This week marks my 10th year in ministry.
That’s a decade.
That makes me feel really old. It also amazes me that I made it this long!
Some days it seems just like yesterday and other days I feel like I’ve been doing this work forever. Regardless, it has been an amazing decade and I’m thankful for the opportunity God has blessed me with to serve the churches and ministries I’ve had the privilege of serving.
I started in ministry as an 18-year-old, right out of high school. I had no formal training but simply had a heart to serve the Church. I learned what I know in the trenches of everyday experience and am thankful I had a church and a pastor who believed in investing in and empowering the next generation of church leaders.
I could not have imagined what God had in store for me and am in awe of the amazing opportunities, people I’ve met, and experiences I’ve been a part of these last 10 years. It’s all by His grace.
Although I’m not on a church staff team today, I’m still heavily involved in the life of the Church and am thankful for the opportunity I have to serve churches with Church Solutions Group and the Center for Church Communication.
These last 10 years have taught me a lot… about myself, ministry, and the church. I decided to share 10 things I’ve learned (5 personal and 5 about the church) from my first decade of ministry.
1 – Surrender your ego at the door. I worked many, many years with the idea that I was God’s answer for the churches I worked at. I wasn’t. I may have been a part of the solution, but I needed to get beyond myself for God to use me to my fullest. Don’t have an ego in ministry. It doesn’t look good on any of us. Be humble. And don’t take yourself or your ideas too seriously. Humility is a posture of the heart and God honors it. It doesn’t matter how gifted or talented you are, if your heart isn’t right, there won’t be much for God to work with.
2 – Submit to the vision and to your leaders. This seems fairly basic but most of the time it’s an area where most young leaders fall short. If you join a church staff team, you are aligning yourself with the vision of that church. Your job, regardless of your title, is to submit to that vision and to do, with all that’s within you, to see that vision fulfilled. Don’t go creating your own vision or ideas of how things should be. If you aren’t in the visionary role, your job is to serve the vision. Honor your leaders and pursue the vision with everything you have. Not only is that the right thing to do, it’s the Scriptural thing to do.
3 – When you feel like it’s time to go, go…but don’t walk away with a rebellious heart or attitude. I’ve seen way too many people stay on church staff teams beyond their time, or leave too quickly. Most people stick with it too long for very good and honorable reasons, but in my experience, if you feel like God is leading you elsewhere the best thing to do is follow that leading. Your staying beyond your time won’t help anyone. Listen to God’s voice intently and follow His leading. Don’t leave with a rebellious attitude, though. The greatest growth happens in hard places. Looking back over 10 years I can say that the years I thought were the hardest in the moment were, in the end, the most fruitful. Running away and doing your own thing isn’t the solution, especially as a young leader. Grow though the hard times and follow God’s voice when He says its time to go.
4 – Remember you’re not pursuing a career, you’re fulfilling a calling. We are not professionals. The church is not a business. Don’t look at what you do as a career. The work we do is work of the Gospel. It’s ministry. Check your heart. Why are you doing what you do? Do you fill like you are fulfilling a calling or performing a function? Sure, sometimes parts of the work we do may feel mechanical but every little thing you do is contributing to something greater that’s all about impacting people’s lives. I can honestly say that in 10 years I never felt like I was “going to work” when I walked into my office. I felt like I was fulfilling something greater and had a sense that I was a part of something bigger than myself. If you want your name in bright lights, you’re in the wrong business. Ministry is hard work but it’s fueled out of a passion and calling that’s inescapable.
5 – Make space for yourself. Working for a church will rob your soul unless you carefully learn to guard it. Learn to make space for yourself and Sabbath. Take a break, rest. Turn your phone/email/other devices off. Set some boundaries. If you can’t think of the last time you took some time for yourself and were able to just “be,” then you need to take a breather. Don’t get so consumed doing work for God that you neglect the time God needs to do work in your own heart and life. Don’t fall for the trap of excellence. Yes, we need to give our all and honor God with our best, but as my friend Shawn Wood says, good enough is fine. Your own heart and soul are primary ministry spaces you need to focus on… that’s where everything else you do flows from.
