Our Ministry: People

[jcross]

A mentor once asked me a very searching question,
"What is your ministry"? I responded with “worship”. They quickly answered back, "no it isn’t ... it is not worship but people. Your ministry is people".

We are mistaken when we replace the means with the ends. If our ministry is youth, compassion, teaching, preaching, finances, we miss the bigger and necessary picture. Our ministry, regardless of what tools are in our hands to minister, is people. We need to love, value and care for people far more than the tool in our hand.

More than music and exegetical preaching, more than Biblical counselling and running a VBS, we need to love God’s people. If we put the means as the end, we will miss the reason for why we do what we do.

The most important aspect of caring for God’s people is to give them truth. It is a tragedy when someone walks away from a church and from Christ because the “truth” they are being fed is not truth at all but a weak and pale reflection of God’s Word, power and presence. There is a form, a façade of religious godliness that masquerades as the real thing but leaves the searching heart empty and dissatisfied. Why do preachers not give the real thing? It is because they don’t know the real thing and it hasn’t gripped their hearts or because they are afraid of speaking the truth and encountering its consequences. We are privileged to speak life giving words from a tongue that is the tree of life. Before speaking we need to examine our hearts and say is this what they need to hear or want to hear. As we do we remember that people are why we do what we do.
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Jody Cross