Church and ministry have been hot topics in my mind for a while as my involvement in church work has increased exponentially. I often combine those two, church and ministry as it is a natural combination. However, they don’t necessarily need to be combined.

The issue, as my leadership in the church has increased, my involvement in direct ministry in the church has declined. As a “hands on” guy, this is frustrating. Sure, I like the planning and “being in the know”, but, to replace my actual involvement with countess hours spent in meetings… I am in the midst of thinking that indeed, that planning, that leadership IS ministry. It’s extremely hard to have any organization, any “two or more gathered” without having leadership behind that. Am I “called” to be a leader? I’ve been trained, through environment growing up and through my relationship with God that when I see a need, it’s my “job” to see that need met. So, yes, I feel called. Sometimes we put way to much emphasis on the “calling”part as if there’s this magical utopian empowerment that happens when we are (insert voice of a famous deep voiced preacher here) “called”. Perhaps God just wants us to just do the right thing. He wants us to do our best with what He has given us.

That all said, I’ve found the bi-monthly Executive Team (we affectionately call it Jedi Council) meetings to be the most valuable; in terms of getting things done and in terms of feeling like my involvement is actually having an impact, is hinting at that “direct ministry” level. My involvement in the whole building thing is taking a toll. I’m not sure we’re actually ready to embark on a project that has us tripling our space without a plan for how that space is really to be used for ministry or even what God is “calling” our church to be. At this point, it just feels like space.

Now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably get in trouble for making these thoughts “public”.

On the flip side of some of those thoughts, I see that perhaps my eyes are a bit blinded, even using my logic for being “called” as outlined above. If we use that logic, to just do our best and to do the right thing, perhaps this space is exactly what we need. I’m coming to accept that our church will most likely never become a “rock n roll” church. So, LED and intelligent lights? Maybe not. Perhaps we’ll wire for a few PAR cans that never actually get rented/purchased and we’ll call it good. The proverbial “beauty” I see in a structure isn’t where our church is. The first step to recovery is realizing we have a problem. And maybe that first step fro me (for our church) is to realize what we actually are, in spite of it feeling like a cop out.

Can we be “called” to be more than we presently are? Sure. Do we wait for God to give us that calling? Do we seek after it? Do we ask questions to push us to make determinations? Do we accept status quo? Do we change for change sake?

To be continued…

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