November 2, 2004
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> Should I serve in ministries where I am strong or weak?
Strong, because the ear shouldn’t envy the eye. If the whole body were an eye, then where would the sense of hearing be? God made each of us special and specialized, and we should use our specific gifts and talents to love and bless others.
Weak, because it can help show us areas of deficiency, baggage, and sin in our lives. For example, in Trinidad I found it very hard to understand the locals. That frustrated me because I couldn’t analyze and counsel them if I didn’t understand them. Later I realized that I rely too much on my mental abilities to relate with people. After all, being human is more than being able to understand them intellectually.
In the end, we should gravitate where we’re called. Moses thought of himself as a terrible public speaker but was called to lead Israel. Nehemiah knew he was gifted in administration, and used those gifts to the fullest when he felt called to rebuild the wall. Apparently God has plans for us when he calls us to serve in areas of both strength and weakness.
Comments (12)
Good things to think about. The trickiness comes in the cause-effect of “we should gravitate where we’re called.” If we know God’s will for us, then we should of course do it regardless (e.g. all of Moses’s complaining about poor speech etc. were just excuses and in the end God commanded him down that path anyway). But, it could be that sometimes lack of proficiency towards a ministry is itself the sign that this is not where we’re being called. ( But other times, lack of proficiency may in fact be an indication that it is! Confusing. )
Piggy backing on top of your nice examples, I’ll offer a couple more. 1) If I want to sing in a mega church’s worship team but people cover their ears whenever I sing, that’s probably not where God’s calling me regardless of how much I desire it. 2) If I have no compassion towards the poor then maybe that means I should go serve in a soup kitchen so that I can learn. ( But even in the second situation, if my lack of compassion hurts the people I serve or turns them away from God, then I should look for a different way of developing my compassion towards them. )
One simple metric is: Public (i.e. “community”) ministries should play to our strengths because we need to be faithful in serving God and our community. Smaller (“family”) ministries are an opportunity for us to grow in our weaknesses.
I feel like the metric is based on math and efficiency: maximize the impact of strong gifts, and minimize the damage of weakness (like bad singing).
While that makes perfect sense, I wonder if it’s a good predictor of God’s call. For instance, God called Moses to exercise his weakness to all of Israel. Actually, I feel it’s more accurate to say God called Moses to do something which required him to step way outside his comfort zone and then awaken a latent gift he didn’t know he had. Or God transformed his brash headstrong nature into strong leadership.
More thoughts about your two examples: 1) If I want to sing but do so badly, then I should examine why I want to sing. Maybe it’s from a self-centered desire to seek attention and look talented? Or is it a selfless desire to see the church enjoy good praise? Because if it’s the latter, maybe I should do sound board or Powerpoint or stage crew. Or maybe I do have a desire to entertain and arouse emotion, so I should look into teaching children’s Sunday school or run puppet shows or skits for them? Maybe God is calling me to all kinds of things, but I interpret that call (incorrectly) as singing for worship team.
Situation #2 is a much harder situation. How does one develop compassion for the poor? Maybe it’s putting myself in their shoes by taking a limited vow of poverty for a while. Or rooming with them. Or going on missions trips to experience life with them firsthand.
Ok, figuring out God’s call for one’s life should be a totally separate post.
Marginally relevant expositional point:
One interpretation is that Moses wasn’t saying he wasn’t a good speaker, but simply that he didn’t speak Hebrew well. Raised in Pharoah’s courts and all. So God gave him Aaron to speak for him. That’s a nice illustration of the Body supplying the skills/talents we don’t individually possess.
Exodus 4
15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do.
16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.
serve in ministries? you’ve got to be kidding.
RE: changed, again I think the issue with Moses was more one of reluctance to serve versus any real lack of ability (said another way, he certainly lacked some ability but those were not insurmountable, c.f. U_G_n’s comments). I say this because even after God answers Moses’s excuses, he says “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”
Lack of desire may be a good indication that we shouldn’t be involved in a ministry, or it may not be. Similarly, the metrics of doing the most good while doing the least damage may be good indicators of where we are to be involved… and maybe not. I would say that for all rules of thumb, there are exceptions, but the fact that there are does not invalidate the rules.
At a practical standpoint, this isn’t meant to call into question anything you said in your original post. I think your examples are great and there are both times when God calls us to serve through our strength as well as our weakness. My additional point is only that figuring out when to do either is a tricky issue.
It’s “safest” to serve in our strengths and not in our weaknesses (said another way: serve in ministries that we are qualified for and avoid ones where we are not). This is why some churches spend a lot of time figuring out things like MBTI, spiritual gifts tests, and other leadership tests, in order to help people identify where they can most effectively serve. That said, “safest” of course is not always right, hence this becomes difficult, and maybe we are too worried about bering “safe” that we miss out on real opportunities?
Maybe the most practical thing I can say is: When someone feels a desire to serve, he should find an appropriate place to do so. If this is an area of weakness where he’s trying to learn, then find a place that’s appropriate for that (e.g. leading in a small group worship time versus being put on a Sunday worship team). And we should challenge ourselves to be at least somewhat involved in ministries that aren’t just our strengths.
i think it makes sense that we should serve in areas in which we are sufficiently interested in and sufficiently gifted in. i guess the judgement on what is “sufficient” is up to the pastors and yourself.
