Urgent About the Right Things
I am an urgent person, though sometimes I am urgent about the wrong things. For example, I have often found myself in a huff when we leave for vacation. I set a time to leave, but when little things set us behind, eventually I snap at one of my kids or my wife. Everyone can feel the tension in the vehicle as we pull out of the driveway. And everyone knows I’m irritated. What a way to start vacation!
Being urgent about the wrong things has also created some difficult moments in the small churches where I have ministered during the past 16 years. Here are some of the unhealthy urgencies I have experienced:
To reclaim something that was lost, like a ministry, numbers, a budget, or influence. Every small church that I have worked for remembers a time when things were better.
To hire the right minister. Whether it is replacing somebody who left or replacing somebody who you think is not doing a good job, there is often an unhealthy urgency to get a minister in place.
To become like that church or implement that ministry strategy. There is always some new ministry fad from a popular church leader that sounds really good, or there is a church across town who seems to be making things happen that entices our attention.
To correct everything that is wrong. There is brokenness in every church, and small churches especially can’t hide it behind numbers and budgets. Ministers or elders get hired or installed and try to fix everything, which creates tension and feelings of inadequacy in the church and staff.
Perhaps you can identify with some of these things. As I began a new ministry in 2018, I decided to make a list of the things that are truly urgent.
First, we must feel an urgency to love God (Matt. 22:37-38). To love God, we must make time for him! In small church ministry, I easily get caught up in ministry because there is always something to do that I find myself spending less and less time with the Father. I have often lacked the discipline to hand everything to God and step into his presence. Instead, I hold onto things, mulling over recent events even while I am supposed to be in Scripture and in prayer. What can each of us do daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to simply be with God and know him? That’s a question worth answering.
Second, we must love people (Matt. 22:39). We all must make an effort to see people as God sees them. They are his creation, and he paid for every human and desires that they know him. Through the years I have experienced frustrating coworkers, elders, and other ministry leaders as well as needy members and people from the community. There have been people whom I very nearly hated, though I would have never admitted it to you at the time. We must make an effort to love people even when we are hurt, disappointed, and even disgusted with them. This requires that we be disciplined avoid having nonconstructive thoughts or conversations with or about people. And we must make an effort to see things from their perspective, which requires conversation and relationship.
Third, we must equip and build up the church (Eph. 4:11-12). Often we get so focused on what we can’t do because of lack of resources or a traditional mindset that we pay no attention to what we can do! I have seen many small churches who have a low opinion of themselves, but when all they hear from their leaders is what’s wrong with the church or who they should be more like, their morale is broken and their fears are confirmed. We must be people who build up instead of tear down!
Finally we must be people who urgently care for the powerless in society (Matt. 25:31-46). If you don’t have a place like a prison, jail, or nursing home where you can go and serve, I strongly suggest you find that place. In my years of ministry I have often found myself “too busy” for these things. However, as we serve the powerless we join the heart of God, and I believe we gain some much needed perspective.
We can sum up all of these ideas in Jesus’s final words to his disciples in Matt. 28:19, “go and make disciples.” If our focus is making disciples, we will be urgent about loving God, loving people, equipping the church, and caring for the powerless, which we can do in every context. However, if our urgency is elsewhere, we will create unnecessary tension that ultimately pulls us – and possibly others – away from the will of God.
