I am a firm believer as a seminarian and ordained minister who engages ministry on a day to day basis, that the only way to categorize your ministry as effective is when you've made a lasting impression and have penetrated the surrounding and abroad community in a positive way.
If your ministry stays within the four walls of the church, than you are not being effective towards Kingdom building. You are doing no more than sitting on tools that can be used, and need to be used in the community.
My local church ministry has been and is engaged in street evangelism and crusades. It wasn't until we stepped into the outside that we began to see change in our community. In some instances we found out and realized that some people weren't coming to church, because we weren't taking the church to them.
Effective ministry involves your moving out of your comfort zone into unknown space, so that the Good News can be spread and not sat upon. What more is the mission of the church than to bring in the lost sheep? If you don't focus on the outside, than what you have on the inside will become stagnant and repetitive...and eventually die out all together.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Time to work!!!
The authorship of the gospel of Matthew 9:37 says it best – “The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few”. There is a lot of work to be done out here on these grounds called life, but God has called those whom He has ordained to go and do a great work.
Even though I am an ordained minister in the Methodist church…God can call and ordain anyone whom he chooses at any point in their life. I’ve always said that God ordained me for a higher purpose way before I received the laying of the hands from my Bishop. My physical ordination was nothing but a confirmation and outward showing of the spiritual ordination that God had already sustained in His own time.
Whether you’ve gone through a systematic process through your Episcopal leader…or if you just feel purpose and drive from God to do work – your ordination is secure. You don’t have to be a minister to do the work of the Lord. Clergy and Lay have a shared responsibility in building and up keeping the Kingdom of God. God can use anyone – even you!
So I say I’m “Ordained for the Labor”… What does this really mean? To me it means that God has placed a burden on my life to be a laborer for His Kingdom. The preceding “ordained” is not my ordination that entitled me Reverend, but the ordination that burdened me a child of God with a purpose to do Kingdom work!!!
Are you Ordained for the Labor??? The harvest is ripe…now its time to go out and work!
Even though I am an ordained minister in the Methodist church…God can call and ordain anyone whom he chooses at any point in their life. I’ve always said that God ordained me for a higher purpose way before I received the laying of the hands from my Bishop. My physical ordination was nothing but a confirmation and outward showing of the spiritual ordination that God had already sustained in His own time.
Whether you’ve gone through a systematic process through your Episcopal leader…or if you just feel purpose and drive from God to do work – your ordination is secure. You don’t have to be a minister to do the work of the Lord. Clergy and Lay have a shared responsibility in building and up keeping the Kingdom of God. God can use anyone – even you!
So I say I’m “Ordained for the Labor”… What does this really mean? To me it means that God has placed a burden on my life to be a laborer for His Kingdom. The preceding “ordained” is not my ordination that entitled me Reverend, but the ordination that burdened me a child of God with a purpose to do Kingdom work!!!
Are you Ordained for the Labor??? The harvest is ripe…now its time to go out and work!
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