As a minister I’m fed up of ministry. I’m fed up of hearing about people’s ministries. I’m fed up with ministry prayer/fundraising letters. I’m fed up of thinking about my own ministry. What’s the problem? Of course in one sense it’s wonderful to have a ministry. Wonderful to have an identity as a great preacher, praise leader, missionary, Sunday school teacher, youth worker, or even an ‘apostolic ministry leading the people of God into an awesome powerful new kingdom experience’. But there is something deeply worrying about this. And I believe that the Church in the West, needs to beware of the dangers of ministry being made a god. On reflection I think this is a world wide problem – given the number of messages I receive from African, Asian and American brothers and sisters who want to tell me about their wonderful ministries and how I need to support them in order to advance the kingdom of Christ. We need to watch out for the idolatry of ministry.
Did Paul have a ‘Ministry’?
It is true that the apostle Paul made much of his ministry as the apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13) and that God has called people within his church into specific ministries. But I wonder whether we reflect the biblical pattern, or whether we have adopted a more individualistic, market driven, self focused approach that runs counter to the New Testament? Can you imagine that the NT Church would have OAP (Original Apostle Paul) Ministries – bringing revival, riots and resurrections to a church near you?! Or (FAP) First Apostle Peter Ministries – the Rock that never Rolls!? Or TYM – Timothy Youth Ministries – reaching tomorrows church today! ? How about CWC (Cool with Calvin) Ministries – bringing predestined glory to the church in your town! LOLL Ministries – Laugh out Loud with Luther – sing a hymn, bash the pope and reform Your Church? Or JKJC (John Knox Jesus Christ) ministries – bringing the joy of Presbyterianism to Puritans today? The whole concept would be ridiculous in NT and reformation times, so why is it deemed acceptable today? Why are there powerful personalities who in effect run their own large and wealthy organisations and yet advertise them as essential to the church? Are they?
The Identity Trap The day that there is a sign hanging outside my office saying ‘David Robertson ministries’ is the day I need to be quietly removed from polite society. But of course it’s not just the mega organisations (or even the minor ones) named after their founders or particularly gifted stars, who can find ministry a snare to their own souls. There is a danger that the idol of ministry can also entrap us lesser mortals. The trouble is that our ministry becomes our identity. And because we love ourselves; we work hard at it, deluding ourselves that we are really serving the Lord, feeling virtuous about our hard work, tiredness and our own importance to the cause. Because we make a god of ministry we find that competiveness, jealousy and selfish ambition are often endemic amongst Christian leaders. This leads to hypocrisy, pride, and all the other fruit of the flesh. And burn out and ministry failure.
Loving to be First – This is not a new problem. It was ever thus. It has been part of the NT church, ever since James and John asked to be seated at the right hand of Christ. As Paul reminded the Philippians there are even some who preach Christ out of selfish ambition. Paul’s fellow worker, Demas, having loved this world, turned away from him. And the apostle John found that even being a real apostle did not prevent another man with his own ‘ministry’ rejecting him. 3 John 9 I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us.
Mortification – So how can we deal with this particular temptation? I would suggest firstly that we need to use an old puritan concept – ‘mortification’. We need to mortify/put to death anything that comes between us and Christ. We have to give up the whole concept of ‘my’ ministry. It’s not mine. It’s Christ’s. When I first became a Christian in my youthful zeal I decided to give up that which was closest to my heart – my record collection. I sold them all (apart from the rubbish ones that no-one wanted). Losing the Beatles White album on white vinyl and being left with Paul McCartney’s Red Rose Speedway traumatised me! I smile at my youthful zeal now, but I wonder if I can give up idols that run far deeper in my older and more cynical heart. If we make an idol of ministry, the Lord will either leave us to our own devices and burn out ourselves, or he will challenge and would in order to heal and restore. But note that what he wants to restore is not your ministry, but you. God does not need your ministry. He wants you.
Whose Ministry is it anyway? – Secondly this means that in order to follow Christ sometimes we have to do things that upset those who are our followers. We shouldn’t want followers anyway, but anyone who has an effective ministry will find that they do and it’s not necessarily unbiblical. “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ,” says Paul (1 Corinthians 11:1). However the emphasis is on us following Christ. I remember as a young student in the Free Church College being approached by a minister’s wife and told that if I continued to do something I was involved in, my ‘ministry would be finished in the Free Church’. I wonder how many of us are tempted to do things (go places, meet people) because it will advance our ministry (financially, reputationally, socially) rather than because it advances the ministry of Christ? On the other hand how many of us are tempted to back off saying things or doing things because we know that to do so will harm our ministry, and as a result we again put the ministry of Christ into the background. His ministry must serve ours!
Bring back the Church! – Thirdly we need to recover the original context of ministry that Christ ordained – the Church. Whilst I accept that there is a role for what are termed interdenominational ministries, I think these should be very limited. We need to recover a biblical ecclesiology and a renewed vision of the church – local, national, international. The church in my wee corner and the church as the bride of Christ, glorious and beautiful through all ages and to all eternity. There is a tendency for some ‘ministries’ to diss the Church and encourage Christians who are weary of their own local church context, to give support to their super dynamic apostolic, ‘revival is just around the corner’ ministry. I question whether in NT terms there really is any ministry outside the Church?
