Running a Ministry

God may call you to lead in professional ministry.

The qualifications of elders are more severe than general spiritual mentors (i.e., “deacons”) (Titus 1:5-9, 1 Timothy 3:1-13):

  • Has a clean public reputation through established habits that reinforce their beliefs.
  • Clear with their words, and not dishonest.
  • Faithful to their spouse, with their spouse also having a clean public reputation.
  • Their children are also believers that haven’t been accused of being wasteful or rebellious.
  • Slow to anger.
  • Free of any substance abuse.
  • Doesn’t love power for its own sake, especially money.
  • Soundly understands the Bible as he was taught.

No matter what you do, prioritize your family, especially your wife and children.

  • Your children will see your private life more than anyone else you lead, and how you treat them is the most controllable thing you can do for your ministry’s legacy.
  • In any ministry, leaders’ wives are the most vulnerable because others expect her performance, but don’t tend to give her much support.

Don’t assume a larger leadership role until you have experience teaching and mentoring (1 Timothy 3:2).

God Should Want It

Carefully evaluate why you want to engage in public ministry.

Before taking the plunge, have the wisdom to count the cost.

  • Consider the relationships you’ll likely gain and lose, your affiliations and professional network, necessary lifestyle changes, and likely sacrifices.
  • Examine the financial shift to your lifestyle.
    1. Think about all your likely future needs and research their costs.
    2. Make a budget that doesn’t veer into extreme poverty or opulence.
    3. Even when it doesn’t look like enough, ask what you already have (God can use anything).
    4. Consider whom to share your need with (asking money from others is an act of faith).
    5. Give the rest you can’t determine or don’t know to God.
  • To serve the spiritual needs of others, you should have your own spiritual state sorted out.
  • God uses our inertia far more than our inaction, so look at what you can start now.

Your financial lifestyle will change, but if it’s His plan He’ll give meaning through that change.

  • Live with a modest family budget, especially if your lifestyle will be funded by others’ donations.
  • Keep giving to serve His church as He leads you.
  • God has promised He’ll give many, many resources for your success by following Him (Psalm 37).

Never live far above or below the lifestyles of the people you serve and lead.

  • Your car, house, and lifestyle are tools to assist with guiding people to Jesus.
  • Do not compare yourself to others.
  • Learn satisfaction with Jesus ruling your finances.

Ministry Types

At its core, a church is simply a gathering of believers (Matthew 18:20).

  • The only major differences between churches are either cultural or legal.
  • This definition is broad enough to include things people often do not understand to be churches:
    • Charitable organizations
    • Media networks run by Christians
    • Thrift store chains
    • Christian music concerts
    • Parachurch and ecumenical organizations
  • To put it another way, a Christ-like church is simply any gathering of people who have performed Christ-like habits long enough that their shared habits have fostered a culture to arise from it.
    • That Christian culture will be the hybrid of their culture of origin mixed with a sincere Christian identity.
    • The conventional term for “church” is more accurately a “worship-based church”.

There are several ways to approach a new ministry venture:

  1. Scope out an articulated plan, inspired directly from secular not-for-profit organizations, then adapt as things change (a typical approach for wealthy cultures).
  2. Trust God entirely for the experience and act directly on what the Holy Spirit says (a typical approach for persecuted churches).
  3. Attempt to rebuild everything from the ground up (typical for churches less concerned about engaging everyone in a community or with trust issues).

If you must register your ministry with the government (e.g., 501(c)3 status), you should have a clear scope of what your primary activities are.

  • You often have to classify it differently depending on what your primary activity is.
  • Many times, it’s the distinction between a “ministry-based church” or “church-based ministry”, but it’s all according to that government’s requirements, and is somewhat arbitrary.
  • Bear in mind any risks from persecution in how you indicate the ministry’s activities.

Leadership Skills

Keep working hard and consistently, even when you don’t see results.