6 – The Church will never be destroyed by outside forces; churches will always collapse from the inside out. I’ve seen so many churches full of potential lose significant people or momentum because they didn’t know how to deal with internal conflict. Whether its gossip, sin that isn’t addressed, or any other host of reasons, the things that will bring down a church will come from inside. Protect the unity of your team. Support one another. Be willing to have hard conversations and do the right thing. Don’t run from conflict, embrace it and honor God through how you handle it.
7 – Churches that are unwilling to change have an uncertain future. Change is an inevitable part of growth… healthy things grow and growing things change. Don’t make an idol out of what worked in the past. God’s message is unchanging but in a culture that’s adapting and changing, the method in which we communicate it must change, too. Don’t hold on to what worked before, see God and embrace something new. Irrelevance is irreverent. For real. Growth is hard and painful but worth it. What worked yesterday isn’t going to work tomorrow. Do you care more about your methods and ideas than you do about the people in your community that God has called you to reach? Check your perspective? Where’s your focus?
8 – People don’t want programs or events, they want connection and community. We can do some amazing programs and productions and fill people’s schedules with events, but when is all is said and done, all people really want is connection. To be known. To be accepted. To be loved. Don’t forget to focus on the individual. How are you creating space for people to know and be known in community? Community isn’t a noun. Community is what we were created for and is what people desire. Don’t give people another program, give them an on-ramp for connection and relationship. Churches that have healthy community will grow exponentially.
9 – Churches need to stop comparing and start celebrating. I think many churches get bogged down by what’s not working, what they want but don’t have, and don’t realize or celebrate the significance of what God is doing through their ministry. It all comes down to redefining how we measure success. Numbers matter but aren’t a definitive measure of effectiveness. God is doing something amazing in churches all around the world and every church is uniquely wired to bring something to bear in the life of their community. Don’t compare your church to another church, celebrate what God is doing in yours.
10 – The local church is the hope of the world… its future is in our hands. Paraphrasing Bill Hybels there but I believe that statement to be true now more than ever. The Church is God’s idea and His plan. It’s His hands and feet in this world. We are all, regardless of a title or a position, a part of forming and shaping what the Church will look like in the future.In a world filled with hopelessness and uncertainty, injustice and pain, we have hope and know we serve a God who is love and who desires to reconcile us into a relationship with Him and one another. There is nothing like the local church and there is no greater cause to give your life to than to building the House of God. The work we do matters. We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and have been given an amazing opportunity in this time in history to carry that calling and to do the work that will extend God’s Kingdom into future generations. The darker our world gets the brighter God’s light will shine through each one of us… and collectively, as the Church, a city on on a hill. No matter what happens, nothing will prevail against us… God will build His church. We get the honor of joining Him in that work.
Immense thanks to Eric Robbins and the team at Columbia Heights Assembly in Longview, Washington; John King and the team at Riverside Community Church in Peoria, Illinois; and to Jackson Crum and the team at Park Community Church in Chicago. You all took a risk with a young buck like me and I cannot thank you all enough for the blessing and opportunity you gave me to serve with you.
Also, I would have been lost without the insight gleaned from some other key people and ministries: the Willow Creek Association and the Global Leadership Summit; Catalyst; ministryCOM; the Center for Church Communication and my friends, mentors, and peers Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Kem Meyer, Kirt Manuel, and Shawn Wood… and many others who have been along for the ride.
Ultimately, thanks be to God for this amazing journey. Every day I’m thankful and humbled to do the work I do and know I’m so unworthy and incapable… it’s all been by God’s grace and faithfulness.
I’m thankful for what God has done and am excited for what’s ahead… greater things are yet to come!
