Simplistic Restart

Find the Helper and then look helpers.

Our work in ministry especially over time can lose its clarity. We find ourselves expending tremendous amounts of energy working on everything that doesn't accomplish bringing in the least and the lost and making disciples.

We can make a simplistic restart. We can do ministry with renewed vision and purpose.

So we set out to engage in the work and quickly find ourselves beat-up, bruised, and tired. Wanting to throw in the towel before the bell rings for round two in a twelve round bout! Today I have a simple question. Who is helping you?

1 Chronicles 12: 16-18

And some of the men of Benjamin and Judah came to the stronghold to David. 17 David went out to meet them and said to them, “If you have come to me in friendship to help me, my heart will be joined to you; but if to betray me to my adversaries, although there is no wrong in my hands, then may the God of our fathers see and rebuke you.” 18 Then ithe Spirit clothed jAmasai, chief of the thirty, and he said,

“We are yours, O David,

and with you, O son of Jesse!

kPeace, peace to you,

and peace to your helpers!

For your God helps you.”

Then David received them and made them officers of his troops.

In ministry I will admit that it was difficult for me to ask for help. I knew that I had a high capacity for doing the work, but I finally asked myself the question of should I do all of the work?

When we realize that finding help and inviting others to help we are creating the opportunity for others to use their gifting to serve the church.

VOLUNTEERS Persons who ask God to use them to accomplish His work. The spirit of volunteerism, prompted by devotion to God, arose at crucial times in biblical history, enabling daunting tasks to be accomplished1

1 Paul H. Wright, “Volunteers,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1655.

You will also find that what the believe can become what they do. Your churches orthodoxy needs to match its orthopraxy. We want right belief and right practice.

What do you see?

Move beyond what you've done in the past. Start building towards what you want to see! Witnessing the supernatural is not always visible to the naked eye. Gen 12:1-3

When we realize that God has gone before us we can have hope that he is using us and our church to accomplish his will. Do you have hope?

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Hope (NT)

hope as confidence in God “whose goodness and mercy are to be relied on and whose V 3, p 283 promises cannot fail”

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Hope (NT)

In the Synoptic Gospels the notion of hope is conveyed through the sense of “expectation” (Gk prosdechomai) generated by Jesus’ preaching of conversion in the face of the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God. Paul’s theology, which is oriented around the twin poles of Christ’s resurrection as the in-breaking of the kingdom and Jesus’ parousia as its fulfillment, manifests the most fully elaborated theology of hope (1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon)

Let’s ask a simple question. As a church are all the things you do working towards Conversion and Maturity? Are you reaching the lost and making disciples?

Does your Churches Vision align with our Commission?

Hope and Expectations

When we plant the seeds of change in our church we have to retrain ourselves to look for sprouts and blossoms. We are trained to expect immediate fruit!

Surly God can make miracles happen over night. But we have to stop setting up our ministry aspirations and expectations like Aarons staff. Yes it miraculously sprout blossoms, but more often than not God wants us to put in the work.

Remember our harvest is the actual souls of real people. Our harvest is not programs and ministries that flow from our buildings.

As we look for results in the work we are doing to sprout and blossom remember that you cant expect fruit to come from a sapling.

Let become intentional stewards of our fathers vineyard and labor towards amazing outcomes and not become fixated on quick and temporary results.