Are we serving others?

This website has a pretty good definition of what ministry is, at least in my opinion. It defines it as serving people's spiritual needs but also their "physical, emotional, mental, vocational, and financial needs."

Whoa. That's a lot of needs to serve.

Now, our pastor serves the church's spiritual needs (and some think that should be the extent of his or her job), but how and when are we going to minister to the other needs? I think for most people the question may be, "where do we start?" We could stand outside handing out $20 bills and chances are good that most people will use the money to fulfill a legitimate need. We give to the food bank and other organizations and that takes care of the physical and maybe even the financial needs of some.

Now we're supposed to serve people's emotional, mental, and vocational needs as well?

Yuck.

When we give to Foodnet or OCWM, the money goes to help those who are distant from us. We send the funds off in the mail and others do the dirty work. We stay in our sanctuary, sing the hymns, and listen to the message. It appears from the definition of ministry that we're to be out and about doing the dirty work as well. And when we look out the front door, we can see there's whole lot of dirty work to be done.

We even know there are people in the congregation that are willing to do this dirty work. They're those who go out of their way to connect with the youth and take them on mission trips. Those that sacrifice their Wednesday nights to lead the youth night. They champion causes and volunteer their time at hospitals and soup kitchens. These are the people who can lead these other ministries, and we know this. However, our church structure sometimes doesn't allow it.

We try to find the right position in the church for them, but our structure is geared towards meetings, reports, and budgets. I went to a staff and board retreat a couple of months ago where we determined our spiritual gifts. Around 70% of those that attended identified their strongest spiritual gift as Administration. Yikes. Administration is necessary, but the church leadership needs leaders and managers. We need people who can show us where those needs in the community are located and how they can be met.

They are the people who will brainstorm and use their creativity for exciting new ideas. We need more individuals who are creative, more individuals with wisdom, and more individuals who see the way we should go. I was reading The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Stephen Covey says that managers will lead the team through the jungle very effectively, but it takes a leader to climb a tree and tell the others they're hacking through the wrong jungle. We need both of these aspects in order to grow.

For our church or any church to thrive, we can't hunker down in some pretend "survival mode" while we ignore our community at large. We must act with great boldness and we must act with great love.

It is the ministry we are called to do.