One Way Street

Here's a tip for anyone reading this that is thinking about getting into the ministry: Your involvement in the lives of others is most often a one-way street.

I don't want the following to sound bitter or negative, because I don't mean it that way. But I've been hurt and it took me to recognize this fact so I could actually be a more effective minister.

At the Christian school I work, I sometimes hear of kids not coming back the next year, kids from very demanding families. These families always insist that we give 100% devotion to their needs, to their children. And we do. But on a moment's notice, they leave us. It's a difficult lesson that hits hard - the devotion goes one way. We've invested everything in that kid, and then they're just gone. I would get burned every time, wondering why I poured myself into someone that can simply be gone when they feel like leaving.

It's often the same in churches. People need you there, at all times. You must meet their need, answer their phone calls, run the ministries they want, how they want them, be there when they need to have 'a meeting' with you. Then all of a sudden you realize you haven't seen them around and they say, "Oh, I go to another church."

Oh . . . . . I honestly thought we were in this together. I wasn't going anywhere - I was intent on helping you. I really was listening to your concerns. They were actually impacting my life. Now you're just . . . gone? Wow - when this first started happening I was very confused and hurt. But I'm learning.

I'm learning a hard lesson. Because as a minister we do need to be there for the sheep. It's our calling. When we pour ourselves into them and they just walk away we must remember that it is God we are serving. That the moments we have with them, if we are serving with the right motives, will bear fruit in some way. Maybe not with them, but with me.

Again - it is God we are serving. If we don't keep that at the forefront, we will get hit like a hammer every time that happens and there are only so many blows a Christian leader can take. If we don't remember that we're serving Him, we'll be destroyed, bit by bit, by every person that does this to us.

Colossians 3:23,24 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."