“should” is a strong word to use when saying how people serve in church. it implies that if we don’t do what we “should” do, we are sinning. there’s a lot of things we “should” do in our lives. that doesn’t necessarily mean we do them all the time, or even close to it.
i think in the end, serving is an expression of your worship of God and a church community can choose to receive that or not. maybe they’ll want you to do something other than what you prefer, but i don’t think it’s right for anyone to say what you “should” do.
I agree that for Moses, it was probably some combination of his reluctance and perceived lack of ability (whether that was in public speaking or in language, who knows?). And he had to wrestle with God before taking on the job. Too bad he didn’t have a pastor or xanga readers to help advise him!
I also agree that the general rule is that service, especially in ministries having a lot of impact and exposure, should be validated by the rest of the church. So if people are not encouraging you to sing for Sunday praise team, then you should take their advice.
Yes, “should” could be a loaded term. How about “Is it better for me to serve in…” That makes it sound like the choice between good and better rather than right and wrong.
In some cases, there may be disagreements. For example, someone may feel called to be a full-time missionary or plant a church, and ask for support from the home church. In such cases, I’d hope that both the potential server and the church leadership have the humility to recognize that neither has the monopoly on knowing God’s will and calling. So the server should (and here I use the term to connote right and wrong) say, “I feel called to this ministry, but will accept the suggestion of the church.” And conversely, the church should respond, “We suggest the following course of action, but understand that God might be calling you in a different direction.” It kind of reminds me of the mutual submission model of marriage in Ephesians 5.
mutual submission works in relationships/marriage and families but not in churches. whether we want to recognize this aspect of church or not, pastors are held accountable by the people who pay their salaries. churches still work in a market economy. if a pastor wants certain people to serve in a certain ministry but the congregation doesn’t agree with those choices, the congregation can either 1) submit or 2) find a new church.
in our society, #2 is much more likely to happen than #1; therefore, the pastor has to act in a manner that retains his congregation. sometimes that restricts the pastor from making decisions that they would feel more free to make if the church was more ideal (aka had congregants who are willing to submit and stay rather than leave because of disagreement).
in your example, both parties can be willing to say they submit, but in the end, who gets their way? i think you have to let people do what they want to do, even if you disagree or think they’ll fail. people have to be allowed to fail and they’ll learn. some could argue that’s the only real way to learn–through failure. but unfortunately, sometimes leaders feel like they can’t allow people to fail because resources are at stake. but instead of thinking of it as resources wasted, if the person can learn through the experience, i would say the resources were well used.
i don’t know exactly what you’re talking about in this post (aka if you’re talking about a specific issue or if it’s just a random thought) but i sense us bumping against a white elephant…
A good read =). Heh I think we’ve diverged into much bigger issues than what changed wrote about originally, but that’s o.k. =). I’ll reaffirm what I think the heart of his post was: Sometimes we serve in areas of strength, sometimes in weakness; we shouldn’t assume a ministry is off limits just because we feel weak in it. There are ample examples in both Scripture and everyday life of both of these.
RE: peterskim, allowing people to fail: I think that’s a good reflection on trusting God. My mom and I have had interesting disagreements about this since she gravitates more towards your point of view whereas I lean more towards “protect or care for the community.” Leadership constantly runs into this issue because on the one hand we are given trust to take care of those we serve; on the other hand we don’t want to stifle individuals from developing or pursuing gifts. Again my compromise is to say: let them serve (and experience failure, or not), but find an appropriate context for them to do so. Going back to worship (a ministry where traditionally there is more people interested in joining than spots open) there are people who are tone deaf but love to sing, and given a chance would join a worship team and sing their hearts out indefinitely at the expense of the congregation until someone forces them off.
So, I would let someone serve in a weaker ministry and possibly “fail” as long as I don’t sacrifice too much “resources” (to use your term). I think everyone understands this tradeoff so nobody would say “always sacrifice resources for the sake of individual” or “never risk resources regardless of the situation or individual”, it just depends on which situation and how we view the resource. At a mega church, I would “fire” a worship leader who put up a tone deaf singer. On the flip side, I would “fire” a missions organizer who turned down someone for missions just because he was culturally awkward.
In the end, it comes back to individuals versus communities, and leadership constantly has to deal with these kinds of tough decisions because there is no clear rule of thumb as to when to choose one over the other.
> therefore, the pastor has to act in a manner that retains his congregation.
The wording seems kind of strong there. How about, a pastor should take into account the nature of his congregation in deciding how to best lead them towards growth in Christ?
Invariably some people will be upset and leave (there’s a part of everyone that resists change and resists growth and resists God).
> i think you have to let people do what they want to do, even if you disagree or think they’ll fail.
People are always free to leave the church if they encounter hardships or disagreements. (That’s unfortunate because it stifles their growth. Imagine if kids could be allowed to switch parents whenever they disagreed with them! Are things so different with spiritual growth?) But if they stay, they have to abide by the church’s authority and decisions. For instance, if someone wanted to teach a Sunday school class based on the Koran and show why it’s superior to the Bible, I don’t think we would allow that.
> white elephant
I think the only elephant today is in the election results. It’s true that I am generalizing my question from two real situations at Highrock: Joseph asking to plant a church and Amy asking to be sent as a full-time missionary. In both those cases, I’m happy that the servers have brought their cases before the church leadership to discern the best course of action. To me, that’s the sign of a healthy church.
> no clear rule of thumb
That’s certainly true. And it doesn’t make things easy! But if things were easy, we wouldn’t feel the need to depend on God as much.