination and repentance. (p52-3)

• A pastor or elder is just a vine-worker with a particular responsibility to care for and equip the people for their partnership in the gospel. (p67)

• We are always an example to those whom we are teaching and training, whether we like it or not. We cannot stop being an example. (p74)

• The principle is: do a deep work in the lives of a few. (p161)

What’s good about the book?
I like the way in which Marshall and Payne puts discipling where it belongs – at centre stage in church life and ministry. The wide scope of training to include convictions and character along with competence in skills is refreshing. Likewise, its great to see the focus on gospel growth, not church growth – this is a timely encouragement in a day when numerical growth remains a guilt-trap for pastors. And again, the grounded practicality of the book makes it immediately useful. It’s a book that gives a vision and then gives the small starter-steps to see it happen.

Problem areas
However there are a few problems areas. It would be easy to pick up the impression that church is just a training organisation and that people like pastors are only trainers. Likewise, the brief discussion of what is unfortunately called ‘secular work’ will leave many feeling that their daily labour has no significance before God (pp136-138). It would be a pity if some readers saw these issues and dismissed the whole book as a product of alleged ‘Sydney reductionism’. Finally, it would be a great complement to see even a brief discussion of what kind of trellis work and trellis workers are needed to complement the rightful focus on vine work and workers.

Notes to myself
I wrote a few notes to myself as I read the book:

• Gratitude for the people who invested themselves in my training as a new Christian and helped my growth and entry to service.

• Thanks for the privilege of investing myself in the training of others along the way and for the pleasure of seeing God’s fruit in their lives.

• Thinking about the ministries I now have and the people I touch: how can I sharpen my training contribution and vine focus?

• What can I do to help shift the focus from trellis work to vine work in my church tradition (Presbyterian)? In particular, what can I do to help shift the focus of the eldership from governance to vine-work?

• Thinking about myself: what growth do I now need and how shall I access it?


(David Burke has been in full time Christian service since 1979, including 21 years of pastoral ministry and 30 years in ministry training roles. He now teaches at Presbyterian Theological Centre Sydney Australia)
(Posted on 21/12/11)

The Trellis and the Vine" is radical in both senses of the word. It is radical in that it calls for a huge shift in our mindset in terms of what Christian service means and what it should look like. Most significantly, it is radical because it calls for us to return to the roots of the Christian faith, to explore the development and spread of Christianity itself and the subsequent birth of the early Church.

What Colin Marshall and Tony Payne emphasise in this book is the fundamental need to reevaluate our reasons for, purpose in and means of, mission. At the heart of all mission and evangelism, they insist, is the fact that all authority has been given to Jesus. They also stress that all people who are called to follow Jesus as called to “vine” work, spreading the gospel of Christ and creating disciples.

This emphasis on the centrality of discipleship, and its immediate twin, training, is at the very heart of Marshall and Payne’s book. It is a fundamentally Biblical and theologically sound idea, that we are called to present each other mature in the body of Christ. Indeed, throughout the book, Marshall and Payne provide some very compelling real life examples and possible structures/methods of implementation of such training/discipleship. In these examples, they explore how an individual pastor, or a small group of pastoral workers, may train individuals and small groups in sound doctrine and ministry skills, until an entire church may be mobilised for the ever-outward focused mission and growth of the church.

It is a very challenging and deeply Biblical argument.

My only quip with the book may seem rather trivial when I say it is the title. Yet the title is the central metaphor upon which Marshall and Payne build their book, so I believe it is worth exploring.

The metaphor of the trellis and the vine surrounds the entire book, with Marshall and Payne referring to the “vine” as gospel work, and the “trellis” as church structures. The role of the trellis, they argue, is to support the vine; church structures should support gospel work. What we see, however, is that “trellis” work, of the formation and maintenance of specific church/ministry structures, is taking over “vine” work, the actual growing of the people of Christ. This criticism is exceptionally pertinent. I have often spoken to other Christians and have myself at times felt a push or a pull into a specific service role due to a specific need to ‘fill’ that position so that the church ministry structure may retain its same structure and flavour. Marshall and Payne mount a compelling and convincing argument that churches should not have rigid ministry structures, but should instead embrace ministry structures that are as varied and dynamic as the people within their church.

Furthermore, Marshall and Payne are fundamentally right when they insist that Christ’s commission in Matthew 28 was for all Christians to be his disciples and to then, in their going, make disciples for Christ. This argument is so central to their book that it permeates almost every page; we are all called to evangelise and to disciple Christians, even if some are given an especial gift in one of those areas; we are all called to “vine” work.

