Big M Ministry and little s service

The word ‘ministry’ just means ‘service’.1 It’s a fact I already knew, and perhaps one you know too; but earlier this year I came to see its implications.

I was walking along, praying about my Ministry. I was praying for the wisdom to know which Ministry to do, how much energy to put into certain Ministries, and when to stop one Ministry so I would have more energy for other Ministries. Suddenly, like a bolt to my brain from the rather grey sky (it was the fading end of a Melbourne winter), came the word ‘service’.

Ah. Service. It cuts out the middle-man, doesn’t it? Instead of Me, Ministry, and You, there’s just Me and You—and between us, love—a love which is more interested in your needs than in my grand plans for my Ministry.

When I think in terms of Ministry—with a capital M—here’s what happens.

  • I choose certain Ministries because they further my Gifts, my Visions, my Goals, my Passions, and my (although I don’t use this word, of course) Ambitions.
  • I choose my church because it fits my Ministry Plans.
  • I regard people as interruptions; after all, I’m reserving my energy for my Ministry and for any Ministry Opportunities I may receive.
  • I plan my Ministry with the precision of an American missile strike, constantly question whether I’m doing the right Ministry, and massage events so I’ll be offered the Ministry I deserve want think is best.
  • I worry about my Ministry: how many people are receiving it, whether it’s growing, what its future will be, and how I’ll cope if things fall apart.
  • I’m filled with enthusiasm for exciting new Ministries—enthusiasm that fades as they become more familiar, more tiring and less interesting.
  • I’m filled with exhaustion when it comes to old Ministries, and do them with dogged, grumbling perseverance (I’m good at dogged, grumbling perseverance) until I burn out and give up.

When I think in terms of service—with a small s—here’s what happens.

  • I’m set free from anxiety about my Gifts, my Visions, my Goals, my Passions, and whether I’ll ever get a chance to use, pursue, achieve or fulfil them.
  • I’m set free to look around my church and community, see what needs to be done, and do it, even when it doesn’t play to my strengths, no-one ever sees me doing it, and I don’t want to do it much anyway.
  • I’m set free to serve you in love, right now, according to your needs, even if I’m not gifted to do what you need.
  • I’m set free from worry about numbers, growth, popularity and success, for I remember that even if only two are gathered around God’s word, his Spirit is at work in us.
  • I’m set free to hold my plans for the future with an open hand, for it’s God’s plans which matter, not mine.
  • I’m set free from having to pursue all my interests and use all my abilities (for God is incredibly profligate with his gifts), and can just get on with furthering God’s kingdom.
  • I’m set free to rest, for it’s God’s kingdom that’s being built, not mine, and he hasn’t advertised recently for another King or Saviour.
  • I’m set free to follow the example of Jesus and pour myself out in loving service during times of hardship, discouragement, and fruitlessness, faithfully serving God in whatever situation he’s placed me in.

Perhaps it’s time I took a scalpel, cut the word ‘Ministry’ out of my vocabulary, and, instead, talked and thought in terms of the word ‘service’. Perhaps then I’d stop worrying about my Ministry (along with my Vision, Gifts, Goals, Passions and Plans) and just get on with serving God’s people, and making Jesus known, whenever and however I can.

1I’m talking about the Greek work diakonia, which is usually translated ‘ministry’ or ‘service’, and which turns up in places like 1 Corinthians 12:5 and Ephesians 4:12.

7 thoughts on “Big M Ministry and little s service

  1. Jean,

    I think you unhelpfully set up some of those options to be exclusively either/or prosepects.

    So for example, I am moving to the city in 2012 (God willing) to study at Bible College, is it therefore wrong for me to consider how that I might both serve others but also how God might shape me through the church I attend (therefore choosing a church based on my supposedly bad Ministry Plans)?

    Is it wrong for me to consider how I might use the gifts God has deliberately given me, through his grace and for the service of his people, and at same time, serve in any area when opportunity arises? Because I teach both myself and others to do exactly that because I think that is what the Bible teaches.

    I worry about my Ministry: how many people are receiving it, whether it’s growing, what its future will be, and how I’ll cope if things fall apart.

