WATCH DRURY WRITE A BOOK. – THIS IS A TEMPORARY POST Writer’s first draft of a book to be
published by The Wesleyan
Publishing House. as an introduction
to the ministry. This web-posted copy is
an early draft of the manuscript and not intended to be used as a final
document. While the editors will catch minor errors if you see something significantly
wrong or missing drop Keith Drury a note at kdrury@indwes.edu
©
2003 Keith Drury
1
What is “the Ministry?”
When people speak of being
“called into the ministry” what do they mean?
What actually does a minister do all day? We see them up front on Sundays, but what do
they do through the week? Is it
interesting work? What do they like
most? Least? How might I fit into this
work?
This
book is about the ministry—not so much the general ministry that every
Christian should be doing, but “the ministry” as a vocation or life calling
from God—to work with the people of God, the church. This ministry is a
lifetime vocation of helping God’s people grow, develop, reach out, and worship
God.
“The
Ministry” is a job, but it is much more than a job. It is also a profession—like law, or the
medical profession. It is an established
occupation with a vocabulary, a way of thinking, and it has a generally
accepted code for how to practice the profession. Yet the ministry is more than a profession,
it is a vocation, a calling.
The
ministry is a wonderful way to spend your life if God lets you do this
work. While a few ministers get famous
and fewer get rich, there are far greater rewards than money or fame—rewards
that last through all eternity. It is
almost impossible to find a minister in old age who doesn’t think their life
was wonderfully meaningful. Go ahead and
ask several! Ask them if they regret
going into the ministry and if they think their life was well invested. Almost every one of them will say, “I’d do it
again in a second.” Investing your
lifetime in the ministry might possibly provide for you the greatest possible
satisfaction in life of anything you could do with your life. If God will allow you to do it, you’ll love
doing ministry as a vocation.
It’s hard but it’s worth it.
However
don’t get the idea that the ministry is a cushy job without trial or
difficulty. It isn’t. Ministry today might possibly be one of the
toughest professions you could consider.
As a minister you are called to lead a congregation of people with
widely differing opinions and preferences.
They want church to be like a fast food outlet where they can order
precisely what they want and receive it within 46 seconds.
In
many denominations the people you lead are also your bosses—they might “vote”
on keeping you as their minister or “vote you out” so that you have to go to
another church. The people you lead are
the people who hire you in many denominations.
In business if you are dissatisfied with an employee you can fire them,
but you can’t fire church members (although in many cases they can fire you!).
People, being what they are, sometimes get downright nasty—and the minister
might take the brunt of their displeasure.
And
there is competition. There are dozens
of other churches down the street from you who will offer better programs,
bigger screens, and more exciting and relevant music. Sometimes people leave a church and move to
another one. It hurts when people leave
the church you lead. You can’t hold your
congregation at arm’s length and say, “This is all just business.” It’s hard to not take rejection personally.
But
the real competition isn’t from other churches—really, we are all on the same
side. The real competition comes from
the Devil. You might start a business
and get stiff competition from other businesses, but the Devil is not likely to
spend much energy trying to run you out of business. The Devil focuses on the church with his evil
competitive program. He’d like to drive
your church out of business and you out of the ministry. That’s the real competition you face in the
ministry—it may be the Devil’s chief work on earth! The minute you accept a call to the ministry,
you will have a bulls-eye on your chest.
The
ministry is more fulfilling than it
is easy. It’s hard but it’s worth
it. It’s like running a marathon where
you sweat more than the bystanders, hurt more than the spectators—your muscles
ache and they scream for you to give up.
The ministry is tough at times.
However, when you cross the minister’s finish line, you’ll know that it
was worth it! If you are called to the
ministry you can’t be promised an easy life, but you can be promised a
worthwhile life!
So what does a
minister actually do?
The
daily work of the minister will tell you a lot about what you might like or
dislike about this calling. But be
careful: one shouldn’t enter the ministry simply because it sounds fun or you
think it would be a “good career fit;” it takes more than a
vocation-career-matching test to send you into the ministry. It takes a clear call from God that is
confirmed by the church. If you enter
the ministry, do so because you are called by God, not because it fits your
personality or likes and dislikes (we will deal with “the call” in a later chapter).
Like
the marathon story above, a runner may not “like” the pain in her legs, yet
still run because it is a worthwhile goal…but sometimes even a aching-sweating
runner gets a “runner’s high” during the
race. Ministers get lots of these “ministry
highs” throughout life—but even when a minister doesn’t particularly feel good some day, he know it
counts for eternity and it is a worthy way to spend his life. Just so you’ll get an accurate idea of what
ministers actually do through the week, here is a general summary.
