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Archive for the ‘Ministry’ Category

The Ministry of Putting Out Fires

Posted in Christian Life, Church, Culture, Ministry, pastoral ministry, tagged , , , , , , , , on 11/22/2023| 2 Comments »

Sometimes Gospel ministry feels like working at the ER (emergency room) or being a firefighter. It’s one crisis after another, one emergency after another and one fire after another. A brother’s marriage is falling apart and we rush to salvage the remains of their relationship. That sister church is on the brink of division and we quickly deploy a rescue team. A friend is facing a financial crisis and we wear our financial management caps. Every day brings with it a new crisis and even when we take a break we know it’ll be short-lived because crisis is the norm. For some people that’s what Gospel ministry is all about. Dress up ready for the next crisis. The problem with this approach to ministry is that it’s not sustainable. Actually, before we know it we’ll find ourselves falling into crisis. There’s also no telling how many others are neglected along the way as we rush to save the most vulnerable. If hospitals only had ERs soon every “small” illness would end up as an emergency. It’s the small fires neglected today that burn us down tomorrow.

This means that while we need the grace to serve in and out of season we also need the wisdom to plan before time. The thing about effective ERs and firefighting departments is they plan for fires months and years before they happen. They assume any place will catch fire even inside their own office and plan accordingly. They play out every crisis scenario and prepare for it. They train for a hundred hours for those few minutes of madness. So when it happens they are not running in a rat race trying to figure out what to do. Instead, they are applying their training with zeal to help those in need but also with a readiness to be tested. Could we try that with our ministry approach? It sounds crazy to assume the worst-case scenario in our ministry meetings. But working with sinful people in a broken world means it’s never farfetched to assume the worst will happen. It’s only a matter of time before we have to deal with the unthinkable and do so with no prior warning or preparation whatsoever.

But we trust the Lord?

Someone might ask, won’t we be digging our own holes when we expect the worst to happen? What about our superstition that says if you think about bad things they’ll happen? And what about expecting good things from the Lord and giving people the benefit of the doubt? All valid questions especially on this side of the globe. We are good Christians who trust the Lord and expect the best outcome. It’s no wonder we are among the happiest people in the world. All too good. But the same word that tells us to cling unto Jesus as our anchor in distress also reminds us that we are swimming in dangerous waters. It says here we have no home and if our Saviour faced trouble so will we. It says we have an enemy within, our own sin. Enemies around us, the indwelling sin of our fellow brothers and sisters and sin in the community we live in. In this regard, a biblical Christian is to be both peace-loving as a dove and yet as wise and ready as a serpent, Matthew 10:16. We are to have our head in every situation, 2 Tim 4:5. To be ready for bad times not burying our heads in the sand.

Expecting the Worst is Spiritual

So assuming I’ve convinced you to change approach then you might ask, how do we go about this? I thought you’d never ask. First, let’s accept that expecting the worst is no less spiritual compared to expecting the best outcome. We pray for the best but we prepare for the worst. We wait for the crown while carrying the cross. Second, let’s agree that giving people the benefit of the doubt should also be balanced with the reality that they are sinners living in a broken world. Yes, a pastor can cheat and a ministry leader can steal. And yet they can be as generous and loving as the next Romeo. Don’t be naive. Also, don’t spritualise everything. Remember a male pastor is still a man. A sister in Christ is still a daughter of Eve. Finally, and I really hope we can be convinced of this, let’s agree that planning for the worst is not an aside to our ministry but a good part of loving and serving people. What would we rather do, play it safe until the worst hits and you start running like a madman or do ministry with preparedness for whatever comes? I think the latter is actually more godly, more loving and more spiritual.

Imagine All Outcomes

I would suggest next time we meet let’s survey our pressure points and check areas of vulnerability. Play out every possible outcome and not theoretically like some random game. No, let’s brainstorm all the things that could go wrong starting from inside and going outside. Those in leadership are the ones who would cause us the greatest harm. Start with the leader and the ministry team then move to the departmental leaders and the ministry as a whole. Build accountability at every level, and for heavens’ sake stop spiritualising everything. But also think about all the things that could work out so well. One to balance the mood but also prepare for the gaps that success might create. Yes, I must say being richly blessed can also expose our vulnerabilities. It’s the good days that we enjoy as a ministry that often blind us of the crisis that looms ahead. Supermarkets and planes almost always fall apart when they are about to make it. I’m not saying be a downer or a nosy rosy. Instead, we take God’s blessings with gratitude but all while remembering we are still not at home.

Play Offence not just Defence

The problem with fighting fires is that you are always playing defence. You are responding and mostly reacting with little preparation. What if we changed the approach? Prepare for the fire long before someone lights the matchbox. Take the case of the sin that could easily break a relationship and make one endanger their own faith and ministry. Do you know what that is to you? What is your idol and what about the idols of your team? Where are they most tempted and how are you protecting yourselves. But if you are afraid to poke noses in your team and open the Pandora box, then check around. What is happening around your ministry circle? What kind of sins are leaders falling into? What temptations are besetting your target people group? Stretch further beyond your theological constituency. What’s happening there? Don’t say that would never happen to you or your team. When it comes to sin and the brokenness of this world we are more similar than we are different. We are capable of a lot more than we imagine. But above all we need to ask, how are we feeding our people? Is the meal they take regularly biblically enriching or are they actually malnourished. Are we giving them the arsenal they need for the day of calamity? Or are we just waiting until the ugly unravels before our eyes? Play offence and learn from others.

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When Speaking Betrays the Preacher

Posted in Christian Life, Digital Ministry, Ministry, Preaching, Writing, tagged , , , , , on 02/08/2023| 1 Comment »

Every now and then we encounter people who have destroyed their careers and lives simply by something they said. Politicians top this list. Someone will be doing great in their campaigns, and command the attention of their constituency only to say something in a rally that becomes their downfall. Sometimes you get that feeling that some people shouldn’t hold the microphone for more than two minutes. Other times we hear stories of people who were about to win a court case and then threw in a detail that changed everything. Our words can fight for us but so often they fight against us. But while politicians can deny what their tongue said preachers are even more vulnerable in this area.

Our words can fight for us but so often they fight against us.

