Quitting Ministry

I'm ready to quit the ministry. I'm not talking about giving up being a pastor. I don't want to leave the church. And believe it or not, I'm not bitter or burned out. I'm just going to quit the ministry. I don't even like the phrase, "the ministry." I don't like being called a minister. Mainly because of what being "a minister" is widely perceived as.

Would you believe me if I said that we are not called to do ministry? Yet I am convinced it's true. I have not been placed here to do ministry. I have been placed here and called by God to fulfill a vision.

Think about it. What do you think Jesus' countenance was like when he looked at his disciples and said, "Go and make disciples of all nations." We read it fast. As if it's no big deal for Jesus to tell a small group of people to change the entire spiritual fabric of the world. No...I think Jesus was much slower and more deliberate in his tone. As if he was not only speaking to them, but all who would follow them. Maybe that's why he finished with, "And I'll be with you always. Even to the end of the age."

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus gave us a vision statement. Think about it some more. What if I told your small group at church to turn everyone in the world into a follower of Jesus? It would be a pretty tall order wouldn't it?


Take a minute and think about the drama of the moment. This is Jesus' first appearance to his disciples after his resurrection. It was a supernatural occurrence. Imagine the emphasis in his voice. "Go." "Cause all of the nations of the world to follow me."

Wow.

Makes my potluck dinner seem trivial. Or maybe it changes the focus of that potluck dinner. We have the dinner because that's what churches do. That's the ministry. That's exactly the reason I am quitting the ministry as we currently know it. I am going to start fulfilling a vision. The divine vision Jesus gave on the mountain in Galilee. "Go and make disciples." That's not to say that I'll never schedule another church potluck dinner. But it's definitely going to change how we do potluck dinners. Not to be served, but to serve.

You see, we cannot do ministry just for the sake of doing ministry. We can't plan certain events or services just because that's what a church does. How many of those things are actually helping to make disciples of all nations? Ministry is not the what, but the how. We get off track when we think that ministry is the "what" we are supposed to do. The "what" is the vision Jesus gave us. Make disciples of all nations. Ministry is how we do fulfill that vision. Let's broaden our definition of ministry. Ministry is anything that helps someone to follow Jesus.

Don't start with the end. Begin at the beginning. When we just do ministry, we are starting at the end. The vision is the beginning. Start there and end with ministry. Does that make sense?

We get frustrated because our attempts at ministry don't yield the results we were hoping for. It might be mainly because we are doing something just because we feel we should do something. But if our focus is on Jesus' vision of making disciples, we think of ways to do that. Traditional or non-traditional. Orthodox or unorthodox. Anything that leads people to follow Jesus is ministry. It's when what we do reflects and leads to what we want to accomplish. That's real ministry.