However, Marshall and Payne, somewhat confusingly, never dispense of the notion of the “trellis”.

This creates an unusual paradox. On the one hand they insist that all should partake in “vine” work of evangelism and training, and that “trellis” work is dependent upon evangelism and training, essentially fusing the two images together. This is an entirely Biblical concept- Jesus spoke of himself as the true vine, and spoke of discipleship as the process of grafting foreign vines onto/into himself. The vine is both the structure and the purpose; discipleship. Yet by retaining the metaphor of the “trellis” and the “vine”, it seems to me that Marshall and Payne (I suspect unconsciously) reinforce a separation between “gospel work” and “ministry/structural development” despite their insistence that the two are dependent upon the inextricable notions of discipleship and training.

Perhaps what Marshall and Payne wish to emphasise is the great interconnectedness of “vine” work and “trellis” work through the centrality of discipleship and training, but if this is the case, then I feel that it could have been emphasised even more fully.

That said, this book is refreshing, comforting and empowering as it forces us to return to the inherently intimate and relational dimensions of Christianity. It is a call for us to learn and teach God’s word faithfully, to be rooted in strong doctrine, and to grow each other in Christ, receiving and passing on what we have been taught so that entire churches are mobilised for the work of the gospel. Its call for corporal responsibility is an important and a highly necessary call in our overly individualised society; we are the church, the body of Christ, and each of us has been given a part to play in His ministry and mission to the world. This book provides a theological framework and some very helpful practical illustrations as to the means by which this may take place.


"The Trellis and the Vine" is an enormously practical and enlightening book. It is a great challenge and encouragement that we are all called to Christ's service, all called to work in and for the church, and that our church models should all be founded upon the making of disciples “so that we may present each other mature in Christ” (Col 1:28). Ultimately, what this book insists upon is that Christian church models return to their highly intimate and relational foundation, for church ministry can and should take many forms so that churches may function in ways that are as varied and unique as the people God calls to be a part of them. (Posted on 14/12/11)

Books on church ministry and leadership abound. It seems that everyone wants to be a mega-church and every mega-church pastor has a book describing how to become one. But, instead of the pastor as chaplain or the pastor as CEO we need a biblically faithful model which also equips the whole church and releases them into ministry. That's exactly what Colin Marshall and Tony Payne offer in The Trellis and the Vine.

Here they offer the image of a garden trellis and the vine which grows on it as a model for ministry. Without the trellis (structure) the vine cannot grow to its fullest extent. A trellis without a vine is a meaningless accessory to a life-less garden. The trellis grows as the vine grows. But, working on the trellis does not make the vine grow. Only tending to the vine will cause it to grow.

I believe that this is an incredibly helpful metaphor for pastoral ministry and the life of the church. The two prevailing patterns of church life (pastor as chaplain & pastor as CEO) are healthy or entirely biblical. They may work, but pragmatism can't be the ultimate guide to health and truth.

The beauty of this book and their vision is that while they care about building structures and leadership, they understand that ministry is ultimately about people. It's the people who matter. It's the people about whom pastors will be called to give an account. If we focus only on building structures but do not tend to the people we have not fulfilled our duty as pastors. Conversely, if we only focus on meeting peoples needs but we do not lead them, equip them and release them to do ministry alongside their pastor-coaches, then we fail to follow the biblical command (Eph. 4).

Marshall and Payne offer a refreshing model for healthy pastoral ministry. This is a well-written and helpful book that explores both the theological and the practical. They provide an image, a foundation and a plan for this vision of ministry. This is an excellent book and I plan to share it with all those who minister alongside me.
(Posted on 8/12/11)

The ministry mind-shift that changes everything is the audacious subtitle which Col Marshall and Tony Payne chose for their 2009 book The Trellis and The Vine. I don't know how other readers reacted to it, but it made me sit up and take notice. It also led me to wonder if they would be able to substantiate their promise.

The story begins with Col telling us about his beautiful, carefully preserved trellis with no vine, and his luxuriant jasmine vine, covering a rather ramshackle, disappearing structure that may once have looked like a trellis.

Throughout the book, the authors develop their theme that churches can be like the two trellises in his garden. Some of them are quite beautiful trellises, but there is no vine to be seen. Others have growth, without any structure, which is still necessary if the vine is to stay alive and grow.

