Decades ago, my generation entered ministry with expectations that might be confusing today. It has made me reflect on a few realistic expectations you can have from choosing a life of ministry.
I grew up in a generation where people challenged us to read biographies of great role models to follow. We read about George Muller, who prayed and got whatever he wanted to take care of thousands of orphans. We also read about David Livingstone, who led an adventurous missional lifestyle, Billy Graham who led thousands to Christ with his preaching, Ida Scudder and Edith Brown, who built medical schools and colleges. There were so many role models to learn from.
As a result, we expected ministry to be an adventure—with great impact and outcomes—and to experience God’s miraculous hand of provision. But life did not work that way.
What happened over time was much different from our dreams and desires. So, what can you really expect from a life of ministry?
A Life of Ministry Comes with Paradoxes
It is not that ministry was without any adventure, provision, or outcomes. But when the rubber hit the road, we experienced complexity, confusion, and conflict. The direction was never simple, straight, or as clear as we thought it should be. Ministry was complex. There was confusion at many points in the journey. Those whom we thought were God’s chosen people turned out to be difficult to get along with. Conflict was an unexpected part of the journey.
Sometimes, I looked for an easy exit to another route. But the hound of heaven did not allow that detour. Jesus explicitly communicated the challenges that the disciples would face (Matt. 10:16-25). We had only expected miracles and wonders. We did not expect trials and tribulations.
So, what can you really expect from a life of ministry? You may want a smooth ride but you will face challenges, confusion, and conflict. Ministry is a life of paradoxes. Expectation and reality are always in tension. This is what Jesus told us to expect, but we were not ready for it in the early seasons of ministry.
A Life of Ministry Comes with Transformation
In the journey of these unexpected challenges, something was happening. There was an internal and external change. God transformed our perspectives and plans.
Our motivation was challenged and redeemed. Earlier, I wanted to serve God and “do ministry.” But later God changed the way we thought. Ministry is not about us doing great things for God. It is understanding what God is doing in his world. We simply align our lives with what he is doing, to abide in him and walk with him.
When we embrace this transformational journey, it changes our ministry methodology. You do not depend on your knowledge, gifts, and skills. Instead, you grow in dependence on God and interdependence with God’s people around you. Though our knowledge, gifts, and skills are important, the foundation for fruitful ministry is God’s enabling power, not our abilities.
Though the overall mandate remains the same, the understanding of the mandate changes. From being a technical or professional activity to seeing lives changed, ministry becomes an act of love reflecting the heart of God. The outcome becomes investing in the lives of people and embarking on a mutual journey, leaving the transformation and results to the one who can do more than we can think or imagine, in His time. A journey of long obedience in the same direction.
So, what can you expect from a life of ministry? You can expect personal life transformation. God will change your perspectives, plans, and your understanding of ministry and its outcomes. Any ministry without the transforming power of the Chief Minister is not worth pursuing.
A Life of Ministry Goes With Community
A ministry journey calls us to find and grow in the community of the like-minded. Ministry goes from an individual pursuit to a caring community that wants to live out the simple mandate: “Love God and love your neighbour” (Mark 12:30-31). But it is in this sort of journey that iron sharpens iron (Prov. 27:17). God transforms his people through one another.
This community journey becomes the context of growth in your understanding of who your neighbours are. As Gustavo Gutierrez says, “The neighbour is not the one I find in my path, but rather the one whose path I place myself on, he whom I approach and actively seek.”
We need a community with whom we can explore the context where we can live out the mandate to love our neighbours and to know where we should place ourselves.
So, what can you expect from a life of ministry? You can expect a new community to live and journey with, like Jesus pointed to his disciples and told his mother and brothers, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:49-50).
A Life of Ministry Grows in Grace
In a ministry life of paradoxes, transformation, and community, there is a fourth and significant thing to expect. You can realistically expect an abundance of grace, rumours of another world, and a sense of fulfilment. The ministry journey becomes a story of growing in the knowledge of God and experiencing the abundance of his grace, by which he supplies every need of ours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19-20).
Frederick Buechner writes, “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” As Philip Yancey also says, we experience rumours of another world through glimpses of lives touched and transformed by his grace.
So what can you really expect from a life of ministry? You can expect that God himself, the God of peace, will sanctify you through and through. He will keep your whole spirit, soul and body blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (1 Thess. 5:23-24, Phil. 1:6).
