Category: God

I am not sure where I first heard the expression "Ministry is inside-out not outside-in."  I may have first heard it from Doug Kostowski who preached in Southern California years ago.  I recall hearing him use this expression in a message.

 
I think the principle is very important though I am not sure I understood it fully for many years.  

 
First, every Christian is an everyday minister.  God uses each one of us for his purposes in some way.  He gifts us and then empowers us with his Spirit for that ministry.  

 
Second, everyday ministry is more than "church work."  It is more than doing tasks.  It is more than being on a committee or being involved in some project at "the building."  Ministry is whatever we do which is used by God in some way to glorify him and serve another.

 
Third, ministry is a product of the "Spirituality" of a person.  That is, the Spirit works within each one of us to create a Christ-like person (the Christ-formed person).  Out of such a heart flows practical everyday ministry.  

 
I like the way Norman Shawchuck and Roger Heuser describe "Spirituality." 

Spirituality: The means by which we develop an awareness of the Spirit of God in us and the processes by which we keep that awareness alive and vital, to the end that we become formed in the Spirit of Christ.

(Shawchuck, Norman and Heuser, Roger, Leading the Congregation, p. 39)

Bottom line: Ministry must flow out of Spirituality.  There, the Spirit is at work so that the ministry being done is not just a task being performed, but the Christ-formed life being expressed in practical ways.

Therein lies the secret of the easy yoke, according to Dallas Willard.  In order to effectively follow Jesus in public ministry, we must also follow Jesus into the lonely desert and mountains to be alone with God.  It is true that "a successful performance at a moment of crisis rests largely and essentially upon the depths of a self wisely and rigorously prepared in the totality of its being."  In other words, "We who are appointed by God to heal others, need the physician ourselves.  This necessary relationship between the leader’s private solitude and public ministry, according to Nouwen, can only be nourished "when we have met our Lord in the silent intimacy of our prayer" which will enable us also to "meet him in the camp, in the market, and in the town square.  But when we have not met him in the center of our hearts, we cannot expect to meet him in he busyness of our daily lives."

 
(Shawchuck and Heuser, p. 42) 

She was 26 years old and single.  Kay began visiting our church with her sister Brenda.  This was the first church where I preached, a little storefront church in middle Tennessee.

 
Charlotte and I couldn’t help but notice her.  After all, she was related to a family we really admired.  Brenda and Byron were a young couple in our church with two beautiful blond- headed little girls.  I recall going to Brenda and Byron’s home on numerous occasions for Sunday lunch.  There was always much laughter in their home.

 
One day Brenda told me that Kay had received bad news.  She had cancer.  Twenty-six years old!  Charlotte and I stopped by her little apartment one Sunday afternoon.  We talked and prayed with her.  She sat on her couch in front of the big picture window and cried and cried.

 
Days went by.  Months went by.

 
One night I received a telephone call.  Kay was in the hospital in Columbia (Tennessee).  She was near death.  I left our house that evening and drove through a steady rain to the hospital about forty-five minutes away.  I stopped by her room and spoke with her mother and dad.  I had never seen anyone near death before.  Brenda and Byron walked with me down the hall to the waiting room.  I was stunned when I entered the large waiting room.  The room was full but very quiet.  The lights were off.  There were people everywhere.  I suddenly felt very self-conscious.  I didn’t know what to do.  So, I sat on the floor near the family.

 
About twenty minutes later she died.

 
People in the waiting room cried and then hugged one another.  They hugged family members and then they began to leave — everyone except the family.  A nurse approached me and asked me if I would like to "lead the family to the chapel."  (She could probably tell that I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do.  I had never experienced anything like this before.)  I had no idea where the chapel was so the nurse took the group there. 

 
This occurred twenty-six years ago, but I remember the next scene so vividly.   The family quietly gathered in the little chapel and sat down.  When the last person went through the door, the nurse, who was waiting in the hall, smiled at me and nodded.  This was such a significant moment.  I was no longer a college student.  I was no longer a person who could pass this moment on to someone else.  Just twenty minutes earlier, this family had watched a 26-year-old woman slip away into eternity.  She had died.  She was someone’s daughter, sister, granddaughter, and fiancee.

 
I saw a larger King James Version Bible on a podium in the chapel.  I began to read the twenty-third Psalm — slowly and quietly.  I prayed for the family and then slipped out of the chapel to return home.  In that incredibly important moment, my uncertainty and inexperience did not rule.  Rather, God in his sweet mercy stepped in and got me through it all.

 
This was a moment that marked me.  I learned that God is faithful and is with me — always.

 
I suspect many of you who are reading this can recall in your own life moments when God’s forever-presence became incredibly important and reassuring.
 

I remember several significant decision moments that occurred early in my ministry.  These decision moments were defining.  These decisions turned out to be very important in the formative years of my ministry.

 
I remember the day that I had to make a decision next to Bill’s white Cadillac.

 
I was preaching for a little church in middle Tennessee.  We were about an hour south of Nashville.  This church met in a storefront.  The building was actually a former convenience store.  We were on a main highway leading into town.  Across the street was "the big round bank." 

 
One of our members was "Bill." Bill was in his 60s.  He had divorced his wife a few years back.  Anyway, he was a part of our small church.  This little group of 65 or 70 people was barely getting by financially.  It helped that Bill was a successful businessman, affluent, and that he put a sizable check in the offering each week.

 
One Sunday, I walked outside after the morning assembly.   Bill was sitting in his white Cadillac, smoking a big cigar.  He looked at me and did not look happy.  He motioned for me to come to his car.  I walked over to the driver’s side of his car and the electric window came down.  He took the cigar out of his mouth and said, "Let’s don’t mention the _______ anymore."  (The blank?  A derogatory slang word for anyone who was black.  Not the "n" word but nevertheless an ugly term.)

 
He was referring to the sermon that morning.  I don’t remember the subject or the text.  I remember the essence of what I said.  That morning,  I said something like, "Scripture calls for us to love people, regardless of race or ethnic groups.  That includes everyone!"  So, standing by his car I had to make a decision.  How will I respond to this man?  How will I respond to what I consider a racist attitude?  How will I respond to his effort to intimidate?  How will I respond to an inward fear that he might withhold his check or even leave?

 
At that moment, God gave me the strength to say, "Bill, I am going to have to say what I think the Bible teaches."

 
I then walked away from his car feeling sick.  Sick as I thought about what he said.  Sick as I thought about his effort to intimidate.  Yet, I also walked away knowing that in that moment, I had done the right thing.  

 
That was twenty-seven years ago.  Yet, it almost seems like yesterday.  That decision was a critical moment.  It was in that decision that something was etched on my heart reminding me of who I am.  That day has also been a reminder to me that the one I am called to please is the Lord Jesus — regardless.

 
Can you look back and see decisions you’ve made that turned out to be critical in your formation as a Christ-follower?