As expected, it wasn't hard to describe the problems that many churches face. All too often we are busy with structures, but we aren't growing Christ's church: just running meetings, keeping the building in good order, collecting and distributing money and doing the many things that are thought to be essential parts of running a church in the twenty first century.

We may also be looking after people by visiting those who are sick or suffering, conducting weddings and funerals and getting the congregation involved in church meetings and small group, but Marshall and Payne point out that this is not our main function, which they say should be making genuine disciple-making disciples of Jesus.

In their view, training people to train others is growing the vine; everything else is trellis-work. Getting people to attend meetings and to be involved in small groups may be creating a useful structure on which the vine will grow, or it may be something which takes over and actually prevents us from growing the vine. We can be so busy doing good things, such as helping in crises, that we are crowded out from doing the essential thing, which is making disciple-makers.

Having described the problems with telling accuracy, they spend the rest of the book outlining their model which they have developed for identifying, recruiting and training co-workers. This has been a key part of their Ministry Training Strategy, in which new Christian workers are apprenticed for two years, before progressing to theological college for formal, academic training.

The case for training people to be disciple-makers is argued persuasively and many valuable suggestions are made for how churches can change from being (in Peter Bolt's words) in maintenance mode to being mission-minded. Marshall and Payne challenge us that if we are serious about building Christ's kingdom, we must be willing to change and even dismantle structures so that we can do the most important thing of all, which is making disciple-makers.

Have they lived up to their cheeky promise, or is this just another book that is being foisted on us, as the way to do Christian ministry? Is it going to turn out to be yet another short-lived fad?

Christian leaders from Chile, South Africa, England, the United States and Australia have written glowing endorsements of the book, which is the distillation of a view of Christian ministry which has been used by Phillip Jensen, dean of St Andrews' Anglican Cathedral, Sydney and Colin Marshall over the past 25 years.

The Ministry Training Strategy has been tested and incorporated into churches in Australia, Canada, Britain, France, the Republic of Ireland, Singapore, New Zealand, Taiwan, Chile and South Africa. (See page 143

Reading this book is confronting, but necessary. It is a superb book for everyone interested in serving Christ whole-heartedly. There would be few Christians and who would not benefit from reading it and changing practices so that their focus shifts to building Christ's kingdom through making disciple-makers. (Posted on 27/09/11)

I have to confess that I became increasingly frustrated as I read this book. Frustrated because I wished I had read it when I was starting out in pastoral ministry 30 years ago and also because what is advocated here is so glaringly obvious and biblical that I wondered why I hadn’t seen it more clearly myself.

The basic premise of the book is that “our goal is not to grow churches but to make disciples”. However, such is the traditional model of church and pastoral ministry that we have become accustomed to, that nothing less than a complete “ministry mind-shift” will be required to get us back on course.

Marshall and Payne use the simple but powerful analogy of the relationship between the trellis – which is the framework and support – and the vine – which is the living organism which grows on it. The problem is that most of our energies and agendas as local churches are targetted at the framework (church) rather than the organism (people/disciples) and, say the writers, we need to shift “away from erecting and maintaining structures, and towards growing people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ.”

This will involve shifting

from running programmes to building people
from running events to training people
from using people to growing people
from filling gaps to training new people
from solving problems to helping people make progress
from clinging to ordained ministry to developing team leadership
from focussing on church polity to forging ministry partnerships
from relying on training institutions to establishing local training
from focussing on immediate pressures to aiming for long-term expansion
from engaging in management to engaging in ministry
from seeking church growth to desiring gospel growth

Underneath of all of this is a very welcome high view of the church as the people of God and the Scriptures as the Word of God. It is an intensely practical book with lots of suggestions about getting started in making this mind-shift and training apprentices. The authors acknoowledge that is won’t be easy or pain-free but it will get us back on a biblical track.

I recognised almost every one of the frustrations and problems they identified from my years in pastoral ministry. We used to run ourselves ragged with busyness just to ‘keep the show on the road’. I used to use the analogy of a football team who spent their whole time just kicking the ball around the park, passing it from one to another, and forgetting that the object of the exercise was to get the ball in the back of the net!

This book ought to be required reading and a standard text book in all church leadership training institutions and read, studied and discussed by all pastors and church leaders.

For the purpose of review, I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher. I was under no obligation to write a positive review. (Posted on 3/09/11)