Public ministry is a dangerous place to be because building a reputation takes years and yet destroying it only takes a few words thrown here and there. More is expected of those who lead and yet they are as human as any of us. The Bible says those who speak regularly are vulnerable to sin more frequently with their tongue, Proverbs 10:19. Those of us who love sharing our opinions on social media are vulnerable in sinning with our mouths and typing fingers. Speaking is the tool of the preacher but he needs to be careful it doesn’t become a weapon forged against him. So how do we guard our mouths without faking it until we make it?

Feed Your Heart Intentionally

The word tells us that it’s from the heart that we speak, see Luke 6:45. What comes out of the mouth is evidence of the food of our mind. We speak what we believe and when cornered what we truly believe. Some people are able to separate what they believe and what they need to say. They know exactly what to say in a particular context. But so often what’s hidden within tends to come to the surface. It’s worse for those who speak more regularly. Pretence will work for some time but soon the truth will come out.

The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat the failings of its human characters and the true nature of man. But it invites us to the transformation of the Gospel.

But instead of this hard double life the word frees us to know that God knows us truly and yet has called us fully. The Bible doesn’t sugarcoat the failings of its human characters and the true nature of man. But it invites us to the transformation of the Gospel. We are capable of a lot worse than we imagine but the Gospel is capable of changing us more than we would ever dream of. The remedy isn’t hypocrisy but continually feeding our hearts with the food and practice of the word. And here I don’t mean just read more Bible passages. I mean take the time to reflect, apply and own the word. Feed your heart with the truth and your mouth will be safe. Let the overflow of your speech be the evidence of what is hidden in your heart, the sweet and precious word of God.

Bridge Public Ministry with Private Life

When we read the Gospels we tend to side with the sinners who come to Jesus more than we do Pharisees. Why? Because we all hate hypocrisy and we can see it so clearly in others. Those in public ministry have a private life that can ruin or build their ministry. We are not expected to be perfect but we shouldn’t be hypocrites living a double life. Our private life left unchecked will influence our public ministry. Our hearts will betray our tongues or we’ll always pick and choose what to teach.

Instead, the man of God has to learn to be God’s student number one. He doesn’t stand as God’s lawyer but as his keen student who knows his own need and of those he ministers to. None of his sermons are directed to others. It always begins with him before it flows to beggars like him. If we don’t keep asking God to work in us, if we ignore our desperate need for the meal of the word then we’ll inevitably become hypocrites. Our mouths will teach what we don’t believe and soon our tongues will betray us.

Watch Your Tongue and Typing Fingers

We speak to such a diverse audience these days. When you post on social media there’s all kinds of people with different backgrounds and unique context that read your post. It’d be better if we had more opportunity to speak the truth to fewer people in a specific place and setting. But while we should do that more regularly still we’ll find ourselves having to speak to a more general audience. If you like writing like me then you know your audience will be even more diverse. For this reason I think we need to be even more careful with our words. Now more than ever we need to watch what we say, how we say it and who we intend to hear if we want to truly influence people with the truth.

We cannot afford to be careless with our words and expect anyone to take us seriously. The sword of truth should be used to dispel lies but not slay our audience. We ought to speak with care and wisdom to protect our audience from our extremes. Haven’t you listened to someone and knew what they were saying was important but the way they did it made you dismiss them. Sometimes I see posts on Facebook that makes me feel the author needed to take a glass of water to cool down first. How can we be expected to help others if we cannot control ourselves. Keyboard warriors need to be warned of their sinful hearts masquerading as defense for the truth. By all means we should speak the truth all while watching our hearts and controlling our tongues.

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Honouring Leaders in a Cancel Culture

Posted in Culture, Ministry, pastoral ministry, Servant Leadership, social media, tagged , , , , on 09/21/2022| Leave a Comment »

Cancel culture is the oldest blame game in the book. When man sought to honour God’s word in the garden the serpent told him God was actually the problem. It’s because he didn’t want you to be like him. Satan made the loving creator God the enemy of human progress. He wasn’t to be listened to leave alone obeyed. Human history began by cancelling God out. Adam would then borrow a leaf from the serpent when he and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Who was to blame for this? It was the woman God made not forgetting Adam was there when Eve was deceived. Adam would in one breath blame God and Eve while he comes out merely as a victim of circumstances. To Adam, those around him were the problem, not him and his sin.

When this is our culture old ideas like honour and respect sound so backwards that for many people they don’t even make sense.

This old lie would then be passed down the generations taking different forms but with the same end goal. Whenever we find ourselves in a fix we immediately find someone to blame especially those in authority. Interestingly we never start with ourselves. If something is going wrong in an organisation or we are not feeling as fulfilled we immediately find the enemy. If we are struggling at home and we aren’t like that other couple we know who to blame. If our church isn’t meeting our needs and not tailor-making the service to our comfort we know who to blame. But in none of these situations do we stop to ask if we might be the problem. Instead, we immediately mount an opposition to the leader with an aim to cancel him out since after all he’s our arch enemy.

When this is our culture old ideas like honour and respect sound so backwards that for many people they don’t even make sense. Why would we respect authority when it’s the problem? Why should we honour those in leadership when we’ve made them into our mortal enemy? Why would we respect our pastor when we’ve concluded the church would be better without him? Why listen to that deacon when we believe he’s out to take advantage of us? Why would the woman submit to a husband who is a symbol of oppression? Why would we even pay taxes when we think we might be better off without a government?

It’s for this reason that we only realise someone was a good leader when they leave office. We spend so much time finding fault with our leaders that we don’t stop to appreciate how much we need them.

But while not all leaders are worthy of respect more often than not we are the ones who’ve chosen not to respect them. We’ve drunk so much of this cancel culture that we will never have anyone in office worthy of our respect. Immediately someone gets a place of leadership even when he was a former friend he becomes our number one enemy or we are branded, collaborators. It’s for this reason that we only realise someone was a good leader when they leave office. We spend so much time finding fault with our leaders that we don’t stop to appreciate how much we need them. Worse in the Christian space we don’t even praise God for the good leaders he gives us because we are always suspicious of them.

Pause for a moment and imagine how lonely this makes the place of leadership. Add to that the godly requirements of a leader when those in his care think of him as the enemy. Think about that pastor who labours hard in prayer, creates time to meet the members, stays up late to prepare helpful Biblical sermons, goes out to look for funding, has a family to look after and perhaps a job on the side and yet his congregants think he’s the problem. You could add the name of an organisation leader, a husband and father, a government official and your CEO. While they may not all be the best and most sacrificial leaders I think we owe them the honour that comes with that office. It should especially be the case when it’s a Christian leader who’s trying his best to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

Before we cancel them out let’s give them a chance by praying for them, submitting to them and offering our advice and help. Above all let’s remember God requires us to honour our leaders.

I think we need to stop waiting for the leader to fall so we can justify our verdict on him. We need to stop overanalyzing their performance and motivations. We need to stop thinking the worst of them. We need to stop waiting for them to get into a scandal so we can cancel them out. We need to start by giving them the benefit of the doubt. We need to appreciate that it’s always better to have a leader because the alternative is chaos. We need to notice that they are trying their level best. We need to realise that sometimes, and most times we are part of the problem. We need to view leaders as God’s instruments to bring order to disorder. We need to be for leaders not against them. Before we cancel them out let’s give them a chance by praying for them, submitting to them and offering our advice and help. Above all let’s remember God requires us to honour our leaders.

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The Making of Great Speakers and Influencers

Posted in Bible interpretation, Discipleship, Jinsi ya, Ministry, pastoral ministry, Preaching, tagged , , , on 07/05/2022| Leave a Comment »

That’s exactly the kind of title that makes you stop scrolling, isn’t it? What if I said this blog is about preaching? How does that make you feel? If you are honest you might be a bit disappointed. You might even feel cheated because that’s not what you always associate preaching with. You wanted to hear about the secret behind public speaking and moving crowds. How to become the Luther King of our generation. To move crowds and influence people. Well, I want to make a case that preaching can do that and much more when it’s faithfully done. You can then apply the same idea as a Christian influencer whether in blogging or Tiktok.

I want to begin by saying that no speaker sets out wanting to be boring. They may have struggled in preparation if they did any of it. They may have wrestled with the text and question of relevance in their study. But no one wants to imagine theirs will be a boring message with little impact on the audience. I doubt any of us sets out to fail in persuading people.

We want the Truth but we also want it to move our audience. But how do you move people while being faithful in your preaching?

We want to move people with the Truth. We want them cut to the heart and ask, how can we be saved? We want to spur people to be excited to live for God and his mission? We want to warn them of coming judgement in a way that they feel compelled. If we are honest we admire preachers who move crowds even when we might take issue with their methods. And no one comes to a Sunday morning ready for a boring sermon. We want the Truth but we also want it to move our audience. But how do you move people while being faithful in your preaching?

Ask Why it Matters
You cannot be a good speaker if you don’t believe in your message. Likewise, you won’t make a faithful and relevant preacher if you don’t believe in the text at hand. Before you can preach it to others you need to preach it to yourself. And here I don’t mean give yourself a theological or doctrinal lesson. I mean preach it to yourself brother! Sit and ask what it’s saying, how it’s saying it and why that’s relevant. Have your Eureka moment not by discovering the Greek wording of it but by seeing just how relevant and practical it is to our faith and everyday life. And trust me it’s relevant.

Great preaching rests on showing us why the text matters and the secret is going back in time.

You see the beauty of expository preaching is that you have your work already done for you. Every passage we teach is actually a repeat sermon. There was a first audience who heard and applied that sermon. They were moved by it back then. This means all we need is to go back and ask why it mattered to them so it matters to us. Great preaching rests on showing us why the text matters and the secret is going back in time. But be careful not to remain back there. Before you stand in front of us make sure to travel back and apply it in real life. Preach that sermon to yourself and your world and if you can at least move with it you’ll have a friend cheering you in the congregation.

Find your Passion Switch
It’s said some people can sell you anything because they do it so passionately. The problem with some expository preachers is they can rest on just having the faithful script with them. They know the truth, they want to preach the right thing but give little attention to the delivery and landing process. But I guess for most of us who are starting out we just don’t know how to go about it. I want to say if we are compelled by the truth we will be compelling in our delivery of it. If the message had an impact on us we need to do the same for our audience.

While we can apply methods like storytelling, humour, helpful illustration and the like it all depends on how passionate we are about the truth in front of us.

We need to find our passion switch. To want to communicate the passage in a way that moves people. But this is not just about the methods. It’s about us and the truth. Think about how you told the news of your wedding, your graduation, your first job… There was an enthusiasm that made people want to listen. While we can apply methods like storytelling, humour, helpful illustration and the like it all depends on how passionate we are about the truth in front of us. Some people can talk all day about their jobs because they are passionate about them. Others won’t stop bringing football into every conversation. Why can’t we do the same with our preaching? Make the people in front of you see you value and love what you are teaching. Passionate speaking is infectious. Find your passion switch before you come out to preach.

Think about the People
Faithful preaching cares about people because God cares about them. You cannot love preaching and not love people. That’s like loving a party without people. Unfortunately, sometimes we think so highly of preaching than we do the people in front of us. We call ourselves soldiers of the truth but miss the recipients of the message. If that explains you and I then we should stop preaching and ask God for a love for his people first. Don’t go to that Sunday service with your points and illustrations if you’ve not thought of the people.

Jesus was a faithful preacher, he knew his text but what moved him to preach is the people.

What moves people is when the preacher is both faithful to the text but also faithful to them. I always admire the instances where the Gospel accounts note that Jesus saw the masses and had compassion for them. Jesus was a faithful preacher, he knew his text but what moved him to preach is the people. Do you want to be a great speaker and influencer? Think about your audience first. Ask yourself where they are at in their journey of faith. What are they struggling with? Do they need encouragement or rebuke? Faithful preaching is neither tied to the text nor the people alone. It’s tied to both. It’s faithful to the text but it’s also faithful to the people.

