Each year I jot down a few thoughts to share at the start of the year with the ministry workers and team I serve alongside. Something to supply a touch of focus and direction; something I pray will be good for our hearts to reflect on briefly. This year, it’s based around three words. Ministry with 3 D’s. God-willing, they will be an encouragement to all the other ministry workers out there.
Three Words for Ministry Workers
1. Devotion
There will be much work to do this year. After all, the harvest is full, but the workers are few. But as we work, I want to encourage us to work with devotion.
We don’t just labour. We must work with devotion.
I mean that in two ways. Firstly, with devotion in terms of our affections. And secondly with devotion in terms of our focussed action. As those renewed in Christ by the Spirit, we have been given new devotions in both senses. What we love has been changed, along with the engaged shape of how we live. And because those have changed (and are maturing), it means that how we work, especially in full-time paid Christian ministry, will match that. We don’t just labour. We must work with devotion. What might this look like?
(a) With Devotion to the Lord
Paul’s admonition in Colossians 3:23-24 is to work as to the Lord. So, ministry workers, we don’t work first and foremost for a ministry leader. Nor do we work primarily for a church council, denomination or organisation. It isn’t our aim to achieve certain Key Performance Indices (KPIs). We certainly don’t work for our own name or kingdom, or the building of our identity.
We work as to the Lord. For him. He captures our gaze.
Rather, as those reshaped and set free in the Lord and for the work of the Lord, we work first and foremost for him. Our eyes are on him, fixed “like a servant’s eyes on his master’s hand, like a servant girl’s eyes on her mistress’s hand, so our eyes are on the LORD our God” (Psalm 123:2).
Other people may madly flap their hands about, this way or other. And at times we must take heed to what they are saying. But above all else, as we seek to work as to the Lord, they and that all fades comparatively into the background. We work as to the Lord. For him. He captures our gaze and our hearts. Him. This Triune God as our Father, and as the Son, and as the Holy Spirit. And this devotion shapes our joyful obedience and actions.
(b) With devotion for the Sake of Others
That is to say, we work, for other people. For their good, their salvation, their maturity, their healing, and their hope. Not that of course, from our own power and workings can we change anything in and of these people. No, we rely on the Lord for deep and lasting change. Yet we know he uses us in his sovereignly good workings for others.
God is relational. Those in his image are relational. So, for those renewed in Christ, we have been renewed to a relational living and service. We are those who not only love and want to grow in our love of God, but also actually of other people. We work devotionally for the sake of others.
Working devotionally this year for the sake of others will guard us against using and misusing people. Those whom we’re privileged to serve this year, both far and near to God, are not chiefly numbers or feathers in our caps. They are not superfluous to the work of ministry or speed bumps in the way of cruising off in another direction or mission. No, we have been reborn to love these people, and that shapes the focus of our service of and to them.
We have been reborn to love these people, and that shapes the focus of our service.
We would do well (Lord, help us) to see these people as God does – in their sin, and in redemption. To have the sheer weight of God and his reality shape how we view those created in the image of God, and those renewed in the image of Christ. And as we reflect and meditate on the promises of God, especially the return of King Jesus, we must prayerfully allow those to shape our affections and understanding of the people around us.
2. Dependence
Next, I want to encourage those in ministry to work, not just with devotion, but with dependence. With deep dependence on the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are created. So, any independence we have is limited. In fact, we’re wholly dependent. Our world rails against this. And, in our worst moments, so do we. We are trained to be independent. Even as Christians we can think that the life to have is one where all our needs are met, or our frailties are limited, or where we can do what needs doing. But sheer independence is death. It’s lipstick or dancing shoes on a body hanging from a noose; a pot shouting at the potter, “I can be all I can be, by myself.”
The follower of Jesus is one who grows in dependence, not independence.
The follower of Jesus is one who grows in dependence, not independence. And in that growing we grow in life, and in health, and in our redeemed creatureliness. That growth might result in us doing more (it probably will), but that will always be responsive action. One deeply shaped by our awareness that we live and move and have our being in him. And that that is right!