    Is it wrong for me to consider how I might make best use of my opportunties to serve, how to ensure a good opportunity doesn’t become dependent on a personality or if any one is actually benefitted from my opportunties? Because the history of every local church is littered with examples of people blindly pouring their energies into exercises of insular, exclusive holy-huddles, covered with the excuse of ‘faithfulness’.

    In the interest of being fair, I don’t want to portray me as being the right one exclusively and you totally wrong (as that would make me a hypocrite). Unfortunately, in the evangelical scene, articles like this come about regularly, decrying the same things – being ‘focused on numbers’, like that having actual people be actually impacted by the work of the gospel in meaningful numbers is a bad thing; that actually considering the actual gifts God has given his people is a terrible exercise in navel gazing, because having churches filled with people who actually feel like God has given them specific opportunities to excel at under his grace is going to be a bad thing.

    I know a polemic is designed to provoke discussion and the like but seriously, can we have a polemic that isn’t a rehash of the same old, lame excuses for ‘faithful ministry’ that achieves nothing because we’re never brave enough to ask tough questions about the work we pour ourselves into.

  2. Hi Lee!

    Thanks for writing, as you are adding all the qualifications I considered adding but didn’t, given this was a short and deliberately one-sided piece exploring some of the implications of the fact that ministry is about serving others, and the problems when I become too focussed on my gifts and personal sense of fulfilment in ministry.

    Yes, I agree it’s important to make wise plans, and to take into account our gifts and even our passions. Also that God’s blessing in numbers can be a good thing (although not an accurate sign that one ministry is more faithful than another by any means).

    However, I’m sure you also agree that these can become unhelpful distractions when we’re so focussed on numbers, success or plans that we forget about serving others in ways that doesn’t fit our personal vision. That’s the point I was making – in an admittedly unqualified way!

    In Christ,

    Jean.

  3. Thanks, Jean, this is excellent. My friends and I will benefit much from thinking through the careful distinctions you’ve made.

  4. <blockquote>Unfortunately, in the evangelical scene, articles like this come about regularly, decrying the same things – being ‘focused on numbers’, like that having actual people be actually impacted by the work of the gospel in meaningful numbers is a bad thing; that actually considering the actual gifts God has given his people is a terrible exercise in navel gazing, because having churches filled with people who actually feel like God has given them specific opportunities to excel at under his grace is going to be a bad thing.<blockquote>

    Lee, I don’t think that Jean is decrying any of those things. What she is concerned about (as I read it) is the tendency of many of us to have a messianic complex about Our Ministry.

  5. Hi all,

    Simone, I think there was a ‘decrying’. Some of those things one the bad Big M list are actually good things that, yes, may be unhelpfully overemphasised within some churches.

    In my church, some of that Big M ministry thinking would actually be helpful because too few people consider that God has given them gifts that he expects to be used in his service. Some godly ambition would be helpful too because mosst churches are stagnating under the weight of how we’ve done church for the past 100 years and it’d be nice to think we can rise above where we are by the power of God and of His word.

    I too share the concerns of Jean of people having a self-serving framework for thinking about ministry and not embracing servanthood like they should. However, unfortunately, I think within the evangelical scene I have experienced (the local evangelical churches in WA, publications like the Sola Panel and the Briefing), we swing too hard in the opposite way, ignoring the vital role that strategic thinking.

    As Jean points out in her comment, yes we don’t want to theoretically deny wise thinking with our gifts and passions, but at the end of the day, if we never talk positively about that wise, considered thinking about gifts and ministry, then aren’t we actually in practice denying them?

  6. Lee, perhaps your West Coast experience has been a bit different.  I’ve certainly seen people who are precious about their Gifts/Ministry.  They aren’t pew-warmers, but they won’t do the washing-up because that’s Not Their Gift.  They know they ought to serve: they just limit how they serve to what they feel comfortable with, and to what serves their self-esteem. Pew-warmers, IME, have not *realised* that they are meant to serve the church.
    And when you are running your church, I would like it if you have an ambition to further *that church’s* ministry, by looking at the gifts of the congregation and its gospel opportunities and seeing where there’s a fit.  I don’t know that this kind of strategic thinking is terribly common!

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