  • Sometimes, for the sake of the ministry, consider a side job, especially at the beginning (Acts 18:1-4).
  • A minister’s work never ends, so enjoy any rest, even a few hours.

Get other believers to assist you in diligently praying and fasting.

Your necessary range of skills will change as you grow.

Don’t over-reach your specialization.

  • If you’re experiencing any fatigue, you’re probably acting outside the range of your spiritual gifts.
  • Ask for wisdom on what to do (James 1:5-6):
    1. Ask a believer more gifted in that capacity who can help you with it instead.
    2. Brainstorm a creative way around it (e.g., avoiding a specific project entirely that’s not mission-critical).
    3. If nobody can help, ask Him directly to grant you the power to perform the tasks you’re trying to accomplish (1 Corinthians 14:1).

Even when the results fail your expectations, trust He will provide an increase when you need it.

  • Your entire reason for working a ministry is for Jesus to be at the center of it.
  • God wants your ministry to fit a specific group of people He planned out in advance, so don’t concern yourself as much with results as what He wants.

Working with People

Keep your long-term focus on the large-scale impact on the Body of Christ.

  • The first priority of the Church is to make disciples everywhere, with all Christian organizations operating in various capacities to that end.

A spiritual leader’s job has 4 components:

  1. Advertise and teach the message of Christ.
  2. Connect people with other people in the global Church.
  3. Foster a culture for believers to Love each other inside the group as spiritual family.
  4. Perform discipleship of their own.

Every ministry leader is responsible to foster a culture for believers to act in the world:

  • Show the world’s needs, especially the ones members can meet.
  • Provoke everyone in the group to fulfill those needs.

A healthy ministry should heal and equip believers.

Contrary to popular belief, the ministry system itself will not help believers grow.

  1. Any ministry will provoke individuals to contribute their efforts to it.
  2. Those individuals’ efforts are the means of serving the needy.
  3. To that end, all ministries should work to perform several possible objectives:

Play political chess very sparingly.

  • When you have power, it’s very easy to misuse it without meaning to.
    • Think of absolutely every person who could be harmed by your actions.
    • Sometimes, the wisest decision may involve coercion or deception, but trust God’s wisdom for it.
  • Using power itself isn’t evil, but becomes evil as soon as it’s unloving.
  • Leaders can often abuse core group members by forgetting that they’re volunteers or have a life outside the ministry.

Constantly communicate

Learn effective communication.

Any spiritual leadership role conveys the power of Scripture, so keep reading it.

  • Avoid jargon which alienates people from simple truths.
  • Stay focused on Christ and the Gospel, no matter how much your education and culture tell you otherwise (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Beyond teaching, you and your wife will be openly mentoring everyone in the group while also fostering a smaller “core” group.

Share your ministry’s success with the members.

  • To inspire members to continue serving, tell stories of successful missions and ministry work.
  • Find the positive, inspiring side of stressful situations and tension.
  • At the same time, be realistic, and never lie or embellish the stories.

Avoid any barriers in communication between leaders and the congregation.

  • The congregation should be as much or more involved in the ministry’s operations as the leadership.
  • Create opportunities for members, especially the youth, to voice opinions, ideas, and concerns.
  • Openly show the state of your ministry’s finances.

Members’ demography

Every ministry critically needs 4 specific demographics of people involved in running it:

  1. Wage earners
  2. Missionaries/ministers
  3. Poor/needy
  4. Manna people

A. Wage earners constitute the majority of a ministry’s strength.

  • Their careers in other specializations mean they’re less involved in daily ministry operations, but will be more free to contribute to needs.
    • Individually, they don’t appear to be a significant portion of the ministry, but their contributions are most of the driving force of the ministry’s projects.
  • Since vocational ministers live off donations, they have a cultural disconnect with wage earners:
    • They frequently overlook wage earners’ financial and career needs.
    • Their increased education in theological/ministry matters frequently provokes them to believe their position is more important.
    • They tend to distrust when the wage earners want to be more involved in ministry operations beyond donations.
  • Ask them for funds without any pressure.
    • Tell them to ask God themselves about meeting the available needs.
    • Describe the events as they actually are right now, without embellishment.
    • Clearly articulate what you want to see, and how their donation is a means to that end.
  • Never appeal to the sin condition through greed, fear, or donors’ pride.
    • If you want to give them recognition, do not announce it to them beforehand.
  • Appealing to guilt or pity does get money, but it invalidates any blessings God could have given them.
    • Further, while they’ll contribute more, they’ll grow to resent your ministry when they learn healthy boundaries later.

B. Missionaries/ministers are financed, at least partly, by others’ donations.

  • Their income sources vary wildly from one to the next.
  • However, they typically receive funding through a few specific routes:
    1. Annual salary, drawn from a collective ministry offering.
    2. Volunteer donations from the part-time work of making requests through calls, emails, and letters.
    3. Specific missionary/parachurch organizations that provide partial or full aid.
    4. Some of them have at least part-time day jobs (Acts 20:33-35).

C. The poor/needy will always be with us (Matthew 26:11).

  • Sometimes they’re under hardship they couldn’t have prevented, and other times they’re suffering consequences of their decisions.
    • How you treat them shows your priorities (Matthew 25:31-40).
    • While helping the poor against your better judgment can be challenging, God will still honor it.
  • They need love and nurturing care, even if they brought the entire experience on themselves.
    • All throughout the Bible, God shows tremendous patience, and we are responsible to do the same (Luke 13:34).
    • Jesus commands us to give to the poor, regardless of how they became poor (Matthew 5:42).
    • We should only withhold aid to help other needy people, never to punish them.
  • At the same time, we’re also responsible to be wise with what we have.
    • If a minister isn’t careful, their money will advance foolishness.
  1. Ask if they have a crisis.
    • A genuine crisis means that any inaction will create severe adverse consequences.
    • If it’s not a crisis, that person has time to act on their own.
  2. Note how much they claim personal responsibility for their crisis.
    • Every crisis is a mixture of bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances.
  3. Examine how much they can legitimately help themselves.
    • If they can help themselves, even partially, empower them to support themselves.
    • If possible, give them the means to work for themselves.
  4. Never do for people what they can do for themselves!
    • It takes away from others who may need your help.
    • You rob them of the meaning they would have found through solving their own problems.
  5. If helping them isn’t within your power, ask their permission to share the need and publicly ask the ministry for help.
    • The Body of Christ needs giving opportunities to grow.
    • Ironically, as ministries grow larger they tend to give fewer public requests for help.
  6. Prepare for backlash if you set any boundaries.
    • Professional beggars are very skilled at influencing others to feel guilt and pity.
    • If you need, stay legally safe with a system that formally records the conversation involving their request.

D. God directly supplies some “manna people” without any reasonable explanation.

  • These people receive God’s daily provision from strange places.
    • Witnessing their lifestyle is a legitimately entertaining experience.
  • God rarely gives without others’ involvement because He wants to show how giving is better than receiving.
    • He wants members to trust each other and the Holy Spirit to heal and grow together.

Working with Things

Discipline yourself about money matters.

  1. Don’t worry about money issues, but be aware of them.
  2. Set priorities with money you have and might have.
  3. Diligently and responsibly take care of your needs first (1 Timothy 5:17-18, 2 Timothy 2:6).
  4. Invest money instead of hoarding it to see it grow character and God’s kingdom.

Stay on top of any logistical needs to avoid wasting time for others or incurring extra costs.

Stay legally safe to make persecution more difficult for the government to justify.

