Timeless Truths for 21st Century Ministers – Part II
This article is the second of a three-part series on essential truths for 21st Century ministers. You can read the first installment here.
World events, church issues and the ministry itself tempt the minister to focus first on the ever urgent and always must-be-done now list. For others, attention and energy are spent one breath at a time in payment to the numbing grind of the mundane.
Like a pair of scissors, the urgent and the mundane can effectively cut us off from sharing Paul’s experience and testimony at the end of his life (II Timothy 4.7):
- We risk not fighting the good fight as leaders of God’s people today;
- We put in jeopardy our very ability to finish our God-given course of ministry over our lifetime;
- And, most terrible of all, we roll the dice on the most important issue of all: keeping the faith itself.
All of these failures have sadly proven to be all too true for all too many vocational ministers – leaders of God’s people – in recent years.
How important it is then that we come back to the timeless truths that have always kept ministers strong in the Lord. How vital it is that we live by the principles that servants of God have proven true over and over again for thousands of years, life-giving principles that they have left written record of for us in their writings and in the Bible itself – the way of wisdom.
These are minister and ministry sustaining lessons I’ve learned over three plus decades. I learned them from my mentors who learned them from their mentors. And yes, I learned them the hard way when I chose to ignore them or, to be fair, was ignorant of them. Ignore them at your peril. Act on them and to not only survive, but thrive in ministry.
8. Build a small circle of peer-mentors
Most of us would be tempted to think that cultivating special friends is something done over and above our work. I have come to believe that the developing of special friends is part of our work.
Gordon MacDonald, Restoring Your Spiritual Passion
After Jesus ascended to heaven, the Apostles had only each other. But they had each other. Even though he was the leader of the pack, the Apostle Peter was still a member of that very small circle of peer-mentors we know as The Twelve: each one bound to the others in shared mentorship.
Forty years into pastoring people and probably thirty years into pastoring other pastors, I am convinced that peer-mentorship is one of the Big Three Keys to surviving and thriving in ministry, the other two being a disciplined and vibrant spiritual life, and walking with a pastoral coach.
I am equally convinced that the absence of peer-mentors is one of the greatest causes of ministers leaving the ministry completely or remaining in ministry but shutting down, shifting into cruise and simply going through the motions.
Jesus paired his disciples in teams of two when he sent them out in ministry. The reasons are obvious:
First, encouragement. Contrary to the greatly romanticized view from the outside, ministry can be a very lonely life. When Jesus sent his disciples out two-by-two, He knew that mutual encouragement would break the chains of loneliness and doubt, discouragement and surrender. Two really are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4.8-9).
Second, accountability. How many times have we cringed at the words or actions of Christian leaders, words and actions disconnected from Christ and His Word? Just this morning in a coaching call, a JPC member recounted just such an occasion in a public worship service. He now wonders at the clean up left to him by his “special speaker.” Such instances are sure signs of a leader living without accountability, someone to say, “Stop, this is not what Jesus taught us to say and do.”
James Emery White, in his book, Serious Times, writes:
“One of the more unsettling revelations to most Christ followers, particularly in light of our fierce individualism, is how many of the marks of a Christian involve other people . . . Following Him is tied to the “one anothers.”
God did not build you to walk alone. He built you to walk in strength with a small circle of peer-mentors.
9. Listen to your mate in ministry matters
One of the most powerful credentials of a ministry is your marriage.
José Luis Navajo, Mondays With My Old Pastor
This is not to say that you should turn your ministry over to your mate. Not at all.
But your mate is daily picking up signals, nuances and reads – heavenly and earthly – that you are missing. His or her “sixth sense” may just be the wisdom of the Lord to you in the situation you are facing, providing insight and protecting you from those “I wish I’d thought of that “ epiphanies.
Throughout our life in ministry together – and that really is the key, “together” – I’ve continually asked her to share her observations and thoughts with me about individuals, relationships, or ministry matters. When she does have something she feels she needs to share, I open my ears, my mind and my heart to her, the first of my first line counselors. Time and time again, her wisdom has been to me what the Bible calls, “fine gold.”
