It's Not Your Ministry!
Last month I addressed the severe minister shortage. However, in this essay, I have an important and encouraging word to ministers.
Ministers, you do not need me to tell you that ministry is not easy or simple. At least from the days of Isaiah—"go preach until people’s eyes glaze and hell freezes over” (Isa. 6)—the work of ministry has always come with certain built-in difficulties. I know that you feel the complexity of our times and the ambiguity of much ministry work.
Of course, the challenge of ministry is not just limited to complexity and ambiguity. Ministerial work is immersed in the conflux of people’s expectations, people’s hurts and hopes, and that aching desire ministers possess to see folk turn toward God. Ministry also means taking on incredibly difficult realities of our broken world—isolation, depression, polarization in society, race, and an ever-increasing despair that grips our secular age.
Who is sufficient for such things?
The answer to that question leads toward what I want to say. Frankly, you and I are not sufficient for these things. The work of ministry is bigger than us and requires more than we have to give. Of course, it is not a problem for God. God is God and can accomplish all things. But here’s the rub: ministers (and I include myself here!) often falsely believe that it depends on our skills, our energy, and our sacrifice to bring about God’s agenda in the world. That belief is what is so often killing our spirit and our capacity to practice resilience. It is time to name this narrative of “doing ministry myself” for what it is: a lie!
When ministers begin to think that it is their preaching, their management skills, their wisdom, or their relational gifts that matter, then every encounter and every little event of the day inevitably becomes a win or a loss. And for many of us, we experience the great ambiguity of not really knowing whether that sermon or that visit was a win or a loss. This constant assessment of our performance only adds to the stress and emotional burden that ministers carry. And we are living with the lie that it somehow depends on us!
To probe the dilemma another way, I would cite the all-too-common language heard in the speech of too many ministers. Our speech carries an indicting pronoun. We speak of “my ministry,” “my church,” “my sermon,” or “my work.” Our speech betrays the operating assumption that lies beneath our theology: that it’s up to me to take up God’s work in the world.
So here is my word today. The ministry you offer is not your ministry. The church you serve is not your church. God has a church and a mission, and God wants us to partner with Him. God is the minister; we get to help out. The best expression that I have seen of this truth comes from Andrew Purves:
As the risen and ascended Lord, Jesus does not now sit in heaven with his arms folded waiting for us to do something religious that he can affirm (an image from Karl Barth). Jesus is not our cheerleader from the heavens hoping we will get faith and ministry right. Neither does Jesus want to get more involved in our ministries. Why would he? Our ministries are not redemptive. We don’t raise the dead, forgive the sinful, heal the sick or bring in the reign of God. Rather, Jesus has his own resurrected ministry to do—raising the dead, forgiving the sinful, healing the sick, bringing in God’s reign (note the present tense!)—and he wants us in on it.[1]
Not only is this claim true, but it also gives rise to a way of being a minister that fosters resilience and the space to live with peace in the complex and ambiguous places that ministers inhabit. So quit worrying about “your ministry”; pay more attention to God’s transforming ministry, and then join in. I expect that you will find joy in your partnership with God.
Blessings,
Carson
[1] Andrew Purves, The Resurrection of Ministry (Downers Grove: IVP Press, 2010), 44.