  • Unless they’re asking for the names of each member, register and file your organization if the government expects it.
  • Avoid any potentially questionable practices that don’t honor the spirit of the law (e.g., tax evasion with cash receipts).
    • Remember that God rules us all, and He will repay any mistreatment of you if you were doing the right thing (1 Peter 2:11-19).
  • Members of your organization might commit sins that are culturally taboo, so clearly establish a non-disparagement clause on any contracts with workers.
  • Avoid complete submission to the authorities, since we still must use wisdom against evil (Matthew 10:16).

Running a ministry requires the same logistics as most other large organizations:

  • People who direct the crowds like ushers or greeters.
  • Technology managers like media and IT professionals.
  • Public speakers to present God’s message and share truths.
  • Musicians and performers to lead everyone in group worship music.
  • Recordkeepers like accountants and office workers.

Distributing Content

Distribute all public content with open licensing.

  • There is absolutely zero spiritual benefit in maintaining full copyright on everything you create.
    • If you wish to make money on a creative product, make that explicitly clear and avoid letting the for-profit motives interfere with your ministry’s purposes.
  • To prevent future licensing issues, release all documents as Creative Commons.
  • If you have overhead and distribution costs the organization can’t easily absorb, give a “suggested donation” amount that’s about twice the expected cost to manufacture.

Publicly show your financial statements.

  • While it’s often required by law, showing where the money goes generates trust with the donors and reduces risks of corruption with finances.
  • Since donors will ask, keep close track as it happens on where the money goes.
  • However, you will need to obfuscate any aspects where persecution may be a risk (e.g., distributing illegal Bibles).

Conflicts

After becoming established, most leaders tend to distrust new ideas.

  • At that point, they’ve forgotten their role as a messenger and curator and see themselves as an authority on a subject.
  • However, what they often find uncomfortable is a matter of personal preference or theological semantics.
  • When leaders distrust, they inspire the entire group to become distrustful.
    • Unless it’s heresy, rejecting people with different viewpoints begins precedent that can lead to a cult-like culture.

Healthy conflict management means you may have to exile some people from a group.

  • Disciplinary action in the Church is very clear, and leads to 4 possible outcomes (Matthew 18:15-20):
    1. Reconciliation among everyone in spirit and truth, which should be the ultimate aim (John 4:24).
    2. The leader is ejected/defrocked from their formal ministry status, which strengthens the Body through a public lesson on how sinful behaviors and vices will destroy us.
    3. The leader is ejected/defrocked, but they didn’t sin, meaning 50-70% of the group will leave with that leader.
    4. The situation was complicated, and the leader has gained allies, and 10-30% of the group will leave or back away from involvement in the church.
  • If the heresy is bad enough, know ahead of time how to deal with it, and be prepared to create a church split if necessary.
    • The risks of social pushback mean most churches do not have plans in place on how to exile their members.
    • At the same time, some churches veer into the other extreme and exile people over stupid conflicts.

Make sure you demarcate between God’s opinion and yours.

  • It’s inevitable that your opinion will differ from God’s, since you don’t see exactly as He sees.
  • When you’re a leader, people will weigh your opinion as having relevance, irrespective of whether God officially holds it or not.
  • However, speaking on behalf of God about something He didn’t overtly say is a very subtle form of heresy, and can get you in trouble long-term.

At any time, be prepared to step down.

  • You should step down from your role and release it to someone else for any of the following reasons:
    • Your family needs you.
    • Your children have shown themselves as rebellious.
    • You’ve become absolutely exhausted in your ministry role.
    • You’ve become an addict.
    • You’ve found out you practice at least some heresy.
  • It may seem like you’re still doing God’s work, but you’re sabotaging His plans when you do.

Growth

Ministries scale like any other secular organization.

  • They grow through an exponential pattern because each person is drawing from their existing social networks from before their involvement in that ministry.
  • A two-minute once-a-month task can slowly adapt to a full-time job for one person.

Never try growing faster than God has planned.

Social Effects

Generally, a ministry loses its personal connection at around 60 members.

  • Beyond that point, they will either segment into separate groups or the entire ministry model must adapt by splitting apart into autonomous entities.