I am so convinced of the wisdom of involving your mate in your ministry, I will make a confession: I have always asked my wife to bless my preaching ministry (long and short term planning, preparation and delivery) with her insights, counsel and reviews. Her help has been invaluable to me. I am a much better preacher of God’s Word because of my wife’s invisible help.
Listen to your mate in ministry matters.
10. Above all else, remain a child of God.
The qualifications of a pastor are the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child and the hide of a rhinoceros.
Stuart Briscoe
Over almost four decades of ministry I have known many ministers of the Gospel. While they are all heading for heaven, not all of them have remained children of God.
How do I know? Because there have been times when I wasn’t one either.
Oh, I was a believer, a Christian, and a follower of Christ, but my heart was not that of a child.
I had . . . arrived.
As a pastor, I was a professional Christian, the one to not only lead others in following Christ but to point to my own example as a follower of Christ.
My heart was not that of a child. I had “grown up.”
What I had really done was “grow out” of a childlike heart.
Jesus said that we must be as little children in coming to Him. Children in heart. Children in need of Him. Children dependent on Him and desiring Him. A child.
Yes, the Scriptures teach us to be mature in understanding and to put away childish things, but they also admonish us: I have calmed and quieted my soul. Like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me (Psalm 131.2).
As you lead others and see to the many responsibilities of your life and ministry, this do first and last and always: above all things and in all things, remain a child of God in your heart.
11. Don’t sell yourself
The kingdom of God is to begin with us, in the inner life, and rule there, and from the inner nature all outward actions are to flow in conformity with revealed and written teachings and commands of God . . . until the outward is like the inward; and thus advancing on from individuals to nations.
Melker, First Century Jewish Priest of the Synagogue at Bethlehem
At some point in ministry, someone is going to offer you a ring to rule all other rings. A ring of power.
The price tag on the ring will say something like, “Play politics,” “Close your eyes to what is happening,” “Don’t object,” or “Take the money and give them what they want.”
That’s what the price tag will say.
But the cost will be you: Your integrity; Your ministry; Your personhood; Your call; Your service to God.
Define early and well the borders of your life: where you can go and where you cannot go. And then, with bulldog tenacity, lock in and lock down those borders. Don’t go beyond them.
Don’t take the ring.
The temptation will be to take the ring “just this once,” just in this most unique of situations.
The temptation will be to break your rule and cross the line just in this case.
But you must not take the ring. You must not even touch the ring. You must not cross the line.
Or one day, ring of power firmly in hand, you will look back across the valley of decision and see yourself, the man or woman you used to be. And you will see yourself, your ring of power firmly in hand – and in a heart that has been bought and paid for by another Master. Sold.
You have been bought with a price, the precious blood of Jesus Christ. You are owned by Him.
Don’t sell yourself. At any price.
12. Understand that your ministry is not first what you do for God. It’s who you are in God.
A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what that minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more.
John Owen
God’s first work in and through you is to make you a disciple of Jesus. Out of all the things He could have created you for and called you to, He created and called you first to Himself.
And that means that He created and called you to ministry, first and foremost, as the place where He wants to disciple you.
Don’t read that last sentence too quickly; pause and seriously consider what it means to you today and to what you do for God today. Yes, ministry is where you work for God, but first, it is where God does work in you; it is the place where God has chosen to disciple you.
My wife, two daughters and I were privileged to serve as missionaries to Europe for twenty years. I remember traveling the US from church to church raising the monthly support needed to go to Europe for our first term. It was a wonderful time of anticipation and preparation. In prayer I told God of all the great things I wanted to do for Him in Europe. God spoke gently to me, “You’ve missed the point. Yes, I’m sending you to Europe to preach the Gospel and to make disciples, and that you will do, but that’s not the point. I am sending you there because Europe needs the Gospel and because sending you to Europe is what it will take for me to do in your life what needs to be done in your life.” Punch to the stomach: God was not sending me to Europe because Europe needed me, but because I needed Europe; God had to send me to a completely different continent to make me who He wanted me to be.
