The Greek word diakonia/ διακονία for ministry is generic and better understood as ministration or specifically “service”. If you’re a Christian…you’re in the ministry…somehow. Where you are at in the ministry is the question to a lesser of greater degree. It is really up to you and the work of God to determine where. It usually (but not always) lies where some of your natural talents lie…or God will gift you.
As for the word diakonia, it lacks specificity until a descriptive adjective is added, whether 'pastoral' , 'social', 'political', 'medical' or another. All Christians without exception, being followers of him who came 'not to be served but to serve', are themselves called to ministry, indeed to give their lives in ministry. But the expression 'full-time Christian ministry' is not to be restricted to a church. This is a misunderstanding. It can also be in government, as a professional tradesman, industry and even the home. Actually, especially the home. We need to properly see this vision of diversity of ministries to which God calls his people. Many body parts, one body, one Spirit.
It is to the ministry of the word and the Gospel to which pastors are called to dedicate their life. It is not just that many are too busy for ministry, it is also that many are preoccupied with the wrong ministry too. Many pastors, instead of concentrating on the ministry of the word (which is what they're primarily called to do) end up counseling individuals and training and they become overwhelmed and burned out with the nuanced penny ante details that could probably be delegated to others better qualified. Many times what I have seen is it is the pastor's own fault because he is a micro-manager and distrusting. If we’re all led by the same Spirit, we should be at least able to trust He will guide the next guy as well.
Regardless, the consequences are disastrous. The standards of preaching and teaching most often are in steep decline as pastors do not spend the proper time reading and understanding the text, praying and being in God’s presence. The other half of this is a lazy congregation. They do not exercise their God-given right to read and teach themselves, expecting instead to be spoon-fed long after they should have been eating the meat of the word with their own fork and knife. For both of these reasons congregations are stunted in their maturity in Christ. They never grow. There is little spirituality and although they have headcount, their churches end up looking more like a battle’s body count in terms of salvation, sanctification or growth.
What is needed is the basic, biblical recognition that God calls different men and women to different ministries and utilize them all to the edification of the entire body. If you are expecting the leaders in your church to do all the work for the Kingdom, perhaps you are not really going to get there with them?
We need to do some of the work in the Body of Christ folks, otherwise we end up forcing our pastor to moonlight and do jobs he has not been called to do. Some of which can be doing damage to his true calling. We make him something he's not and often...he allows it. The Apostles knew better in Acts 6:1-7, so should we. We have the Bible and hindsight to teach us. If we do not all do our job in ministry, its as if we pimp our pastors and leaders out to the devil. How you say? Because we allow them to be doing things they were not called to do. We let them do what we often times are called to do and this is one of the subtle deceptions of Satan. Distracting us from our ministry or service. The old adage is true here, you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. You are better off pleasing God and leaving it at that.
It is a shame, we're pimping out our pastors or making them our dealer because we're too lazy to do what we've already been commanded (or called) to do which is read and learn the Bible. Instead we literally show up at church once a week to get our fix in small bite-sized parcels like cruising for dime bags. Once we're done Sunday afternoon, we feel better after we've had our fix and we move on for the rest of the week forgetting all about God and the Body. We can't be weekend warriors for Christ and ignore our responsibility to be Christian the rest of the week.
A part time Christian is no Christian at all and a derailed and distracted pastor is the Devil's own since he has been taken from his God-given task. Trying to get a quick fix of God from our pastors is abuse of the pastor. If the pastor continues to allow it instead of teaching people to teach themselves, he becomes an enabler or worse...a pusher of bad behavior.
1 comment:
Very well written and right on point - we are all fulfill the Great Commission, thanks for this nice piece Blessings Darrell
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