1. Work with the Church
Ministers
work with the church—the “body of Christ” on earth. God is at work in the world mostly in his
church—where Christians gather for worship, evangelism, discipleship and
service. Sure, God is not limited to
the church, but he does most of His work in and through the church—that is Hs
plan to reach and change the world. The
vast majority of ministers are associated with the local church. Even so-called “para-church organizations”
(like Kingdom Building Ministries, Campus Crusade, or Young Life) could not
exist without local churches and people who work in such organizations are full
participants in local churches. The
local church is at the center of God's plan to win and disciple followers in the
world and bring His kingdom to pass on earth.
Sometimes the local church falls short of God’s vision for it, but it is
still His primary means for accomplishing His plan for the world. While there are some “jobs” in ministry
completely free from the local church, the vast majority of ministers work in
some way connected with the local church.
If you don’t like the local church, don’t go into the ministry; most
ministers work with the local church.
2. People work
Ministers
work with people. All the time. In fact, more ministers get in trouble
because they don’t get along with people than get in trouble from
immorality. God’s ministry is with God’s
people. If you enter God’s ministry
you’ll be working with His people most of the time. You may start the day with
a breakfast meeting with someone from your church or community to plan a
program at the church. You might go from
this breakfast to a staff meeting at church planning the day and week. Next you might have several appointments with
people back to back about all kinds of things—some serious, other
administrative. Then you’ll go to lunch with a parent of a teenager with some
questions about how to handle their daughter during this difficult time. That
afternoon you might have some quiet time for study and prayer. And what will you pray for? People! After dinner with your family you might go to
an evening meeting, or service, or maybe a counseling appointment with a young
couple planning to get married. People, people, people!
Ministers
spend lots of time with people. If you
are called into the ministry and don’t like people, start praying now that God
will give you the only gift that will sustain this much people work: love.
The ministry is mostly “people-work.”
3. Pastoral care
Consider
this day: A high school athlete snaps her ACL and is taken to the hospital
where she’ll find out in a moment that her senior year playing soccer is washed
up. An old woman living alone fell and broke her hip yesterday and wasn’t
discovered until this morning—her children live two states away and don’t know
yet. A young couple in the church had a
baby last night but the newborn child is on a respirator because “something
went wrong.” A man and women who’ve been
married ten years have been arguing so fiercely that they are considering a
divorce, calling you is their last ditch effort at keeping their marriage
alive. There are two aged church members
who used to be “great saints in this church” who are now in nursing homes in
your town and seem to be forgotten; few people visit them. A man 55 years old
lost his job when he showed up for work this morning—he’d worked for the same
company for 35 years, and has no idea how he’ll pay for his daughter’s college
bill now. His wife just called you.
All
of these people have one thing in common: they all want you! Well, not exactly
“you,” they want God, but they will consider you to be the closest thing to
Him. When life begins to fall apart
people look to God for strength and consolation. The minister is often the primary
representative of God to these folk. If
reading the list above made your heart wince—you felt a bit of compassion for
those hurting people—good for you. If
you had no response at all and yet know that you are called, begin today to ask
God to share His compassion with
you. He does that. If you have no plans to ever be with hurting
people at times of crisis then the ministry is not for you. The ministry
includes tender pastoral care for hurting people.
4. Worship
Most
of the laity see their minister most during worship—some think that’s all we
do! While there are plenty of other
duties of a minister, worship is certainly one of the most wonderful ones. Planning and leading worship is the greatest
joy of ministry for many ministers.
Even if you serve on staff and don’t get to preach or even say anything
at all during worship, this is usually the
5. Preach
Ministers
represent the people to God and God to the people. They represent the people to God through
intercessory prayer and other rites and rituals, but they represent God to the
people in reading Scripture and in preaching.
When a minister preaches he or she speaks for God—giving a “message”
from God to the people. It is a scary
task at first—and always. Following the
prophets of old, the minister sometimes encourages, affirms, urges and comforts
the people. At other times the preacher
corrects, chastens, and scolds the people.
So
how does the minister know what to say?
God’s words have already been spoken—in the Bible. A minister seeks what part of the Bible God
wants to use to speak to this church,
this week, through this minister. He or she does this by knowing the people’s
needs, by prayer and listening to God.
Youth ministers do this with the youth.
Senior ministers do it with the entire church. Other staff ministers may only get to preach
occasionally—but whenever they do, they speak for God, not just presenting
their own ideas—that is the difference between a speech and a “message.”
