God calls on all Christians to serve (Romans 12:11). As we serve, whether through leading worship, teaching children at Sunday School, or preaching from the pulpit, we can easily forget the purpose of why we serve. We can forget that service is itself an act of worship (Romans 12:1). And I’m sure most of us can all agree with C. H. Spurgeon when he remarked, “Our praises, ah, how faint and feeble they are! Our prayers, how wandering, how wavering they are!” For worship is always imperfect. Flawed. Incomplete. As Spurgeon went on to say, “The best worship that we ever render to God is far from perfect.” The same, therefore, will be true of our service and ministry: it won’t be perfect.
Service is itself an act of worship.
Far from being bad news or having too low a view of ourselves, aligning service with worship is liberating. It’s good news. For it sets us free from unrealistic expectations and the burden of ambition. By framing service as worship, we can guard ourselves against crushing disappointment and even burnout. Furthermore, by insisting that service is worship, we’re reminded to go about it with joy (Psalm 100:2).
Make Christ Your Identity, Not Your Ministry
In most corners of our world, we’re taught that we must earn everything; that nothing is achieved without effort. As it’s been pointed out so many times, salvation by grace alone flies in the face of that idea. For all we do to be saved, we believe (Ephesians 2:8-9). We don’t earn it. It’s not by effort. Nor is it deserved. The problem is that Christians don’t always go about serving in light of God’s amazing grace. Subconsciously, it’s like we decide that our service must be perfect if God is to accept it or love us.
The success of our ministry becomes how we define ourselves.
Put another way, we can start to build our identity around our ministry and how well we serve. We forget grace. Though it’s where we started, it isn’t where or how we want to finish. Suddenly, the success of our ministry becomes how we define ourselves. But you and I know, if we define ourselves by anything other than the Lord Jesus, we’ll remain unsatisfied and ultimately disappointed. As Paul David Tripp says, “I had let my ministry become something that it should never be (my identity), and I looked to it to give me what it could never give (inner sense of well-being).”
Just as the quality of our worship should never become our identity, neither should our ministry. It was never meant to make you whole. Its purpose was for you to lead others to the only person who can make people whole. Jesus Christ. He is where we find our identity. And those who’re in him don’t need to be perfect. For we’re made perfect in him. We don’t need to earn it; we receive it by faith. And it is by this same faith that we ought to go about our service or ministry.
Build God’s Kingdom, Not Your Own
Another contemporary gospel, preached today in most parts of the world, is that we must pursue our own glory. That is, we mustn’t live by someone else’s rules. Nor for their glory, but only for ourselves. In Christian spaces, we see this in men and women building their own little kingdoms, instead of God’s.
Unsurprisingly, the Bible teaches the opposite. So Paul, for example, didn’t care about his own reputation but only spreading the gospel and seeing God’s kingdom grow (1 Corinthians 3:7). As Nikolaus von Zinzendorf famously put it, “Preach the gospel, die and be forgotten.” This should be our own motto, in ministry and service; throughout the Christian life. We don’t serve to be remembered. It isn’t about our legacies or fame. We are vessels or tools for the building of his kingdom; we are not our own.
The only reason you have a ministry is because of God’s grace. Don’t forget that.
When it’s our ambition to be recognised or remembered, our inevitably imperfect ministry will ruin our faith. The only reason you have a ministry is because of God’s grace, not your works (2 Timothy 1:9). Don’t forget that. When we do, the only things ahead of us will be burnout, idolatry or defeat. All of these are the result of forgetting where our true strength comes from—and who the ministry ultimately belongs to—Jesus. When we forget that, we begin to worry about our own reputation. We ask, “Did I preach a sermon in a way that people liked?” “Did I choose songs for worship that people liked?” “Did all the children like the way I taught this morning?” Ministry loses its meaning when those are the questions we’re asking. For it stops being an act of worship, but becomes a means of building yourself up.
The desire to serve in ways that are well-received can be healthy. But when that desire means doing ministry in order to please others, you’ve departed from true service; you’ve lost sight of what ministry is. We can make a golden calf out of anything, even our ministry. Make sure your ministry is never about anyone else other than Jesus. Make him known. Don’t pursue recognition or praise. That belongs to him.
(Im)perfect Ministry That Glorifies God
My hope and prayer is that through this article, you may see that Jesus is our identity, not your ministry; and that we may guard our hearts by keeping ministry as an act of worship, which is always imperfect. Through our ministry and worship, we must worship God, making much of him rather than ourselves. Just as we dedicate ourselves to serving him in all of life, so too must we do so in our service. What a privilege it is to be part of his kingdom. What a tragic mistake to build something else around ourselves.