Thank God that He did. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything: the people, the ministry, the miracles.
But most of all, for what God did in me, reminding me that my identity defines what I do, but what I do does not define my identity. My identity is who I am in Christ, my Creator and Redeemer.
13. Being and doing. Learn the diversity. Live the unity.
In truth, doing does not determine being; rather, being determines doing. It is only after we have a firm understanding of who we are that we know what to do with life.
M. Craig Barnes, Yearning: Living Between How It Is and How It Ought to Be
When I begin coaching a young minister, one of the first questions I ask is, “what does God do? After some silence, the minister usually begins to recite a list of divine actions described in Scripture: God loves, God seeks sinners, God saves. etc. I ask again, “Yes, but why does He do these things; why does God love, seek, save, etc.?” The answer is clear: “Because that is who God IS.”
What does God do? God does who He is and who He is is what He does: God’s actions are the expression of His essence. In His perfection, He is, and from His being, He simply does. God’s being and God’s doing are one. Divine integrity. Wholeness. There is no shadow of turning in Him. Thank God.
If only we as ministers could be like the God of whom we speak. If only our doing came from our being and if only from our being we would do.
And yet, the ministry is filled with well-intentioned individuals who live outside of themselves, taking on roles and ministries for which God never created them and to which He never called them: what they do is foreign to their being.
But what if, like God, each of us would be the Jeremiah 1.5 creation of God, lived out in the Mark 3.13-14 call of God, doing what comes naturally to us because it is who God made us to be.
Not that we don’t need to grow, and not that a lot of developing won’t take place as we live out our creation and fulfill God’s call. An acoustic guitar will always be an acoustic guitar. But time in the hands of a master will actually draw out the fine materials and craftsmanship of the guitar, fully developing the colors of its tone. In the hands of the master, each individual instrument is fully developed and used according to its own unique nature.
Be who God made you to be. And from your being, do as you remain in the hands of the Master.
Being and doing. Learn the diversity. Live the unity.
14. Pastor like Jesus pastored: according to the numbers.
With a world of millions to reach, Jesus budgeted the majority of his time to be with just twelve simple men.
Gordon MacDonald
In understanding the pastoral ministry of Jesus, it is important to study it in its chronology.
Early in His ministry, Jesus focused his time and attention on crowds of people. But as time moved toward the climax of the Cross, Jesus personally focused less and less on crowds while focusing more and more on the Twelve, and even more on the inner circle of the Three.
Why did Jesus do this?
Jesus answers this question several times in the Gospels: He devoted his time and energy to a small circle of disciples – so that He might multiply His ministry of salvation to as many people as possible.
To be most effective in His mission, Jesus devoted His best time, attention, energy, discipleship, and friendship first to the Three and then the Twelve. Then after to the 70, and finally, the crowds.
With intent, Jesus focused his ministry not on the crowds, but on the few.
But even as he focused on the few, he never walked past the one – the individual in need. In all of this, even with the Cross in sight and the weight of the world on His shoulders, Jesus made time for the one who truly needed Him.
Why?
Because Jesus was not focused at all on numbers. And He was not only focused on the one. He was focused on the everyone: go, make disciples of all nations, beginning right here where you are . . .
NOTE: In two weeks, we’ll look at our third and final installment in the series, “Timeless Truths for 21st Century Ministers.”
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NOTE: Journey Pastoral Coaching exists to provide pastoral coaching to Millennial ministers.
Saddled with large student debt, just beginning to set up homes and start families, and serving in low paying first and second positions, Millennials are those who most desire but can least afford to pay for pastoral coaching.
We are able to do so thanks to the faithful and generous support of individuals and churches like yours who want to see young leaders not only enter the ministry, but remain in the ministry.
Now, more than ever, we need your help.
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“In the early years when I was becoming a pastor, I needed a pastor.”
Eugene H. Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir