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Being Available is Better than being Gifted

Posted in Apprenticeship, Christian Life, Discipleship, Mentoring, Ministry, Servant Leadership, tagged , , , , on 05/23/2022| 2 Comments »

Many Christians spend a good part of their early years wrestling with the question of their unique gifting. This is especially the case where the church has overemphasized the place of gifts more than the place of character and service. I remember sharing with a friend that I was thinking about Christian ministry back in college and the first thing they asked was what’s my gifting. According to them, Gospel ministry was for those who knew their specific ministry gifts.

But I think this question isn’t just important to those considering full-time Christian ministry but one that explains service in our local churches. You see if people wait to discover their specific gifts so they can serve then you are going to have a lot of people on the waiting list. Someone will argue I cannot teach so I can’t join children or youth ministry. Another will say I’m not good with people so I can’t do welcoming and hospitality. Or I’m not as good as the song leader so the music team isn’t for me.

This inward-looking question will in the end keep you away from service and you’ll not actually discover what you can do for the body of Christ. But here I want to suggest you avail yourself first and let your specific gift if you only have one be discovered later. Because the gift is from the Spirit and for his church then begin by rolling your sleeves to do anything that your hands find to do for the church family. I’ll give 3 reasons as we reflect on this.

Jesus is calling Disciples not Gifted Professionals
When Jesus called his first disciples he didn’t sit them through an interview process to know how good they would serve him. He called anyone who would come to him. Coming to follow him, being with him, and obeying his calling was more important than what they could do for him later, see Mark 3:14. It wasn’t until later that he would send them out in the great commission yet they did serve him by being there with him. They were with him from the beginning, they walked with him and served alongside him without titles. You can say they were his errand boys but who wouldn’t want to be Christ’s errand boy.

What I’m saying here is that the body of Christ needs people who are willing and ready to roll their sleeves and do the work. It needs those available to serve in any and every way not just those with specific gifting and experience. The church needs people to be available in what is called the ministry of presence and to fill in the gaps as they notice them. And it’s only when you are available and ready to serve that the church can then discover your specific gifts not when you sit and wait.

When I did my first apprenticeship I didn’t know what was my specific gift but that meant I was available for anything. I was given an admin job which I wouldn’t have availed myself for before but it was the best ministry I have ever done. That’s where I actually learned how to write as I prepared weekly briefs. Then I tried youth ministry which was at first scary and then it became something I cherish today. I went on to welcoming which I always thought wasn’t for me only to realize how strategic it is. In the end, I wasn’t concerned about my specific ministry gift but was looking for where there was a need. I realized if you are willing to serve then you can have all the gifts to choose from.

Service is the end of Gifting
We can all agree that if the most gifted pastor doesn’t use their gift to serve the body of Christ then it’s a useless gift. They may talk about how good they are with the microphone but that benefits no one. Jesus didn’t call his disciples to display their abilities but to roll their sleeves and work for his church. It’s not our unique abilities that matter but our preparedness to serve and to do it wholeheartedly. It’s actually as we give ourselves fully to whichever area of ministry that is available that we discover what we can do best for King Jesus.

I find people who label themselves with a particular gift early on close the door for service too early. They are content with being evangelists when they haven’t tried hospitality. They pride themselves on their preaching skills without ever discovering the beauty of children’s ministry. They walk around with empty titles when their local church needs them to be available and do whatever is needed. It’s good to clarify that I’m not against discovering our unique gifts early on but I think service is bigger than us and our specific gifts. Because the gift belongs to the church then our availability to serve God’s people is what matters not what we do specifically. In time we may realize a unique need and our ability and decide to concentrate on one or two areas of service but we should always be ready for whatever the master calls us to do.

The Kingdom is bigger than my Gifting
It’s not a surprise that there are countless ministries built around a specific person and their unique gifting. It’s actually very human to rally people behind what we believe and are good at. And it’s not always wrong or premeditated that it happens like that. But we need to be careful if our churches and ministries draw and produce people who are just like us. We may be the most charismatic preacher or the most organized administrator and the most welcoming guy but we must be ready to have and grow many who are unlike us and yet fit for the kingdom of God. Let them come and discover the endless opportunities there are to serve the Lord.

God’s church needs all kinds of servants for all kinds of ministry for the benefit of the whole body. I think it’s a tragedy if everyone in a team thinks and serves like everyone else. Worse if we only think there are only 5 ways or so one can serve the church family. In time this would bring competition and complacency if there are only a few areas that all can do. But the way God has constituted his church is that we find all kinds of people with all kinds of abilities and opportunities to serve in the kingdom of God. The better way to view the church isn’t checking everyone’s gift in order of priority but seeing everyone as a unique gift to the local church. I think if we all set aside titles and abilities we would realize just how much we are needed in the kingdom. We would see beyond us and the vast harvest all around us. We wouldn’t shy from service on account of specific gifting instead we would discover just how gifted we are as a church.

Conclusion
In this article, I have argued that being available is better than being gifted. Yes, I would rather you try to service and fail if anyone ever can fail at service instead of waiting to be good to serve. More than that I think we need to realize that Christian gifts are not qualifications for a CV but opportunities to serve. They are actually not your gift but they belong to the church. In the end, service is what matters not how well we score in a certain area of ministry.

Many people live and die without knowing their unique gifts yet toil so hard for Jesus. And when we come to him the words welcome good and faithful servants is what will matter, see Matthew 25:23. I believe that in heaven we’ll find people who were totally unknown and unappreciated in their diligent service yet are regarded highly by the one who knew their good works without a title. Friends, it’s better to be an errand boy for King Jesus than wait to be recognized by your gifting here on earth.

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The Danger of being too Passionate

Posted in Christian Life, Discipleship, Ministry, tagged , , , , on 03/24/2022| 7 Comments »

The world needs passionate men and women. People who are committed and self-driven to serve the Lord wholeheartedly. Those won totally and visibly by the Gospel. Those who are using every second to build the kingdom of God. It’s exciting when people speak about reaching the lost so passionately. About going out of their way to reach the unreached. Risking their necks for the lost overseas. It’s great to hear from those passionate about children ministry, church planting, students, families, preaching, evangelism, and so on. 

