Taking on the role of a paid-staff minister can be daunting. There are profound responsibilities, opinionated demands, and meaningful opportunities; each insisting we apply our best wisdom for success. I share with you a breakthrough which has positively impacted my work for a couple of decades now.
I learned to believe in God in other people. Until such revelation, I liked (and even loved) others but felt they could not come through with the important stuff at the level I could. How naïve (and self-centered, but don’t tell me I said that in front of my back). How mistaken. The Spirit gifts believers. Every member may have 95% or 65% miscue about them, but we each contain 5% or 35% gift from him.
A secret worth exploring: if we can believe our people are gifted and pool our giftedness instead of our miscuedness, we will see a church family explode in the peaceful, happy productivities of God. A shift must be made to emphasize the gifts from God instead of the failures of man. What ministers need to do is believe in the God in the people more than believing he or she is the only one who can do the work correctly.
We are mistaken if we think we see something valuable but no one else in the kingdom will see and follow through. We are off center if we think our people don’t want to apply themselves in church life. They do. It may be we have not given them opportunity because we considered ourselves to be the main guy and, in our minds, the main guy does the main work.
Your flock will come through. God is in them. It’s a guy here and there like me ambitious to see the church flourish, but stifling the gifted talent, who holds the church back. The members aren’t indifferent. They are blocked….by one mistakenly believing he is the main man.
The main-man-role has already been set. His name is Emmanuel. Move over. Let him be the head of the church. You? Learn alongside me to stay out of the way of His great and intentional works. The Main Man lives....at the very place we work!
1 comment:
AMEN.
I believe if we can learn to treat others like we want them to be, not like we expect them to be, they will be so much better. Perhaps that would be good advice for ourselves if only we didn't already see ourselves as the "main-man". It is amazing how much other can do if you will let them do it and not expect them to do it the way you would have. In fact, on rare occassions, they may even do it BETTER than you would have!
-James C. Guy
Monroe, LA
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