6. Teach
A
minister is the chief Bible teacher in a local church. They need to know what
the Bible says, what it means, and how it applies to life today. Ministers often teach Sunday school classes,
or new member classes, and most teach some sort of mid week classes. Some ministers who are especially adept at
teaching even teach during regular services along with preaching. Even if you don’t have a staff assignment
that includes a lot of preaching, it will probably include lots of
teaching.
7. Rituals
Consider
these stories: Kara and Jeremy are engaged and are planning a church wedding
this Saturday. Dan and Laura just had a
baby girl and want to dedicate the baby to God this Sunday. Alex, Faith, Craig, Tammy,
8. Evangelism
All
Christians are to evangelize the lost, but ministers have a special burden to
see the lost come to faith in Christ.
When asked about the most satisfying part of ministry most ministers
cite “leading people to faith in Christ” or “watching people grow in their
faith.” Ministers get a chance to do
this… and they even get paid for it!
As Jesus was walking
from the temple in Mark 9, a blind man stopped him and asked to be healed. How did he know that Jesus was coming—he was
blind? The story doesn’t say. Probably someone told him. That’s our job. We don’t have to restore sight to the blind,
that’s God’s job. We can’t save
anybody—that’s God’s job. Our job is to
announce that His arrival.
9. Discipleship & Mentoring
Ministers
pour their life into communities of people, but they spend plenty of time
one-to-one with their people as well.
Ministers disciple, supply accountability and mentor leaders in the
church. When college students are asked
to list the people who had the greatest impact on their life, ministers are
mentioned far out of proportion to their number in the population. Ministers are mentors for others.
10. Administration
A
minister is not just a prophet-preacher but is often the church’s CEO as
well—leading the sprawling programs of a local church. Administration includes
things like making budgets, leading
meetings, writing letters, doing paperwork, recruiting people,
organizing an event, calling people on the phone, gathering facts. This “office work” is a part of ministry just
like pastoral care. While some ministers
don’t particularly like this part of the work, they do it because it is
necessary to keep the church moving.
However, many ministers see it in a better light. When they administer they consider it their
greatest act of serving—this work is usually behind the scenes and they get
little praise for it, but it is necessary.
So most ministers do it with joy “as unto the Lord.”
11. Leading people
A
minister is a leader of people. Every
Christian should minister to others and serve in the church. The vocational minister’s job is to call out
and equip these Christians for their work.
The ministry is not just getting paid to do full time what every
Christian is supposed to do anyway—it is more than being a “full time paid
Christian.” Ministry is leadership. It is helping the people of God discover what
God wants them to do then organizing the people to accomplish that vision from
God.
This is one reason we ordain ministers. God calls ministers but the church ordains them. When the church ordains a minister we are saying this woman or man is anointed by God to lead us. While ministers cannot act like kings and boss everybody around. We do not need any more pastor-as-master types around the church. But we do need pastor-as-servant types. Ministers who will serve the people's best interests (and God's) through servant-leadership approach. We are called to lead the people of God to discover and fulfill God’s vision for that congregation. So even if you do not consider yourself “a leader,” the ministry will put you in a place where people will look to you for guidance. Trust God to give you His grace as you need it—for ministry is leadership.
12. Community relationships
A minister is primarily God's representative to the people, and a representative of the people to God, but they have a similar role with the community in which the church is located. A minister does not collapse their work exclusively into their local congregation but also relates to the community or town. The minister is a community leader, not just a local church leader. The minister represents their church to the community--by serving on boards, by organizing events, and sometimes even by running for office. A minister can go few places--especially in a smaller town--without being seen as a representative of their congregation. And the minister often represents the larger needs of their community to their congregation, serving as a sort of go-between for the community and the congregation.
Follow up study
and application
To Share:
1. Looking back at
the list of things ministers do, share which two you feel most nervous about
doing yourself.
2. Now share which
ones you look forward to doing the most.
To Discuss:
3. How do you think the work of the ministry could change in the
next 50 years? How could a minister see
these changes are coming—how can we “keep up” so we won’t become ineffective
and out of touch?
4. This chapter proposes
the ministry is “hard but worth it.” Do
some minister have it easier? Is there a
way to avoid the unpleasant parts of the ministry—how?
To Do:
5. Interview an experienced minister and make a list of how
the work of ministry has changed over their life so far—what do they do more,
less, differently, new?
6.
Turn the list of ministerial activities from this chapter into a chart then
rate yourself from 1 to 10 on your present abilities and interests in
each. Pick the two strongest ones and
list how you could “leverage” these strength even now as you prepare for
ministry. Pick the two weakest ones and
list how you might improve in each area.