Talk of changing our political scene with faithful leaders, influencing the corporate world with men with true faith and godly practice. What about the education level, media and technology, the police, the judiciary, the transport sector, and whatever else gives you sleepless nights. We need passionate men and women in all spheres of life that the Lord calls mine. I pray that the Lord would make me this kind of man so passionate for him that I ooze the Gospel and its influence in my corner.  But there’s a danger when we are too passionate in one area of ministry.

When we Only See our Corner 

There’s a danger with people who are too passionate in one area because they can be too invested in their corner of ministry and miss the forest of God’s vast kingdom. When we feel all resources, time and energy should be directed to our area and especially to us we’ve narrowed the kingdom too much. I’m passionate about training people for Gospel ministry and availing training resources to the next generation. I hope we can invest as much in this area. But if I imagine that’s the only way to serve God or it is the only area that matters then I’ve lost the bearing of the kingdom of God. 

What’s worse, passionate men can be selfish and proud men. We might look down on others and what they are doing. We might think they are wasting time. We might feel we are doing a better job. We might be jealous if they get the resources that we think we deserve. We might actually speak ill of them and their ministries. But all this is sinful friends regardless of our commitment to the Lord and the specific causes we are pursuing informed by the Gospel. 

We need to survey our hearts and our motivations that we are being godly and not after selfish interest and our own glory in our ministry pursuit. I would say we need to force ourselves to speak well of others. To say little of, I’m doing this and why are you not joining my corner. Instead to encourage those serving in a different area that we are probably less passionate about. Speak about their work and pray for them genuinely to be provided for even more than us if it pleases the Lord. After all, it’s his work and they are his labourers. 

When we Expect Others to be Like us 

If we are passionate about children’s ministry that is good and commendable but we need to remember the Gospel has many other groups in mind. Men and women, rich and poor, office workers and construction workers, rural and city people, Africans and Asians all need the Gospel. Just because someone is not passionate about our ministry and just because they don’t see how strategic and urgent it is doesn’t mean they are not serving the Lord. 

In the case where someone seems to lack passion in anything we deem important we shouldn’t look down on them. As the word says it’s before their master that they stand judged, see Romans 14:4. Actually, if everyone was passionate about everything very little could be achieved because no one would be convinced to come alongside others. You need people you can challenge. You need others to encourage. Others need their energies redirected while others need to be given a Gospel passion. And perhaps you also need a broader scope of the kingdom of God and be clear on the calling we have all received.

You see being passionate about ministry isn’t the end goal anyway. We need to always ask ourselves where our work and ministry ends. All ministry work however important is actually temporary because worship is the end goal. In heaven, we’ll not be doing walk-up evangelism or even full-time Gospel ministry. Our gifts, our strategic ministries, and all our passions will have ceased when God’s people arrive to be with their Saviour forever. That’s the end goal friends, to walk with the Lord now and enjoy him forever. Fellowship with the Lord is the end goal. Our walk with the Lord and bearing fruit for him in our lives is the first calling. What we do for the Lord however passionately follows after we are walking with him. Remember on that last day your passion and your ministry won’t save you, Jesus will.

When we Mistake how People Change 

People who are too passionate think they can move mountains. It’s a beautiful thing and there’s a lot we can do for the Lord when we give it our very best. We should have big dreams in our ministries, we should make big prayers and go for big steps. But we should remember that only God can change people’s hearts, see Ezekiel 36:26-27. Whatever we are passionate about isn’t our own doing anyway. We were not born passionate in that area. We didn’t even care about it before the Lord opened our eyes to that need. It was the Lord who sowed the seed and watered it before we claimed it our own. 

If you’d love for more people to be passionate about a certain ministry go to their Lord and Saviour and ask for his help. Don’t argue, abuse, call hell down, mourn and complain before you ask the Lord. If you sense a brother would make a great children’s minister save up some convincing energy for asking the Lord for his passion and commitment. If you see a gap that exists in the church don’t kill the pastor with new demands. Start praying about it and call others to pray on it. If you feel a particular ministry isn’t getting enough attention don’t spread hate and call people names. Talk to the Lord about it. You’ll be surprised how he starts to change you and others in that direction. 

Weighing our Passion

All of us however sold out to the Lord and his work need to remember we are on a discipleship journey. None of us have arrived and yet so often we operate like we have already made it to heaven and are back helping others. That’s a lie that blinds us to our blind spots in our walk with the Lord. We also need to remember nothing we have is our own, see 1 Corinthians 4:7. Not even our passion, our gifts, our clarity of the Gospel, and our key ministries. They are all gifts from the Lord and he has many other gifts and many other areas of ministry with many other faithful people. Let’s be careful not to miss the forest of God’s kingdom for our small tree.

If the Lord is calling us to a certain area let’s go for it with all the energy he provides. Let’s come to him with big prayers on the same. Let us get as many others excited on the same. But let us also remember the kingdom of God is bigger than us and our area of ministry. If others thrive in other areas of ministry we should praise the Lord for them. If some don’t seem as excited or convinced to join us we should pray about it and be okay with it. But we should also be careful not to build a kingdom around us. We need to remember it’s the Lord’s work we are doing, the resources come from him, the passion is his to inspire and the opportunities are his to open which means it’s him to have all the glory. If we weigh our Gospel passion and find we are at the heart of it, that we are always fighting on it and hating others because of it we need to repent and ask God to give us a bigger vision of his kingdom.

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The Higher Calling

Posted in Christian Life, Discipleship, Ministry, tagged , , on 11/23/2021| 7 Comments »

When you think about Gospel ministry I wonder what comes to your mind? What do you think a call to ministry actually means? Do you think there’s a chance God is calling you to ministry? I suppose most of us who are genuine and aware of our inner self think about what a noble and difficult task this is. We think about God’s word, about preaching to others and shepherding. We wonder how can I, a mere sinner help others in their relationship with God? How can a broken man lead others to the holy God? In this case, we think the call to ministry is something others can do but not us. No, we don’t qualify to lead others.

But perhaps your answer is different. If you’ve been serving elsewhere perhaps you do feel this is where the Lord is leading you. Your pastor thinks you can do it. You’ve led a Bible study before and enjoyed it. You’ve been involved in organizing for missions that went well and many souls were saved. And when you’ve had the opportunity on a Sunday to hammer the word people do seem to like your preaching. So it feels like yes God is calling you to ministry. You do realize it’s a noble task and you need help but you are largely convinced God is calling you to ministry.

