Just a few weeks ago, I fell victim again to a destructive habit. I violated my own rule. I tried to do ministry alone. By the end of that day, I was exhausted, frustrated, feeling Augustine waves of desolation and wondering why in the world I have said yes to ministry. There was a heady confusion or maybe it was feeling off-kilter. I was feeling overcome by the weight of ministry. It took me walking away and sitting with God in my car on a drive to figure out what in the world was wrong with me. He showed me quite plainly and tenderly that I had tried to do ministry by myself.
It almost took me by surprise, because I had approached that day fully understanding what needed to get done. Here's what ministry is going to require today.There was planning, visioneering, aligning, interpreting data...let me stop there. You get it. As a leader you understand the words "need" and "get done." Yet, here's a leadership lesson that I have learned along the way, even in light of "need" and "get done": The silent killer in ministry is thinking we can, or have to, do it on our own.
Grab on to this truth: There are no ministry rock stars.
Ministry is just too big. Ministry, in its very nature is God-sized, and so one person can't play every role. We try to. Time is short. The vision is huge and the strategy demands a right-now action. We have relational equity, so people will go along well enough with what we desire to achieve. While we aren't gifted in 10 critical areas that would make this truly excellent, we are gifted in 2 and those are visible enough to get the job done. We can't slow down long enough to teach or guide someone else to shape their gifting so we have a partner, but we have just enough time to do it ourselves. It may stretch us thin or neglect our soul, but we can get it done.
Ministry leaders are guilty of trying to be rock stars, but we are also guilty of perpetuating this false idea. You find talent, one person who is really gifted that has a few ministry victories, and assign them the rock star role. They handle it well because they are driven or activators or achievers. Leaders applaud the rock star, giving them praise and rewarding their solo act. "Look at what they do for the ministry!" Rock stars become the go-to people. They are valued for what they can do, but slowly lose who they are because they work at things that are not who they are at all. They can pull it off, too. While I believe there are high capacity leaders, this is unsustainable. Rock stars work harder to keep their stage--because if they fail to keep the stage, then they will be known for what they really are, and their audience with its applause and approval and maybe even their stage will go away altogether.
What happens to people that have to sustain the rock star role? You tell me. Chances are you are reading this not because you have rock stars, but because you were one. Were. Until you realized that being a rock star is not God's plan for you or ministry. I have met a lot of has-been rock stars that were either broken in ministry or wised-up and set boundaries, or left the stage altogether.
If there are no rock stars, what's God's way?
Every Paul needs a Barnabas...and a Timothy...and a Titus...and a Luke. Every Moses needs a Jethro (and a Joshua!). Every Elijah needs an Elisha. Nehemiah's have Ezra's. And Jesus sent the disciples out to minister in pairs. We were not designed to do ministry alone.
God's word speaks to the fact that no one part of the Body is better than another. Each part does it's own job. Which part of the body wants to do the job of another or take the jobs of several? Which part could? An eye is an eye. A hand is a hand. We were given the full Spirit, but specific gifts. Not all the gifts, so that we can have humility and community. Together with other parts, we can be one amazing moving, ministering Body. Alone? It's like finding a finger on the sidewalk. It's somewhat shocking, repulsive, and no one has a clue who it belongs to. Moreover, it doesn't work separated from the hand, arm, body, and Head. Doing ministry alone doesn't work.
Consider it with me this way. There's a lot of construction on the way to my church. Crews of men work to build homes. They are skillful, and they work fast, each doing his part, but working together. Their work as a crew makes one beautiful home. There's this house on the same route that has been under construction for years. I'll say at least seven years for sure. One wiry man works on this house. From the looks of it, he has a big dream home planned. It's taking forever, and the older yet still unfinished parts are rotting. It's not livable, and it's an eye sore. It appears he and others may even live in a part of it, although I am not sure how it has passed any code to be occupied. There's a new set of plywood on what will or would be a roof, and all I can see is that it will rot too. Because he's alone in his work, when he's done, it will already be falling apart.
How many of us are working with others to build on the foundation Christ laid for us, functioning as a crew? And how many of us are rock stars with big dreams for a big structure, trying to pull off the building on our own? It can't be done. It wasn't meant to be done. It's not livable. It may, in the end, fall apart. If not it, then we might be the thing that falls apart.
So, I got off my self-appointed stage and called a friend. An encourager, a listener, a dreamer, a blind spot seer, a brain-stormer, and a hands on helper. I took all my tools and materials and ideas and blueprints, and laid them in front of her. Then, I, together with she, became we. We found more and became a bigger we. A team. A crew. There's still "need" and "get done," but it will happen, and I will be whole and free to minister and lead as God designed me to, because, I am not a rock star. I am a part of the Body.
Just another seed of my faith,
Ginny
