Pastor’s Report to the Administrative Council
January 21, 2009
Friends,
A new year has begun and new opportunities for ministry abound. What is key to any ministry is a person or people who are passionate about it. Without passionate people, ministries cannot thrive or reproduce.
Ministry and discipleship go hand-in-hand. “Minister” simply means someone who is in ministry. Every Christian is called to be in ministry. What we need to do, as leaders, is help people discover their own ministries, then encourage them to pursue them. We must give permission to try daring things and be prepared to catch people when they fall. We have to lovingly give people permission to fail. In my own ministry, I’ve tried and failed many times, confident that my sisters and brothers in Christ would hold me up. It was liberating.
Our job, as the leadership of the church, is not to be gatekeepers, deciding who gets to be in ministry and which ministries are allowed to proceed. Our job is to give permission wherever we see the Holy Spirit at work. We must keep an eye out for the movement of the Spirit. When we see it (or only think we see it), we must not stay silent. We must become radically permission-giving, and we must encourage others to be the same. That’s the path to self-replicating ministry.
I have great hopes for the coming year. I believe we are moving forward in ministry, but still have miles to go. As we get drawn further and further into God’s mission for the world, people may begin to feel uncomfortable, even threatened. Real ministry makes some people uncomfortable, this is a fact of ministry. We must not let timidity shackle the Holy Spirit.
Blessings…
Michael A. Smith