Both of these are responses we hear every time we try to encourage people to do ministry. And there’s one thing that seems to drive these responses; if our heart is in the right place we think about the flock which is admirable. We ask ourselves can I serve God’s people? I’m I the right guy for the mission of God in reconciling the world to himself? Do I have the gifts and skills to pastor them? I’m I equal to the task of bringing others to the kingdom of God? Which I think is a very important question for anyone considering Gospel ministry.

The thing many of us forget or seem to miss is that a call to ministry though is actually a call first to personal discipleship before it is a call to disciple others. God’s call on his minister begins with the minister himself. He doesn’t call the qualified he qualifies those he calls. And to a great extent they never really qualify. No one is fit for that job. No one graduates to be a minister, instead, it is the student of the Word that leads other students in Gospel ministry.

But I know when I talk about ministry and mission the place that easily comes to mind is Matthew 28:16-20 which is the classic place we got to encourage people for missions and Gospel ministry. That’s where we get our job description. Now, I hope you don’t get this wrong but I think that’s the wrong place, to begin with, get me right I said to begin with. First, because if you read the Gospel accounts carefully as they should be read that’s where you end not where you start. Second, because when we start there we assume a lot about the people going for ministry and think very highly of them.

If you read the Gospels carefully you’d see how insufficient the men God sends are. This is especially clear when working through Mark’s Gospel. It should shock you that Jesus decides to send these guys. None of them qualifies. They want to be lords, not servants. They struggle to grasp what Jesus is doing, they are not A students. In the end, one betrays him, the other publicly denies him and they all desert the Saviour when he needed them the most. How can they qualify?

Now I’m not trying to split hairs and argue for the sake of it. Actually, I would still use Matthew 28 to encourage people to go to the ministry field and I think we don’t do this enough in our churches. But I do want to convince you why discipleship needs to come first before mission because even in the Gospel accounts it comes first. When Jesus called his disciples heres what we are told was to be their Job description:

14 And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach

Mark 3:14 ESV.

We easily get the second part of that verse but we miss the first. The first mission for the first disciples was Discipleship, to sit and learn from Jesus. He called them to be with him and he stayed with them 3 years before he could issue the Great Commission. And even at that point, I would say still these guys were not ready and they were not going to be ready.

Brothers and sisters what I’m trying to convince you and I is; that it’s only after we have been with Jesus when we are walking with Jesus when we are killing sin and striving for holiness every day that we can even think about Gospel ministry. In others words, the call to faithful ministry is a call first to be a faithful Christian. And it’s a daily call, not something that happens once in a dream. Not something that happened when they commissioned or ordained you. The Higher calling is not calling others but answering the call yourself first.

This is the case even when we think about the people of Israel. God’s call on Israel was a call to himself even before they could be a light to the nations. What does God say in Exodus 19?

5Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Exodus 19:5 ESV

The call on Israel like the Christian call and to the Gospel preacher is a call to God first. The things we’ll do for God are great. The sacrifices we make for God are worthwhile and part of the package. The souls we’ll preach to and be added to the kingdom will glorify God. But if we miss the calling on our lives for the calling of others then the heaven we talk of is a place we’ll never set our feet on. Others will make it partly because of our ministry but Jesus will say on that day depart from me for I never knew you. If you think Gospel ministry is for you think about your devotion life. If you sense you’ve got the gifts for the job ask yourself if you have the heart for it. And if you feel weak and unqualified and yet see the need for Gospel ministers then ask God to qualify you and to do so every day.

Every year at iServe Africa we send out invitations to college graduates who are sensing a calling of God for ministry to do our one-year Apprenticeship program. This offers them an opportunity for training and testing the waters for ministry. The problem is often times when we talk about ministry they like us tend to think about preaching, going for missions, and discipling others. We think about ourselves as agents that God is sending to others so they can hear the Gospel which is partly right. But the thing we spend most of our time trying to convince our apprentices is that ministry is more about becoming than it is doing. For them, the year is more learning and unlearning than it is hammering the Gospel. It’s about discipleship before it’s about the mission. For only the faithful disciple makes a faithful Bible teacher.

The rebuke we need to hear friends for those of us in ministry is whether we are leading others where we are not following. There are extremes of those who are clearly leading others astray leading them to themselves and to the idols of their hearts. But if we claim to be faithful ministers we need to ask if we are faithful disciples. This is not aimed at guilt-tripping us or making us feel insufficient although that’s how we should feel. But to encourage us to go the Father so he can qualify us with his word. We ought to think the word we are preaching applies to us, not just the naughty teenager in front of us. We need to feed so that we can point others to where they can find pasture. For we are all sheep and we have one Shepherd, the Overseer of our hearts, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

If you are starting on in Gospel ministry or trying to make that decision I hope you can see where it all begins and stays. It’s a higher calling because God wants your heart before he can use your mouth, hands, and feet. Actually, I hope all of us can see that in one way or the other God is calling all of us for ministry. We may not have the gift set of a pastor but God is calling us to himself so he can send us to our neighbors. God is calling us to fellowship with him before we can go out for his mission. He’s asking for our hearts before we can give him our hands. Our heads before our mouths. Our life before we give him our gifts and skills. This is the higher calling.

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Thinking about true repentance

Posted in Ministry, pastoral ministry, Psalms on 02/13/2019| Leave a Comment »

Image result for prayer

By God’s grace, I’ve been thinking through what true repentance is made of, especially when it comes to the affections I feel. Most recently I’ve been thinking about the difference between shame and guilt. Both are Biblical words used in the diagnosis and punishment of sin but what do they really mean? Is there one more preferred than the other? How do they apply to repentance?

Let’s begin with understanding what these words mean. In its essence, the chief defining trait of shame, is embarrassment. Feelings of awkwardness mostly from being found out in wrongdoing. Guilt on the other hand, in its essence is about responsibility for an action. Feeling to blame for wrongdoing. Each can have some traits of the other but I think the chief difference is that of embarrassment versus responsibility.