If there isn’t an intentional split, the most influential members of a ministry will form into a core group.

  • Core group members submit themselves under ministry leaders who lead by example, or they become their own spiritual leader elsewhere.
  • Your core group are the only people who you can trust to be following Jesus, and they determine how much actual ministry service you can do.

Once a ministry has a core group, most leaders have major trust issues with “outsiders”.

  • They’re not trusting the unknown that God requires them to accept.
  • When they stop accepting new ideas and new believers into necessary roles, the ministry will start to decline.

Logistics

Have a plan for your ministry outgrowing its venue.

  • The Bible doesn’t give much guidance on how to manage growth.
  • Though you must trust God, not planning becomes management crisis through intentional ignorance.

Most conventional ministries move into progressively larger buildings.

  • Moving into a larger building has risks:
    • Members (especially new ones) usually experience the ministry more impersonally.
    • As membership grows, leaders must learn new skills to adapt.
    • Scaling systems together in one building can stifle God’s work.
  • Growing together also has benefits:
    • Large ministry events are easier to coordinate.
    • The whole group can easily work together on ministries.
    • Leaders can thoroughly and quickly manage large-scale conflicts.

Some ministries split when their venue gets too small.

  • Splitting has risks:
    • Restructuring the organization often has intense challenges and often causes permanent divisions.
    • Distributed systems always have points of potential failure.
    • Large-scale conflicts often lead to bitter, permanent divisions.
  • Splitting off has profound benefits:
    • The ministry stays personal for every single member.
    • It prolongs staying small, which avoids the challenges from large organizations.
    • The added service variety lets the ministry reach more individuals.

Bylaws & Rules

Typically, once any ministry grows beyond a few dozen people, it’ll need some bylaws to clarify the rules for how to do everything.

A ministry’s formalized documentation represents its moral stance.

  • Take your rules very seriously, since God will hold you accountable for it (Luke 17:1-2).
  • Never accept or condone sins, and never condemn loving actions or Christlike behavior.

Enduring Hardship

Like believers, ministries need hardship to grow.

Because we don’t usually like discomfort or risk, the non-persecuted Church is often at risk for complacency.

  • In countries with almost no persecution, most congregations are filled with moralistic non-believers.
  • God lets conveniences occasionally fail to help His Body remember why they gather.
  • A healthy ministry should make non-believers feel a distinct type of discomfort (John 13:35).

Needs vs. Wants

Draw a clear line between needs and conveniences.

Needs are whatever Scripture commands and necessary for the Church to operate.

  • Music that sings praise to the Lord (Psalm 33:1-13).
  • In-reach – Teaching or discipleship through preaching and Bible study (Titus 2:7-8).
  • Outreach – Opportunities for evangelism and other ministries, sending missionaries and ministers, and minister elections.
    • In most conventional churches, this is the public weekly congregation.
  • Communion/ Eucharist, public baptisms, marriages, and funerals.
  • Prayer to God, whether organization-run or with the core group.
    • Since prayer is a private experience, Scripture doesn’t outline anything on prayer groups, but should always come as an overflow of desire.
  • A communication network, which could be formal (e.g., newsletter) or informal (e.g., sewing circle).

Conveniences have benefits but can sometimes impede the ministry’s purpose.

  • Some conveniences simplify ministry operations:
    • Rooms for nursing mothers
    • Grade school and college ministries, separate Bible studies for specific age groups or demographics.
    • Contact cards and data collection.
    • Consistent weekly location in the same venue.
    • Technology to show worship music, videos or ice-breaker content.
    • Advertisements about where and when everyone meets, a website as a hub of information, and signage that indicates locations.
  • Some conveniences make the experience more pleasant:
    • Climate-controlled room, comfortable seats, interior design, and decoration.
    • Musical instruments and audio amplification technology.
    • Slideshow for lyrics and announcements, elaborate lighting.
  • Some practices try to speed up conversions to Christianity and fellowship:
    • A few minutes to greet neighboring attendees or someone at the door greeting everyone.
    • Altar calls or in-service evangelistic efforts.
      • The original persecuted Church in Acts couldn’t afford to let non-believers join their worship services.

