Antiaxiom Three
Nov 18
Disclaimer: heavy sarcasm ahead. In case you missed the first post in this series, you’ll want to start there.
Antiaxiom #3: Ministry is a Job
As much as you may feel called by God, you have to remember that ministry is a job. It’s something that can be taken from you, if you make enough people unhappy. Because of that, you’ve got to know how to play cards. You can be passionate on occasion, but don’t bug people, or you may lose your job.
4 Comments
Your leadership series is “Brilliant” to quote one of my favorite leaders.
OK, I’ve had it, that’s enough…It looks like you’ve been plagiarizing from some of the employee handbooks around here!
Actually, it’s very unfortunate that the attitudes and/or methods of operation that you share are true (I’ll save my soap box talk for one of the upcoming posts…keep ‘em comin’).
Thanks for the posts. I hope that you have plenty more in reserve; this is currently my best resource for ministry insight (miss you, Brother).
Andy, thanks for the compliment. I’ve been really challenged by some of the posts I’ve read on your blog lately too. You’ve got some great thoughts on accepting Christ’s justification rather than trying to justify ourselves. That’s something that really hits home for me.
Steve, I really think this is something that every person and organization struggles against. Nobody is immune, or at least not me. Our flesh wages war against the Spirit. It makes us fearful and makes us hide. It makes us feel like we can make ourselves secure rather than trusting God.
“Ministry” has been my “job” for a little more than a year now and it is very clear to me that it is easy to slip into this mentality. Before I came, my philosophy was more “A job is my ministry.” Anyone doing any job (well not any job) could do it as ministry. When you do everything for the Lord (ministry) it makes everything more meaningful and fulfilling. When ministry becomes a job, it makes it stressful and keeps us from accomplishing more.
Great post to help me ensure I don’t slide into this thought process.