Randy posted some sad statistics he got from Jared’s post at The Thinklings this morning. Though Jared rightly calls for more encouragement for our ministry leaders, I think Randy’s title, “Death By Ministry,” makes a much more salient point. Ministry kills, and it must be stopped.
I’m half joking when I say that, but only half. One of the best decisions I ever made was getting into ministry because I found out what God made me to do. One of the best decisions I ever made was getting out of ministry; I left because God made me to do ministry and that wasn’t what I was doing when I was in ministry.
Doesn’t make sense? Welcome to the world of fifty to eighty five percent of full time ministry professionals; good people, faithful people, disciples who have chosen a vocation that slowly eats them alive. True, there are many pastors who just kind of take up space in their churches. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about people who want (or did want at one time) to make disciples and help them live into God’s call for their lives. In my own limited experience, those are the ones who are most likely to get frustrated and leave. Because they were never qualified in the first place? I don’t buy that. It’s because the church we have isn’t qualified as a place of discipleship. Whether or not it ever was is a fair question but one I’m not much interested in anymore.
Randy’s right about the church needing a biblical model of ministry. In fact she needs a biblical idea of church, the one she has (yes, generalizing, live with it) is not. If your church is one of those where the pastor is happy and encouraged and leading a congregation that is a community of disciple makers, by all means stay there. If not, well at least you’re not alone. You probably feel like you’re alone a lot, especially if you’re on the staff of that church, but you’re not.
We don’t train people effectively for ministry (which is admittedly hard to do since you only learn by doing it) and then when we stick them in churches they’re confronted with a situation they weren’t trained for and which also is not ministry. And we wonder why they get frustrated and leave? I don’t. Not anymore. I left.
And I may go back, who knows. But I’ll be older and wiser and unwilling to put up with anything less than a community that loves one another other in the name of Jesus.
Or else, if I may borrow from Tony Campolo, “I’ll preach that church down to four!”
How ’bout it… I mean, amen.
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June 20, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Stacy
Extremely well said, I think, but if you’re going to “preach it down to 4″ I hope the church’s government is such that you can do it. So many are set up to rip the carpet out from under the minister’s feet if the going gets tough.
June 20, 2007 at 2:55 pm
jvjannotti
If I become a pastor I will be bi-vocational and my wife will be working as well. Ministry will never again be my sole source of income. That’s a part of the current system that needs to change… there’s too much pressure to bend with the gusts of hot air if the church is your only means of support.
June 20, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Janie
My husband uses the school analogy.
You know – the one where you can’t fit into the school desks anymore? You can’t go back, you can’t fit…if you’ve had ears to hear and eyes to see….
Like, you’re in school, and there is an expectation that you will graduate.
What then?
You go forth.
And be.
June 20, 2007 at 10:01 pm
jvjannotti
And if God says “Go back to school.” What then? Don’t say he doesn’t say that either cause I’ll just throw Moses at you.
August 6, 2007 at 12:20 pm
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