my life and my doctrine

I know it’s not on my reading list, but I’ve recently finished reading Kent and Barbara Hughes’ book Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. Though I’m only in my first year of full time paid ministry, I think this is a helpful book to warn and encourage me about how to approach a life of ministry. It’s a book that stems from ‘a dark night of the soul’ twenty years into their ministry which cause them to reflect on what success in ministry is all about.

They helpfully outline seven definitions of what success in ministry should look like: faithfulness, serving, loving, believing, prayer, holiness and attitude. While most of these are obvious things, it was helpful to consider each of them individually and assess my life and attitude. A realisation I came to, which I’d arrived at previously in my life, is that what God wants me to be is a godly mature Christian. This must be my first and foremost goal. It has the following implications:

1. My identity is not to be found in my ministry. I needed to remind myself that who I am is a child of God, not an evening church minister.
2. My worth is not to be found in my ministry. Being in ministry is not some kind of boost to self-esteem. On the contrary, the more I watch and hear from faithful, long term servants of the gospel is that this is an incredibly naive thought to have. Yet it is easy to feel better about myself in response to how people react and respond to my ministry. This shouldn’t be the case.
3. My maturity is not to be found in my ministry. Well, this is sort of true and sort of not. If I grow in maturity, this will hopefully be reflected in the people I minister to. Yet others may grow more mature as the Holy Spirit works in them and this be no reflection on me. To look for maturity in others and then assume personal maturity is putting the cart before the horse. However, I do suspect that over time, the more I mature, the more I learn, the more others will learn from me. I certainly know this is the case in preaching. If I’ve been particularly challenged in preparing a sermon, not only will this come through in the content of what I preach, it will come through in my manner as I preach.

They continue with five areas where we can gain encouragement: from God, the call, the ordinary, fellow workers and reward. I intend to post again about my thoughts and reflections of my call to ministry. It certainly prompted much discussion with my wife.

So, please pray for me, and others you know involved in ministry, that we may be faithful, holy  servants who love, trust and pray for those under our care.