Time again to clarify what all of this is about
I returned to the office today after a two-week vacation. Beyond just getting to spend quality time with friends and family and some healthy rest from work, this time of year, and specifically the chance to get away, is also the time God usually reminds me what life and ministry are all about, as if to encourage me for another year.
Ministry is probably similar to other career fields (I don’t know for sure because this is the only career field I’ve ever known) in that people can inappropriately attach their sense of identity to it.
I AM a pastor.
Once you do that, your sense of worth comes from whatever metrics are most commonly used to evaluate that role. If you ARE a banker, your worth comes from closing more accounts or growing the bottom line. If you ARE a surgeon, your worth comes from how many patients you successfully save.
The metrics most commonly used to measure pastoral success are the number of people attending the church (this is usually the first question I get asked about our church by someone unfamiliar with us), the amount of money raised, the size of the facility, the number of people getting baptized or regularly attending small groups, or the number of new churches your church has planted.
But God spoke to me when my ministry career was still very young to get me thinking differently. When I first started working in vocational ministry I was obsessed with the metrics. How many students were coming to our program. How many were registered to attend camp. How many were accepting Jesus, and so forth. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t care about the metrics because these students’ lives were being changed. I cared about the metrics because they meant I was doing a good job. A numerically growing ministry made me look good, which made me feel good.
It was vanity.
But then I had a very painful experience when trying to build a relationship with a particular high school student and I heard God say to me, “Mike, you can’t reach everyone and you can’t save anyone.”
In other words, “Mike, this isn’t about you,” or at least it’s not about how “successful” you are at the work.
What it IS about is who I am becoming in him. It’s not about the work I do for God. It’s about the work God does in me along the way.
God graciously reminded me of that again this year. During my regular morning reading times over the last few weeks I read both of the following verses from the Apostle Paul.
Paul had a unique calling. Jesus chose him to carry the message of “the Good News about the wonderful grace of God” to those outside the Jewish faith. Pretty much all of Paul’s theology and writing captured in the New Testament is declaring, explaining, or justifying the belief that in Christ God was bringing Jew and Gentile together, finally fulfilling his ancient promise to Abraham that through his seed (Jesus) he would bless the whole world. It was an important work, one Paul selflessly gave his whole life to, including enduring much suffering.
In one sense, Paul was driven by the need to do what Jesus had called him to do. Nothing wrong with that.
But Paul was also driven by the need to become who Jesus had called him to become. His life may have been worth nothing to him unless he finished the work given to him, but the work in the work, or the work behind the work, the work that fueled the work, was the work Jesus was doing in him in the process.
Paul wasn’t just sharing words with people. He was sharing a way of life, a way of life evident in his own life. He was inviting people into a way of being that he was modeling. What people heard in his words they saw in his life. Had that not been the case, not only do I suspect he would not have been nearly as “successful” numerically, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if he had been.
As Jesus once said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his very self.”
Paul knew that. He knew that the only real work Jesus required of him was to believe in him, to trust him, to yield to him in life. And he did. Over and over again, whether his ministry was “going well” by external appearances or not.
For the last twenty-five years God has graciously reminded me every year of the same truth. None of this is about success, vanity metrics. It is about who I am becoming in Christ, always. You can really only minister to other people out of who you have become in your own life. You can only give people what you yourself have. The only work Jesus requires of any of us is to trust him and become more of ourselves in him.
Like Paul, I will continue to do the work of proclaiming Jesus because that is what I believe God has called me to do. I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else. But if I’m going to get “credit” for anything, I want it to be for what people can see in my life. Not what I’m able to say, but how I live.
That is the work. It is the only real work worth doing. Here’s to another year.
Ministry is probably similar to other career fields (I don’t know for sure because this is the only career field I’ve ever known) in that people can inappropriately attach their sense of identity to it.
I AM a pastor.
Once you do that, your sense of worth comes from whatever metrics are most commonly used to evaluate that role. If you ARE a banker, your worth comes from closing more accounts or growing the bottom line. If you ARE a surgeon, your worth comes from how many patients you successfully save.
The metrics most commonly used to measure pastoral success are the number of people attending the church (this is usually the first question I get asked about our church by someone unfamiliar with us), the amount of money raised, the size of the facility, the number of people getting baptized or regularly attending small groups, or the number of new churches your church has planted.
But God spoke to me when my ministry career was still very young to get me thinking differently. When I first started working in vocational ministry I was obsessed with the metrics. How many students were coming to our program. How many were registered to attend camp. How many were accepting Jesus, and so forth. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t care about the metrics because these students’ lives were being changed. I cared about the metrics because they meant I was doing a good job. A numerically growing ministry made me look good, which made me feel good.
It was vanity.
But then I had a very painful experience when trying to build a relationship with a particular high school student and I heard God say to me, “Mike, you can’t reach everyone and you can’t save anyone.”
In other words, “Mike, this isn’t about you,” or at least it’s not about how “successful” you are at the work.
What it IS about is who I am becoming in him. It’s not about the work I do for God. It’s about the work God does in me along the way.
God graciously reminded me of that again this year. During my regular morning reading times over the last few weeks I read both of the following verses from the Apostle Paul.
“But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.” - Acts 20:24
“If I wanted to boast I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life and hear in my message” - 2 Corinthians 12:6
Paul had a unique calling. Jesus chose him to carry the message of “the Good News about the wonderful grace of God” to those outside the Jewish faith. Pretty much all of Paul’s theology and writing captured in the New Testament is declaring, explaining, or justifying the belief that in Christ God was bringing Jew and Gentile together, finally fulfilling his ancient promise to Abraham that through his seed (Jesus) he would bless the whole world. It was an important work, one Paul selflessly gave his whole life to, including enduring much suffering.
In one sense, Paul was driven by the need to do what Jesus had called him to do. Nothing wrong with that.
But Paul was also driven by the need to become who Jesus had called him to become. His life may have been worth nothing to him unless he finished the work given to him, but the work in the work, or the work behind the work, the work that fueled the work, was the work Jesus was doing in him in the process.
Paul wasn’t just sharing words with people. He was sharing a way of life, a way of life evident in his own life. He was inviting people into a way of being that he was modeling. What people heard in his words they saw in his life. Had that not been the case, not only do I suspect he would not have been nearly as “successful” numerically, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if he had been.
As Jesus once said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his very self.”
Paul knew that. He knew that the only real work Jesus required of him was to believe in him, to trust him, to yield to him in life. And he did. Over and over again, whether his ministry was “going well” by external appearances or not.
For the last twenty-five years God has graciously reminded me every year of the same truth. None of this is about success, vanity metrics. It is about who I am becoming in Christ, always. You can really only minister to other people out of who you have become in your own life. You can only give people what you yourself have. The only work Jesus requires of any of us is to trust him and become more of ourselves in him.
Like Paul, I will continue to do the work of proclaiming Jesus because that is what I believe God has called me to do. I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else. But if I’m going to get “credit” for anything, I want it to be for what people can see in my life. Not what I’m able to say, but how I live.
That is the work. It is the only real work worth doing. Here’s to another year.
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