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Monday, 24 October 2011

What is Christian ministry and why does it suck the life out of you? Counseling Solutions

What is Christian ministry and why does it suck the life out of you? Counseling Solutions

Link to Rick Thomas

What is Christian ministry and why does it suck the life out of you?

Posted: 23 Oct 2011 09:05 PM PDT

When grandmother prays, she always thanks God for her children, especially the ones who are in the ministry.

Phillip lives with this low-grade level of discontentment. He has a not-so-secret desire to be in the ministry.

Pastor Will is exhausted after a long day in the ministry.

Sandra is embarrassed because all she can do at this point in her life is change diapers. She longs to do ministry some day.

Elder Dan feels superior because he is in the ministry.

Jimmy is secretly envious and sometimes openly critical of Elder Dan because he can’t be in the ministry.

Martha feels complete because her ministry fills the void that her self-absorbed husband has left in their marriage.

Randy plays the ministry card from the pulpit. He motivates (manipulates) his people, by telling them that they need a ministry.

Judie is overwhelmed by ministry and does not see or sense how it is tearing away at her family. She hasn’t participated in a church service in three years. It’s the new normal and no one is speaking into her life.

Pastor Bob knows it’s wrong, but he needs warm bodies on Sunday morning. He considers it an acceptable sacrifice: the deterioration of some of his families for the pragmatic needs of filling holes on Sunday morning.

What do all ten of these people have in common?

They all have a wrong view of what it means to be “in the ministry.” They have a compartmentalized or narrow view of the word ministry. They see ministry as something that they do at a particular time in their day or their week.

The comprehensive nature of ministry

The word ministry does not have a singular or isolated dimension to it. The word ministry is used comprehensively in the New Testament:

  • Prayer and to the ministry of the word. – Acts 6:4 (ESV)
  • Paul’s ministry that he received from the Lord. – Acts 20:24 (ESV)
  • The ministry of the Spirit. – 2 Corinthians 3:8 (ESV)
  • The ministry of condemnation. – 2 Corinthians 3:9 (ESV)
  • The ministry of righteousness. – 2 Corinthians 3:9 (ESV)
  • The ministry of reconciliation. – 2 Corinthians 5:18 (ESV)
  • The ministry for the saints. – 2 Corinthians 9:1 (ESV)
  • Equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. – Ephesians 4:12 (ESV)
  • Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant. – Hebrews 8:6 (ESV)

The word ministry comes from more than one Greek word, which is not an unusual practice for the New Testament writers. Our temptation is to take the one English word and give it a primary, singular, and dominant meaning.

You can test this by asking your friends what comes to mind when they hear the word ministry or ask them what does the word ministry mean to them. What should come to mind is that ministry simply means a way one person can serve another person.

None of the words used for ministry in the New Testament was meant to be the exclusive domain of full-time church staff or for people who provide a singular function for their local church.

Every person in the body of Christ is a full-time minister for Christ. Our full-time ministry should be seen as a way of life, that impacts every minute of our lives, including the ministry of sleep (Mark 6:31). Even going to the grocery store is an invaluable ministry for any person to perform.

We are not only slaves to Christ, but we are slaves to each other. Being slaves is our ministry and it cannot be reduced to time-selective events, e.g. Sunday morning in the choir. To hold the more narrow interpretative view of ministry would have the Savior’s ministry restricted to the times He was preaching on a hillside.

You could sum up what our view of ministry should be like the way the Lord did in Matthew 22:36-40:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (ESV)

Rethinking ministry: Ten People: Ten Alternate Views

Grandma’s two-tier system – Christianity can have a two-tiered system in some people’s minds: those who are in the ministry and those who are not. Grandma is unwittingly diss-ing part of her family, the ones who are not in ministry, according to her interpretation of the word.

Part of her ministry should include all of her children and grandchildren, including the ones who are washing windows for a living. She would be amazed at how much her ministry of encouragement could infuse her “non-ministry” children to pursue Christ and others more effectively.

I’ll never forget the day in 1989 when I asked Hector Henriquez, a Puerto Rican in Queens, NY, what he did for a living. He said, “I buff floors for Jesus.”

I was stunned by his words because I had a whacked view of ministry.

God began a reorientation of my self-righteous heart that day, as it pertained to what ministry really means. I was in Queens to evangelize as a minister of the Gospel. God allowed my proud heart to see another one of His minister’s of the Gospel, a floor cleaner from Jackson Heights.

While I’m not sure how effective I was during the week that I was there, I am very sure how effective Hector was, as I still talk about him more than 20 years later and the impact he had on my heart.

Phillip’s selfish ambition - Phillip has bought into the lie that fulfillment for the Christian comes only when you’re in full-time ministry. Fulfillment comes through our relationship with Christ, while what we do is the outflow of our gratitude for His kind Gospel work in our hearts.

Phillip has moved Christ to the periphery of his heart because of his insatiable craving to be “doing something for Jesus.” If he would repent of this craving and seek out a friend who could walk him through his distorted view of ministry, he might find himself “doing many wonderful things for Jesus” wherever he is, including at his job.

Pastor Will’s part-time job - Will has missed the boat on this one. He’s like the man who comes home from a hard day on the production line and demands “me time.” There are two things wrong with his view:

  1. It’s not biblical;
  2. He really doesn’t understand what his wife does for a living. She has no “me time.”

This became clear to me several years ago when I began working primarily from the home. I thought my wife always kept the house clean because she always had it clean at 5PM. After my first week at home, I realized how complicated and unending things were for my wife.

