Backward Ministry

It seems all too common for us to think; if we just had better facilities and more money we could make a significant impact for the Ministry. The dream of better facilities and more money is a very potent dynamic, alluring and deceptive. This momentum can take the primary focus, a focus that actually enslaves rather than bringing freedom. It creates a logistics rhythm that's difficult to escape. You’ve probably been around the temptation to gather up successful men from the business community to take care of the logistics of the local church. And, as well-meaning as it is, a business perspective doesn’t translate to the assembly of the repentant. I suppose it's because businesses are focused on an external response, while God focuses on an internal response.

A logistics rhythm goes something like this: First of all, facility rallies the energies of the people. It can take the form of building, leasing, improvements, or even maintenance. Motivation is usually delivered by a call to ‘good stewardship’. While the desire for something better is normal, the problem is presuming this ‘better’ will be more effective. Once this premise is accepted as true, the focus drifts onto developing finances to acquire the ‘better’. At this point building funds, donations, grants and investments all become the logical choice. Round and round the corporate mind swirls attempting to figure out how to bring about the dream. Reflecting on the possibilities and how to finance them becomes an obsessive cycle.

Eventually, facility and finances begin to mesh and the decision to develop a program manifests itself. The idea is now, how to put to use what has been acquired. The temptation is to cast-about for a current program that seems to be working. The knee-jerk reaction is to hop on the hottest bandwagon and install it locally. Once done, all the primary pieces are in place. The next step is to set out and recruit bodies to fill positions created by the program. People are inspired and trained for their specialized job and things begin to pick up steam. The Ministry machine begins to whirl, spit and chug. Things begin to happen, it’s encouraging and the makers of the machine stand back, saying,

“This is good”.

The machine manager is praised because he was brought in to do just what he had done in other places. Now, he has done it here. Praise God. The machine is working at peak efficiency.

But, in time it begins to wind down. Recruits get burnt-out and the machine manager has to go far and wide to find new ones. Hot new programs come out, making theirs look pale and obsolete. Money begins to dry up and the facility, now aging, needs more and more attention. The people reflect about the good old days when the machine was state-of-the-art. It’s all sad, because this mindset reflects the crude old idiom: “Bricks, bucks and bodies”. It’s the age-old Ministry focus on facility, finances and the attraction of the masses. It makes you tired just thinking about it. This is indeed a backward approach to Ministry.

In contrast, when looking at the Gospel, the primary focus is always on repentant disciples: those people who are giving themselves fully to the work of the Ministry. God spends a lot of time and energy looking for the responsive and helping them develop into an articulate and self-sacrificial people. Here is his treasure; a people who have abandoned to him and are willing to spend their lives bringing the message of the Gospel in the context of acts of kindness. They are a people who are absorbed in him, not spinning their wheels with logistics, year in and year out. They are a people who are keeping their eye on him, learning from him, becoming like him in this life. God tips the scales of effectiveness through them.

These people then join together in community, asking God to launch them into the world and to hold them up as they go. He begins to custom-design a program where their combined gifts will have the desired effect, in them and others. It’s a program where burn-out is unheard of, where they will not be concerned about results. He holds them up and they could go on forever, carrying out this assignment unless he makes a shift in direction. And, anytime these things seem to fade, they see this as a homing-beacon back to him. They run to him to find clarity and strength again, enabled to return to the task at hand.

As the team and the program develop, they now begin to consider logistics, asking him for the resources to carry out the plan. Often, they are willing to carry the price themselves, wanting to present the message of the Gospel for free. Through them, he sends resources. From around them he sends resources. They are aware of the ‘bare-bones budget’ needed and how best to manage it. Then, out of this sequence they clearly see what kind of facility (if any) is needed to carry out the plan. Once everything is in place, this rhythm can be carried on for decades and decades without any special attention because those in whom he began a good work will carry it out, not as hirelings, but as those who are giving their lives fully to the work of the Gospel, paying the price to pass it on for free.

In either rhythm, whether it be ‘facility-finances-program-staff’ or ‘staff-program-finances-facility’, the first two phases of either takes the lion’s share of the focus, leaving the final two with little time or energy. Obviously, if anything is to be short-changed it should be finances and facility, because God can provide those with a wave of his hand. But he will not presume upon our free-moral-agency: freedom of individual choice is a place where he won’t intervene. People must choose what they will do with their lives. It is in their hands whether they will respond to him or to their old nature. He encourages and empowers the one, and allows for the other.

There are many who will take the road which defines effective Ministry by facility, finances and the attraction of the masses. But it’s a rare thing to find a responsive and repentant people, a people who are willing to abandon their experience and perspective, replacing them with God’s.

These are the people in whom we must invest, helping find a place where they can spend themselves. We must neither shelve them while focusing on logistics, nor suffocate them with career academia. We must recognize and join them in the mire of the world’s troubles, knowing that the only answer is the Cross of Christ. And, as we work together, building upon acts of kindness, we can be confident that he will teach us what is necessary for the assignment before us. In this way, the Kingdom of Heaven moves forward gathering up his children, bringing him joy.