Real Fruit from Real Ministry – Finally we need to ask what ministry is about – and what the results of a real Christ centred kingdom ministry is. I love what Paul tells the Corinthians the fruits of his ministry were. Not an ever-expanding budget, great reports, fantastic reputation, new building, but simply – them. 2 Cor 3:3 – 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. I don’t want PhDs, power, publicity, plaudits or pounds for myself…I want people for Christ. God curse our damnable pride and self-centeredness, and have mercy on us ministers, the chief of sinners.
Ministry is about bringing Christ to people. Proclaiming the message of reconciliation and seeing it happen. We are messengers and it’s not our message. We can’t improve upon it or rewrite it. Any attempt to do so – whether by addition or subtraction, will only take away from its beauty. 2 Corinthians 5:18 – 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation
The Death and Life of Ministry – Only when we so love the message of God that we forget about our own messages, will we see the Word of God bringing new life. Only when we are prepared to die to ‘our’ ministries and let them die, then, and only then, will we experience the new life and resurrection of the ministry of God. Let us be prepared to give up our ministry that we may be part of His.
An edited version of this article appeared in Christian Today – you can read it here –
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.idol.of.ministry.and.how.to.avoid.burning.out/66299.htm
Yes, funnily enough I’ve been pondering not different things myself influenced by the meditation circle I mix with.
I like the “tablets of human hearts” you quote from Paul and I know all to well the consequences with burnout partly because of my own choices, partly because of being brought up in the 70’s with undiagnosed dyslexia and being treated as lacking in effort – a social programming which can be hard to shake off along with the business and celebrity like influences.
So, learning that the best leaders are ones who don’t need to lead, the best preachers are ones that don’t need to speak, and whatever achievements I have made, that they are nothing in comparison to the riches to be had in Christ.
I would also like to mention that Paul took pride in his ministry. I think it important to acknowledge a good job done whilst, as you say, not having one’s identity tied up in one’s work / ministry.
Thanks for giving a much needed word of truth David. Many of these so-called ‘apostolic ministries’ are today operating as ‘Trojan horses’ infiltrating Scotland’s evangelical churches with their own extremist and often unbiblical agenda. A little research shows how many these ‘ministry leaders’ use the media frequently to promote themselves…..photos with other apostolic and prophetic leaders; endorsements, and high profile ministry commissions to enhance their image. According to these people, the Holy Spirit only ‘turns up’ at their events!! How wrong and how sad.
Throughout its history, the church has embraced many Trojan horses. The evil one has and is effectively using people, ideas and practices disguised as gifts, wrapped and presented attractively with media slickness to lure people away from the truth of God into destructive error.
To discerning bible believing Scottish Christians this should come as no surprise. After all we live in the last days. Writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul warned the church about such things: “In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power”.
Scottish evangelicals are being bombarded as never before with a huge variety of weird, extreme doctrines and practice which have more in common with shamanism, eastern religions and bogus ‘psycho-babble’ than the Bible.
Time for Bible believing Christians to stand up for the truth as revealed in the scriptures. The real challenge is for more of Scotland’s Bible believing church leaders to stand up for the truth and challenge the ‘Trojan horse’ activity whenever it appears in their locality.
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Brother David,
Don’t you say some of these excesses are the result of power struggle [clashing egos] in the church? Refusing to submit to Christ and to each other; taking the church as an organization only and not as the Body of the Living Christ? Hence, prayer or waiting on the Lord is wasting time; times have changed and image is all there is to ‘success’. And ‘success’? Well, success is numbers, more polished activities, and so on. So where is the Holy Spirit in all this? It appears parts of the Body are running amok? or even worse, demanding others to join them on their terms?
You raise a question that is plaguing the church worldwide. More prayer and biblical teaching is still the answer.
As I mentioned on facebook I said to someone earlier this week:
“Every time I see a photo of you I don’t want to be thinking: “there’s that person who did xyz”. I don’t want to define a person by one defining characteristic, even if that seems, in a way, quite a defining moment of their life. Because your defining characteristic is that you’ve been saved by Christ.”
To me that’s true of ourselves as well – but hard to keep to in a world that doesn’t see us that way.
Wow very good. Convicting. A good heart check that ministry is not one’s idol.
A timely reminder not to make ‘ministries’ a god and to remember whose ‘ministry’ it really is. Just a bit worried that you could ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ and forget that there are some very effective and God-honouring ‘ministries’ that compliment the work of the local Church, particularly in specialist areas. I hesitate to name names but prison ministry, UCCF, evangelism to the Armed Forces (SASRA) and evangelistic broadcasting (such as SAT7) spring to mind. These specialist ministries are not easily replicated by local Churches but work to present the Gospel in a particular setting whilst complimenting and feeding into a network of local churches who nurture and support new believers. I agree with the sentiments expressed in ‘bring back the Church’ but sometimes there is good reason to be weary of local churches bogged down as they are by local church politics, division, lack of resource and petty issues of doctrine and practice that limit effectiveness. Surely we just have to be discerning in all this, after all even Solas seems to be a worthwhile ministry in the right context.
John – agreed….thats why I stated that in the article…