How does this apply when we think about our sin before God and others? When we think about sin, it is not enough to simply know that something is bad and abominable before God, God cares for how we view it and what feelings it invokes in us. This is where shame and guilt come in. We need to feel both embarrassed and responsible for our sin. Embarrassed because we knew better and still went on and did it. Embarrassment because we did what we think others shouldn’t or did to others what we would not like to suffer from them – the embarrassment of our hypocrisy. The embarrassment of choosing what fails and is doomed to fail. I think this embarrassment is what God speaks about in Isaiah 1:29, when He speaks of redeeming Zion by justice. The effect is that those dwelling in Jerusalem as Isaiah is speaking will be ashamed of their idolatry because it will fail them and cause them to face God’s wrath!

But we must also feel responsible. That we deliberately took action and walked a certain path because we wanted to. That we are to blame for the choice and the consequences that followed. Guilt considers that God is right in His verdict of our sin and that we can give no defense; we are rightly accused and judged, indeed guilty! Isaiah at his call in Isaiah 6, sees God and is immediately conscious of his sin. He knows that he is guilty and deserving of death. “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” v5. He understands and takes ownership of his sin and knows that it means he is doomed.

How then do these two feelings work together in our repentance? Let us consider King David, his sin with Bathsheba and how shame and guilt work together in his repentance as seen in 2 Samuel 11 – 12  and Psalm 51. David sees a woman bathing, finds out she’s someone else’s wife and still calls her up to his room and sleeps with her. She gets pregnant and David devises this grand plan to have her husband sleep with her to cover up the pregnancy but when that fails, he plots Uriah’s death in war. He then takes Bathsheba to be his wife and bear his child. He does all this in secrecy thinking that he is all safe. But God has been watching and sends him a prophet to expose his sin. The prophet quite expertly exposes David’s sin through a story of injustice. David, as the ‘righteous’ ruler is rightly angered by the injustice and proclaims the proper judgement for the sinner. Prophet Nathan then says simply, “You are this man!” and goes ahead to proclaim Yahweh’s verdict and judgement on him.

How does David respond? “I have sinned against the LORD.” This, I think, is the result of shame and guilt. He is ashamed because he gets to see himself clearly. He is able to plainly see his actions in the light of what he knows and has received from Yahweh’s hand. He sees his hypocrisy plainly – how can he judge the unjust man in the story when he has done exactly the same thing to Uriah? His shame humbles him before the LORD to hear and accept responsibility for his sin. With things now so clear, with him off his high horse, then he can take responsibility for his actions, rightly confessing it, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Shame humbles the sinner and gives proper room for guilt to work to bring about confession and then hopefully godly sorrow that leads to repentance.

Psalm 51 records David’s response to the exposure of his sin. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. . . For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgement. . . Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. . . Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. . .”

The shame and guilt have worked out their proper course on the road to repentance for David. We shall do well to learn from him. When God mercifully exposes our sin, in private or public, we ought not to take quickly to trying to excuse/justify our sin. There is never a good reason for sin! Then we are to have a good look at our sin – to name it (blood-guiltiness) and understand what it is that we have believed, said and done that is contrary to God. Often times I’ve found that when I am aware of a sin, I want to skip this step of properly understanding and taking responsibility for it because I am so embarrassed by it. But what I am learning from this is that I do not properly feel the guilt of it – take proper responsibility for it, because I haven’t properly diagnosed the error. This means that I oftentimes stick at sinning because I’m busy trying to treat the symptoms and not the root of the problem. I’m busy trying to put out the fire without understanding its cause. “Let’s just move on!” yet we haven’t known what it is we are moving on/away from. I have found that it is when I have properly understood my sin that I can clearly confess it and then seek to turn away from it, which in fact is what repentance means! How can we ever hope to confess and turn from (repent) what we do not understand? How can we be equipped to recognize sin in its different guises when we’re not humbly taking responsibility for it, understanding it at its root? True repentance involves the pain of shame and guilt followed by the real confession of sin and seeking to turn away from the sin we have just confessed as God cleanses and helps us. Skipping any step leaves us simply wallowing in sin not mortifying it!

This article was written by Leah Kagure. 
Leah is a Ministry Training Facilitator at iServe Africa doing bible teaching,  mentorship and looking after female apprentices.

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Desperately needing the Spirit

Posted in 1 & 2 Timothy, Apprenticeship, Ministry, Spirit, tagged on 08/31/2017| Leave a Comment »

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Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it by the Holy Spirit who lives in us. (2 Tim. 1:14)

We go through 2 Timothy with each new group of apprentices but it is always fresh and cutting. One of the things that’s really jumped out for me this time is the emphasis on both human work and the Spirit’s work. There is fanning of the flame to do but the fire is God’s gift (1:6). We are to suffer… by the power of God (1:8). We need to guard the gospel… with the help of the Holy Spirit (1:14). We are to be strong… in the grace in Christ (2:1). We are to think hard… and the Lord will give the understanding (2:7). We are to instruct opponents… hoping that God will grant repentance (2:25). We are to preach the Word… strengthened by the Lord (4:17).

Some of us may be tempted to speak only of the Spirit and to downplay human effort. In that case the challenge of 2 Timothy is that guarding the gospel will involve a lot of hard work, hard thinking, intentional effort and careful following of the apostolic leadership training strategy (2:2). Others of us (perhaps more of us) are tempted to focus on human activity and practically ignore (or only play lip service to) the work of the Spirit. For us, we need to remember that the gospel cannot be guarded simply through structures and programmes and curricula. As Ken Irungu pointed out, gospel ministry cannot be professionalised. We wholeheartedly believe in 2 Timothy 2:2 – it is one of the iServe Africa straplines – but transmitting good gospel truth to the next generation of Bible teachers for them to proclaim and teach it faithfully to others will not serve to guard and advance the gospel unless there is also a powerful work of the Spirit.

Why?

  1. Only the Spirit can change hearts. Only the Spirit can move the affections from love of the world (4:10) to love Christ and his people (1:7). Only the Spirit can move us from being ashamed of the gospel to unashamed (1:8). Only the Spirit can produce faithful, hardworking, persevering-through-suffering servants who are concerned to please their commanding officer (2:4-6) rather than the crowd.
  2. Only the Spirit can open minds to understand the truths of the gospel (2:7). J.C. Ryle: “The very same person who is quick and clever in worldly things, will often utterly fail to comprehend the simplest truths of Christianity. He will often be unable to take in the plainest reasonings of the Gospel… They will sound to him either foolish or mysterious.”

