Silver Bullet Ministry Kills
Posting on a Friday has never been a good idea for me. No one reads blogs on Fridays or Saturdays or Sundays. So, I may re-post this on Tuesday, but just felt like I needed to put this out there.
In ministry I always tried to look for the Silver Bullet. Made famous by the tales of werewolves I wanted to hunt down and kill ministry for the sake of fame, fortune, and self. I wanted to find THE Way to do the ministry and then settle into a routine. What I have discovered is that there are no silver bullets.
A Way may exist, but it will likely change for the next person to whom you need to minister, or it will change in a year or at the most two. In essence, my passionate search for Silver Bullets killed my ability to do ministry. Now that I am beginning to accept that a couple of things become absolutely clear about ministry.
1. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then the necessity to be a lifelong learner becomes a must.
2. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then you need to get some help. The older you get the more you already know how things work in the world. It’s called cynicism. The younger you are the less you care about how, and the more passionate you are about what needs to happen. My job becomes guiding passion, and in the mean time I might even regain some passion. I’ve quoted Seth Godin’s views bellow on this subject.
3. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do! I mean if how you do ministry changes with every person, or every year, then you need to pray. Pray for yourself, pray for your help, pray for those you help and who help you.
This is the hardest discipline for me to take time to do because I am a do guy. I mean I pray during my commute so I can get two things done at once. Sad, isn’t it. I’m in the process of letting Jesus change that in me.
4. There is a whole lot of freaking work to do…in me! Do not lose sight of the fact that while in the process of serving others you neglect what the Spirit is saying to you about what needs to change in you.
5. Don’t let the amount of work trump the individual. In ministry we cannot be led to do something in order to get the most bang for our buck. We must be able to be present with people, and more specifically with one person. It’s the spiritual discipline of fellowship, and if we choose to give our affection to the event over the person, then we have made the wrong choice. I need to read what I just wrote every day.
A newly-retired executive takes a job as an adjunct professor and really shakes things up. Both the school and the students are blown away by her fresh thinking and new approaches.A forty-year old internet executive who has been running his company for decades misses one new trend after another, because he’s still living in 1998.
One thing that happens to management when they get senior is that they get stuck. (As we saw with the new professor, senior isn’t about old, it’s about how long you’ve been there).
If you’ve been doing it forever, you discover (but may not realize) that the things that got you this power are no longer dependable.
Reliance on the tried and true can backfire (Rupert keeps missing one opportunity after another, and keeps misunderstanding the medium he works in) or it can (rarely) pay off (Steve Jobs keeps repeating the same business model again and again–it’s not an accident that Apple has no real online or social media footprint. Steve believes in beautifully designed objects, closed systems and evangelizing to developers and creatives).
Worth quoting–one of Arthur C. Clarke’s lesser known three laws: “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.”
The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior…
In Honor of Mom
When parents are alive we kids tend to reflect on many of the negatives. I know I have tended to relay how much I didn’t necessarily appreciate some of my childhood experiences. However, as my Mom courageously battles cancer with my father always at her side I have been regretful of how little I have recounted the very good times, and most of them were very good.
In reality, my parents did what was most important for me and that was expose me to and encourage me in my faith. Through their influence, especially Mom’s, we children were at just about every church function possible. Mom continually volunteered, and often drug us along. I can remember being drug to the homes of the elderly to deliver birthday cakes and sing happy birthday to those long forgotten. I really didn’t want to go and couldn’t wait for it to be over, but now I relish the memory and the woman who made me do that.
I remember my alcoholic little league football coach taking jabs at me about being a choir boy. Mom picked me up early every Wednesday from football practice so I could attend the children’s choir practice at church. I hated it then, but now, I’m very glad she did it. I’m glad my football coach took some shots at me too. Others remember her compassion as well. A childhood friend reminded me earlier this year of the chocolate chip cookies Mom baked for him right after his mother died of cancer when we were in Middle School.
That’s my Mom. Like a bulldog she seldom backed down from her convictions or in her protection of her children. She also never wavered in her care and while she hated we were all grown and in less need of it she has always been ready to offer plenty of advice on how to take care of ourselves, our spouses, and our children. She has been a great gift.
As her first born she understandably has some regrets in how she raised me as I do and will with my first born. Nothing can erase the memories of those events, but nothing is better than to be forgiven. And today I publicly pronounce that I forgive my parents for anything that they might have done wrong. In the end, they got the most important thing right. They gave me a legacy of faith in the matchless Son of God, Jesus the Nazarene, our King, who in the end will bring her home when He desires and who will most likely receive her grand children, and her grand children’s grandchildren.
I love you Mom, and I’m thankful for the privilege of being your son. I hope Jesus does a miraculous work and lets you stick around a few more years, but if He doesn’t I’m glad we have a hope that this is not the end.
Lessons From San Quentin
In light of my sermon this past weekend at Harmony Christian I thought this Post By Jud Wilhite, pastor of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, @ POTSC was appropriate. Coming to peace with your circumstances is another way of saying, “I’ve traded puzzles.”
I’m enjoying a book by Bill Dallas on second chances called Lessons from San Quentin. At one point he asked a veteran prison guard what would happen if an earthquake hit and all the walls crumbled.The guard said, “Every short-timer in here would run for the hills like there is no tomorrow…. Death row guys would be shufflin’ out of the gates in their ankle restraints as fast as they could…. And the Lifers who have made peace with themselves would stay right here. They wouldn’t run. In fact, I’d bet that most of them would immediately search through the rubble to help the injured. They know they‘ll leave this place when their time is up. They’ll walk out the front door with dignity.”
I love how he says the Lifers have made peace with themselves. These are second chance people. And after spending years in San Quentin himself, Dallas makes a point that the short-timers are often so focused on getting out, and on what they hate about their surroundings, that they don’t really experience change from the brokenness. But the Lifers are broken by it. In San Quentin they become the life-givers, encouraging others, caring about others and many experiencing transformation through a relationship with God.
How about me? Am I allowing my own struggles to drive me to God to see his transformation and grace? Or, am I so focused on getting through it and blaming others that I receive no real benefit from the experience? How about you?