Pastor Will needs to redefine what ministry means. He has an incredible ministry opportunity to his wife and children. If he misunderstands this, it could possibly end his marriage, embitter his children and end his ministry at the church.

He can rest in heaven, not on earth.

Sandra’s incalculable ministry - Being a mom is the one ministry that is the hardest to calculate.[1] Sandra’s ministry will continue for generations. The impact she can have on her children and the advantage of her role as a mom is a pastor’s dream.

Pastoring is, in large measure, helping people with problems. Sandra will have approximately 18 years to come alongside her children in a shepherding role. There is a high probability that she will have more impact on her children than her pastor.

Elder Dan’s self-righteous ministry - Dan is a hollow man who is using the ministry to carve out a little kingdom so he can feel wonderful about himself, by feeling superior to everyone else.

This may surprise you, but selfish ambition is one of the most common sin patterns in the heart of people who are in full-time ministry. It’s no different than the desirous executive who surrounds himself with cars, money, and other idol feeding allurements.

It is a misconception to think that pastors and other full-time ministry people are not allured by the power of the ministry.

Jimmy’s sinful comparing - Jimmy’s wrong view of the ministry has spun him into uncharitable comparing. This is the heart wonderings of the fool.[2]

Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. – 2 Corinthians 10:12 (ESV)

Someone needs to talk to Jimmy and release him from the pressure of feeling like he “needs” to be in the ministry. He does not. He needs to serve God where God has placed him. It is easy to think that God tabulates things the way we tabulate things. He does not. Omniscient, holy God does not view things the way finite, sinful people do:

And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. – Mark 12:43 (ESV)

Martha’s surrogate husband - Martha has found a new husband in her ministry. It is her ministry. The sad thing about Martha’s situation is that her church leadership will let her serve in her ministry because it is more important than what is going on in her home.

This kind of short-sightedness misses an incredible, God-honoring opportunity for the church. What should happen is a full-frontal-biblical-invasion on the marriage for the purpose of restoration for the glory of God.

The picture that her marriage ministry portrays is more important than her labors for the church (Ephesians 5:25). A little job in the church does not merit the high praise that marriage receives in the Bible. Martha needs to fess-up about her marriage and the church needs to step-up by helping her restore the distorted image of Christ, as displayed by her marriage.

Randy, the pragmatist - Pastor Randy needs a few good men and women and he doesn’t really care how he gets them or the costs that are involved in the getting. Pragmatism kills a church.

Somehow we have got it into our thinking that we are to provide every ministry for every whim of every person who walks in from the street. There is no biblical warrant for this.

If you try it, then you’ll have your people exhausting themselves over the multitudes, while not equipping the twelve. Jesus’ leadership model was not that backwards. He had greater trust in His Father than the programs of men.

It is as though if we don’t have the ministry in place, God cannot work. I say, “Shut the program or the ministry down before you stretch your people so thin that ministry duty kills ministry joy.

I have never met the repentant man or woman who could not get to God and be sustained by God regardless if they have all of the amenities of religion in their lives. Somehow and for some reason we have over-reached by allowing ministry programs to be the engine that drags the worn ministry worker down the tracks.

I’m gonna shout this real loud, so put your fingers in your hears: JUST SHUT THE MINISTRY DOWN.

Jesus worked without flannel graphs, iPads, big screens, and an army of ministry leaders. It is amazing how God could do so much with so little. Solid sovereigntists can become extremely man-centered when it comes to thinking about what ministry should be like.

Judie the joyless – Part of the problem with Judie is that her husband is not leading her. There is no excuse for her to be in this kind of spiritual or physical shape.

Similar to Sandra’s incalculable ministry above, Judie is going to do the exact opposite: her twisted view of ministry will sow incalculable and generational bitter seed into her children. They will feel the marginalization that the ministry has brought into their lives and will be tempted to reject God.

Pastor Bob’s exhausted church - I have spoken on this already. Duty has replaced joy. Rote laborers have replaced Spirit-inspired ministers. Those who are no longer condemned are made to feel guilty. The local church is incrementally crushing the family in the name of ministry.

Pastor Bob needs a new vision. Pastor Bob needs Gospel-centered workers rather than ministry-centered workers. I would recommend the following for starters:

  1. Cut back on ministry – you really do not have to be all things to all people. If you do not do this, then the tyranny of the urgent will run you into the ground.
  2. Increase your preaching of the Gospel – if a man (or woman) is riveted by the cross, he will be a faithful minister of the Gospel everywhere he goes.
  3. Re-teach what ministry is – re-envision your church about ministry, especially encouraging those who are doing the mundane work of ministry in their homes.
  4. Release the guilty – there are a number of folks in your church who are insecure and easily made to feel guilty. Equip and envision them regarding what it means to be free in Christ.
  5. Rebuild your infrastructure – begin identifying and isolating those ministry leaders with bad marriages and poor families. Help them for Christ’s sake.
  6. Identify your 12 – identify and isolate certain key leaders and begin working with them, starting with their personal walks with God, then their families, and lastly their ministries.[3]

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  1. [1] I realize you cannot and should not try to calculate any of our ministries. I’m trying to draw attention to the significance of mothers and their role in the Kingdom of God. ↩
  2. [2] I meant to spell wondering, not wandering, though both words would work for different reasons. ↩
  3. [3] You can do a lot of this work simultaneously rather than chronologically. ↩
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