HOPE For Everyone In Ministry....

One of my nephews Is Josh Hunter. This picture is of him (in the middle with his daughter in the white hair bow) with one of his brothers (Isaac with his daughters) and his Dad (Joel) 

Josh is one of the best strategic thinkiers I know. He currently works with Summit Church in Orlando. After reading his recent post, I thought, "I've got to share this with all the people 'in ministry' who read my blog." 

Josh is brilliant.  I admire him and I'm passing along what he wrote...

                                                                

When your faith is your work, you are guaranteed to lose one or both.” I heard that quote in a sermon from Steve Brown several years ago and it stuck with me. I have wrestled through it and don’t know what to do with it, really.

When I tell people that I work at a church, they usually look at me like, “Oh, isn’t that sweet that he found a nice little job to support his little cute family. It must be wonderful to not have to work hard and be around nice people all day. I bet you pray together without ceasing, right? I wonder if Josh wasn’t bright enough to get a real job?”

Quite frankly, it frustrates the dickens out of me. I am not sure if it is because I am insulted that they would think my capabilities are small, or if I am perturbed by the possibly true notion that a lot of people who have been in ministry ended up there because they weren’t “talented” enough to do anything else the marketplace would pay them for.

I grew up in a ministry family. I have never in my life met people who work harder than my father and my Uncle Mark (and my brother Isaac is following suit). Both men are pastors who grew churches from a few people to thousands of people (well, God grew the church, but using their leadership … blah, blah, blah). I watched people walk up to these guys and ask, “So, what do you do all week? Must be nice to just have to put in weekends …” What? These guys get up at 4 a.m. every morning and work until 10 p.m. (fitting in needed family time) and some joker is unaware that they don’t just “hang out” Monday through Saturday?

Of course they were always gracious in their response, but it made me want to tackle people. Yes, it is possible I had an overreaction.

I am glad I got to see that hard work. They gave and still give their best work to God every day. Ministry work can be taxing and if you haven’t been in it, it is hard to know why. I am not convinced you have to lose your faith or your job, but I understand what Steve meant that day. He knows the pressures and the perceptions. The hopes of working with people who won’t fail you that inevitably do. That’s why he’s right unless your focus is only on what God wants from you. Then it doesn’t matter who or what else is in the picture. Just ask my dad and uncle. Oh, wait—they are busy.

How do you react when someone questions what you do with your time outside of church? Or when someone comments on how “easy” your job must be?

Colossians 3:23-24 (New International Version)
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Comments

[L.]

I'm soooo glad you chose to share this with us. I may not hold a ministry job, but rather a small role as an office assistant in a local business... and as an office worker I often hear 'how nice and easy it must be' to work in an office. I admit, it's nice to work- it's nice to have a job, I'm blessed to work in a Christian environment, but nice as it is it's far from easy! It's hard to not be offended by folks who readily assume that it's not a valid contribution to be working in a service position behind the scenes instead of a center-stage big ticket job. It's the little things we do that help the big things happen.

[A]

I get the same thing as a stay-at-home mom, especially now that my children are in school. The look I get says, "What do you do all day?" People assume I'm either too stupid or too lazy to "work". It's difficult when you first meet someone because usually the first thing they ask is,"What do you do?"

[Vicki Miles]

Mark,

Well, I'll be! Last week my husband and I were in Orlando on vacation and decided to look for a church to attend on Sunday. We ended up at The Summit but that's not how the story started...

I had Googled 'Mega Churches' and we selected a church (un-named). We arrived between 2 services and walked in. There was no greeter and no one at the info desk. People were standing around talking...we were ignored. No coffee!! I'll say it again...no coffee to be found. We even commented rather loudly..."Wonder where the coffee is?" No response from anyone. Now maybe we're REALLY spoiled by GCC but we looked at each other, my husband pointed towards the door and we left...no one seemed to care that we were there.

We had a second church on our 'list' and headed that direction. While trying to find it, we saw The Summit. Keep in mind that we are 58 but when we saw tons of young families streaming into The Summit, we knew it was probably what we were looking for.

And it was. I have to say it was a great service, inspiring message AND they had friendly greeter (great first impression) AND COFFEE!! Seriously, they are doing a great job and it felt like home.

Vic