So please pray for us! Pray for iServe Africa and the young people starting off their ministry apprenticeship year that the Spirit would go out with His Word and change hearts and minds.

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When everything is a bit…

Posted in Christian Life, Ecclesiastes, Ministry on 08/24/2017| 2 Comments »

I was going to finish the sentence with the word ‘rubbish’ but more recently I’ve been learning (rather too late) that in Kenya, particularly among older generations and those with more sensitive ears, the word ‘rubbish’ (Kiswahili takataka) comes across very strongly to the point of being offensive.

What I’m thinking of is the experience of finding everything just slightly frustrated.

  • When I attempt to put up a shelf in my house and it ends up just slightly off horizontal. Perhaps only I will notice that it is not level, or someone who looks very carefully, but I’m annoyed that it is not right.
  • You’ve proof read the manuscript twenty times but when it’s finally printed there’s a typo on page one.
  • The biscuits/cake/meal you’ve spent an hour preparing stays in the oven or on the stove just five minutes too long. It’s still edible but has that acrid taste round the edges.
  • You drop the new phone that you’ve been saving for and looking forward to for ages and it gets a scratch on the screen on day one.
  • The car has just come back from the mechanics, you’ve spent a lot of money, he’s assured you that everything is sorted but then the next day you hear another funny rattle and grumble under the bonnet.

This is not real suffering – bereavement, pain, trauma – it is just daily frustrations and annoyances. It’s good stuff gone a bit wrong. It’s the sort of thing that Alanis Morissette sung about in her 1995 song ‘Ironic’ (as many people have pointed out, what was genuinely ironic was that the song was not really about ironic things at all but simply about annoying things):

It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay
It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
A traffic jam when you’re already late
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

Why is it that things are never quite perfect? Even the best things? The most superb athlete has a blister which ruins his performance. The most beautiful house has a crack on the wall and a tap which doesn’t work. The shine is taken off the best works of gospel ministry by imperfections, mistakes and sin.

The book of Ecclesiastes has the answer. It calls it vanity, frustration. It is the curse of Genesis 3. Fallenness, decay, thorns and weeds. A heavy blanket over everything (Eccl. 6:1) frustrating every sphere of life and every human endeavour.

Four ways to respond:

Thanking God for spoiling the world to us

One of the most famous lines in Augustine’s Confessions is the thought that our hearts are restless until they find their true rest in the Lord. But Augustine is well aware that our wayward hearts can find a sort of rest in the pleasures of this world. So a recurring cry in his Confessions is thanks to God for spoiling the things of the world to him (relationships, entertainment, health) so he could not find rest in them:

You [Lord] being the more gracious, the less you allowed anything which was not You to grow sweet to me. (Confessions, Book 6).

Adelaide Procter, the Victorian poet, probably alluding to Augustine, expressed the same thought:

I thank thee more that all our joy is touched with pain,
That shadows fall on brightest hours, that thorns remain;
So that earth’s bliss may be our guide, and not our chain.

I thank thee, Lord, that here our souls, though amply blesses,
Can never find, although they seek, a perfect rest;
Nor ever shall, until they lean on Jesus’ breast.

(From “My God, I thank thee”)

Longing for the better land

As Procter says, the shadows and thorns and frustrations are supposed to be our guide. They should make us long for a better country where there will be no more curse (Rev. 22:3). Romans 8 talks about the creation subjected to frustration (v20) and then gives the great mark of those who have the Spirit as a groaning eager waiting for the resurrection life (v23).

The New Creation is our great Christian Hope (Rom. 8:24). So let every sprained ankle and faulty laptop and dropped cake and torn dress be a little goad turning us to long for the place where there will be no more frustration, no more tarnish, no more thorns only perfection. And then may our thoughts continue on to the very greatest perfection and joy of that Land – the radiant King Jesus.

Courageously conquering the thorns

In the meantime, until we reach the New Creation, we need to be realistic that there will always be frustrations. But the great news is that these cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ (Rom. 8:35). Rather, all these things are being used for us – to inflame our longing for the resurrection and for our growth in Christ-likeness (Rom. 8:28, 31-32). And so in this way, as Piper has pointed out, we are more than conquerors (Rom. 8:37) – the thorns and weeds harnessed for our good and growth.

Perhaps this is mostly about a change of perspective. As G K Chesterton observed:

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

I need to see the traffic jam or the papers dropped in a puddle as a faith adventure rather than a useless waste of time. There will be frustrations till we reach the heavenly kingdom but each of these mini-mountains can be scaled and overcome. The wise gardener doesn’t bluster at or get depressed by the ever growing weeds, he simply attacks them with gusto as part of the job.

Moving forward in mission

One problem with everything being a bit… imperfect is that it can paralyze us when it comes to moving forward in gospel ministry. I was talking to a brother a few years ago (now a senior minister of a Nairobi church) about mission trips he had done to S Sudan. He was explaining the frustration in not being able to speak the local language there and particularly the frustration that he suspected one of the translators had not been faithfully translating everything he was saying. This led onto a wider discussion about frustrations in gospel ministry. What do you do when things are not quite right? The church leadership structure is not quite right; the small group leaders are not very well trained; the quality of theological education is not brilliant; the resources are lacking…

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In response this brother gave the illustration of a battered, old, badly-maintained car. It’s wheels are all going in slightly different directions, it’s rattling and stuttering, but it will move. The thing is you can wait until everything is perfect – the perfect training programme, the perfect people, the perfect education, the perfect church, the perfect cross-cultural mission preparation, the perfectly crafted sermon – but it’s not going to happen. We’re in an imperfect world under the curse of frustration. That’s not a recipe for settling for poor quality or ungodliness or theological compromise or slackness or foolishness – we need to keep fighting those things and prepare as well as possible – but it is just to recognise that sometimes you need to say, that’s good enough for now, and put the key in the ignition and move forward with what you’ve got, hopefully improving things as you go.

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