Leadership Needs

More than anything, the most significant risk to the Church is leaven, or religiosity (Matthew 16:11).

  • Religious thinking is a type of inward bureaucracy that separates our image from reality.
  • Without that authentic connection to reality around us, we have no hope of connecting our unseen souls to an unseen God.

It’s far too common for members of a ministry community to fall into an unhealthy group pattern:

  1. They’re a volunteer or part-time worker for the group.
  2. They fail at whatever external workplace environment they were in.
  3. After a lapse in gainful employment, they find some sort of meaning out of a form of a religiousness.
  4. They eventually come to believe that their other failures are because God is calling them to professional ministry.
  5. They pursue a Bible college degree, then become a sub-leader within a ministry capacity.
  6. When other believers depend on them, they won’t have integrated their shadow far enough to provide spiritual guidance to them.
    • On occasion, they’ll build a church plant, but it’ll look the same as its parent church because they’re simply following what other people did instead of legitimately consulting God for help.

Poorly appointing leaders can create tremendous problems:

  • If someone has a poor public reputation in a specialization beyond their church, they’re in direct violation of Titus 1.
    • Formal leaders are symbols of their organization’s values, and they’re far more responsible to represent the eternal virtues of Christ than anyone else.
  • While it may seem unkind, it can protect them from a harsher punishment (James 3:1).
    • It also protects everyone else who would otherwise have been harmed by their mismanagement of the truth.
  • In short, not saying “no” to bad leadership candidates is a sin by enabling the Pharisees’ leaven.

To find a good leader, look for qualities that define any good leader, combined with spiritual strength:

For any leader, ask God what He wants you to do.

  • He won’t mislead, and will make it abundantly clear who to appoint.
  • If He doesn’t say, it may be wise to rethink whether that leadership position is even part of His plan anymore.

Each leader needs plenty of one-on-one time.

  • The complexities of teaching a new leader can’t be scaled to a classroom.
  • Without that personal time, most new leaders will learn to “fake it ’til you make it”, which creates religiousness and harms the Body worse than if they hadn’t been taught.

Financial Struggles

Financial problems remind us of our limits, and the need for us to trust others.

Check your heart to make sure you’re not sinning or disobeying God.

  • You might be reaping past sins or choices.
  • Even if you can’t find any sins, you might be too independent or conceited.

If the group is financially struggling for no apparent reason, check whether anyone in the group is sinning.

  • God only provides for us when we obey Him.
  • God wants us to be dependent on Him and interdependent with each other, not autonomous.

Make God more important than things.

  • Materialism creeps in slowly.
  • Observe whether you’re more concerned with meeting needs or learning what God wants to teach you.
  • Stay grateful and content for God’s provision.
  • Heaven’s treasures are our relationships and what God teaches us.

Live by faith, not presumption.

  • Stay in touch with God’s presence and power.
  • Observe how you’re faithful with small things.
    • God gives us the responsibility for small things before big things.
  • Give any fears about the future to Him.
  • Ask God to supply your needs, even the smallest ones.
    • Look at God, not people, to answer those needs.

Since borrowing isn’t ideal, only borrow with wisdom.

  • Only borrow what you can reasonably expect to repay.
  • Get items that have legitimate resale value to pay back your debt if you can’t meet your obligations.

Consistently and regularly tithe your money.

  • Don’t tithe where it indirectly helps your ministry.
  • Generously give beyond your tithing.

Honor all the motivational gifts

A ministry won’t function if the leaders don’t respect the congregation’s talents and motivational gifts.