The same is true, not only for Christian life, but also for ministry workers. This year we must think of ourselves as dependent. Because we are. But we must also grow in being more and more comfortable with that reality.
Psalm 127 and Practicing Dependence
Psalm 127 has such a rich picture of dependence, so deeply beneficial to how we consider ministry:
Unless the Lord builds a house,
its builders labor over it in vain;
unless the Lord watches over a city,
the watchman stays alert in vain.
In vain you get up early and stay up late,
working hard to have enough food—
yes, he gives sleep to the one he loves.
Those are words to meditate on often. They’re words to shape both our prayers and our sleep. In fact, they provide two very practical ways to practise dependence this year in the work of Christian ministry.
One, pray to this Lord who builds a house, and watches over a city, and brings life from death and maturity from immaturity. I don’t care how hard you labour—or how gifted you are—it counts for nothing unless we realise our sheer dependence on the Lord. He must work. He must save. God must show grace. And so we pray.
The work we do matters, but it is not essential in the way God’s work is.
Two, sleep under this Lord who grants sleep to those he loves. Only a slave slumbers fitfully. Children, healthy ones, sleep deeply. And that is what we are: children of the Father. The work we do matters, but it is not essential in the way God’s work is. And a release from ultimate responsibility, or from a work that seeks to build our own worth or value, frees us in turn to sleep. To rest. To melt into the arms of he who neither sleeps nor slumbers.
3. Discipline
Ministry workers are gifted a great privilege. We are freed up from a ‘normal job’ to carry out focussed word and relational ministry. How should we carry out this work? One of many ways to be involved in this work, is with discipline.
We’re freed up from a ‘normal job’ to carry out focussed word and relational ministry.
Consider these words to Timothy from Paul in 2 Timothy 2:3-7, “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in the concerns of civilian life; he seeks to please the commanding officer. Also, if anyone competes as an athlete, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer ought to be the first to get a share of the crops. Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.”
Soldiers, athletes, and farmers. While there are other common threads, discipline certainly ties them together. Without discipline, soldiers easily end up dead or court marshalled; athletes do not finish races; and farmers don’t see crops come to fruition.
Some people want to ‘go into ministry’ and do so with low expectations of the requirements and the outputs and the lifestyle and the difficulties. Frankly, if you are looking for a cushy job or an easy lifestyle, then full-time paid Christian ministry isn’t for you. We’re standing guard and fighting in a deeply serious war, we are running a mighty race, and we’re sowing and ploughing and harvesting in soils of all kinds. Of course, it’s all by God’s grace and under the banner of a Jesus who has conquered. Yet while we wait for the return of Christ, discipline will be required of his people and ministry workers. How could it not? Sober in mind, sober in body, sober in all things—even as our joy overflows.
Discipline and a Healthy Work Ethic
One of the dangers of those who go into full-time paid Christian ministry without working in the secular world is to perhaps miss the basics of a healthy work ethic. The need to clock in and clock out. And in between those, to put the persevering work in, whether you’re ‘in the mood’ or not. Of course, there are examples of both laziness and overworking in the world, but in many cases our brothers and sisters working secular jobs are working diligently with a disciplined work ethic. How much more so for those of us who have been set aside for relational and word ministry, who joyfully get to labour with open bibles and open lives alongside people? And how much more when we are supported by the generosity of other saints to do this work?
To not work with discipline is to slander the stewardship of sisters and brothers in Christ.
To not work with discipline is to slander not only the grace of God, but also the stewardship of sisters and brothers in Christ. These partners in the ministry are giving sacrificially and joyfully so that we can be set aside for the work in front of us. How could we not honour that, and ultimately the Lord who is supplying our needs. That’s not a thing of guilt, but of godly drive before a very gracious Lord, and a very full harvest, and a very certain return.
Devotion, Dependence, Discipline
Dear fellow ministry workers, I pray that reflecting on these words will encourage us for the mission and ministry ahead. For the good of ourselves, and the people around us, and above all, to the honour of his name.