Little or no teaching makes the ministry theologically vague:

  • The ministry will dismiss strong doctrine as unloving or no longer relevant.
  • Poor teachers won’t give structure for members to change and will foster complacency.
  • Thoroughly study Scripture and provoke leaders to study their Bible in-depth.

Little or no prophecy/declaration shifts the focus to good feelings and happiness:

  • Love will only communicate as sentimental affection without considering others’ long-term best interests.
  • The ministry will often look loving, but none of the members will change much, even while they’re increasing understanding.
  • While the Church will do good works, the community won’t notice because it lacks Christ’s boldness and audacity.
  • Invite more bold speakers to teach the congregation and discuss controversial issues.

Little or no encouragement/exhortation makes a ministry legalistic:

  • The community will compel people to religious action and not consider God’s grace.
  • The ministry will become overly systematic and rigid to gain God’s approval.
  • Teach much more about God’s grace and love and show by example with authentic interpersonal skills.

Little or no ruling/administration creates a chaotic mess of people that barely resembles a ministry:

  • The community will fail to form a cohesive structure and won’t organize well.
  • Expect plenty of passion with little to no action.
  • Give more responsibility to organizationally-minded people and consider more full-time staff positions.

Little or no serving fills a ministry with plenty of leaders and few volunteers:

  • Most of the leaders will be overworked and dread plans, ideas, strategies, and prayer meetings.
  • While the ministry will have many programs, they’ll be constantly begging for volunteers.
  • Emphasize the importance of serving and start ministry-wide volunteer events.

Little or no giving creates a ministry with a constant resource shortage:

  • Because very few people will give freely, the ministry will constantly ask for money and donations.
  • Over time, ministries without enough donors will become stingy about new programs and resistant to the Holy Spirit’s prompts to serve.
  • Inform the entire congregation about specific needs for specific people or circumstances.

Little or no mercy will make a harsh, callous ministry:

  • The unloving community will reject first-time attendees and people in positions of weakness.
  • Because of its disconnect with strangers, the group will stop growing.
  • Expose the congregation to extreme suffering in the surrounding region.

Little or no faith will make a ministry reluctant to hear God’s will:

  • New programs will become rare because new ideas get assaulted by benefit-cost analysis and risk assessments.
  • The only growth will come through attracting non-believers who like the comfortable atmosphere.
  • Pray for guidance and assume new risks that might backfire if God doesn’t provide.

If the ministry has more than two of the above issues from deficient motivational gifts, it might not have enough hardship.

  • Hardship brings out character and hope for groups and individuals (Romans 5:3-5).
  • In the absence of hardship, every ministry becomes a dysfunctional system.
  • Pray for God to bring hardship for spiritual growth and ask trustworthy leaders to do the same.

Watch for how believers’ constant sin condition affects the group:

  • If you want to address problems, be specific and avoid vague statements that apply to nobody.
  • The Church should transform the world more than the world can change it.
  • Magnify Christ more than condemning the world’s actions.
    • Condemning trends without a legitimate moral cause will shut off opportunities for the Gospel.
  • Focusing on the end times and the geopolitical circumstances has no spiritual gain.

Leaving Leadership

At some point, you will need to step down from leadership:

  1. At some point, your particular gifting may have run its course.
  2. It’s not uncommon to experience burnout, and it will become a spiritual risk to pursue farther (2 Timothy 2:3-7).
  3. An unknown sin (or its consequence) may have corrupted any further good you can perform in that role.
  4. The ministry may have grown far enough that it needs to diverge into specific purposes.
  5. Eventually, you will be too old to maintain the ministry as needed.

If it’s God ministry, He’ll bring new leadership or give guidance on what to do with the ministry.

  • In a similar mode to parenting, how we hand off ministry is the final test of our trust in God.
  • Often, the hardship we experience (see above) is His efforts to separate us from any idolatry we may have within the work.

When someone else takes over, they will adapt the ministry differently than you had.

God appoints everything in its time, and we will suffer if we’re given more time to see how things may unwind (2 Kings 20).