Matthew Chapter 15: This Week In God's Word
Inconvenient Ministry
Jesus never viewed ministry as a bother.
One of the reasons that Jesus had retreated [to
Tyre, see sidebar] was to get away
from the crowds. We know from John’s gospel account that on at
least one other occasion, Jesus had to withdraw because some of
the people were ready to take Him by force and make Him king
(John 6:15). Mark, in particular, points out that Jesus didn’t
want anyone to know He was there. But in spite of the fact that
Jesus had retreated to the area to spend some time with His
disciples and in spite of the fact that those same disciples
urged Him to send this woman away, Jesus didn’t view the Canaanite woman's
intrusion as a bother.
Jesus consistently refuses to view opportunities to minister to
people as a bother, even though He knows He has only three years
to accomplish all that His Father has in store for Him.
A local church is sponsoring, as many churches do this time of
year, a Halloween alternative for youth. For one reason or
another, possibly because they waited too long to book the
venue, they could not secure the local community center for
October 31st, so they scheduled their event for ten days
earlier, on a Sunday afternoon. This follows a pattern in prior
years of moving the event, normally held on Halloween, to the
Sunday before—making it a Sunday Thing instead of a Halloween
thing. Sunday was more convenient. Sunday fit better with the
church’s routine.
All of which misses the obvious point that, in order to be an
effective youth Halloween alternative, this event should,
ideally, occur on Halloween. Otherwise, it's just another
party for the kids which, in and of itself, is certainly okay,
but it rather misses the point. Having this event ten days
before Halloween is like trying to feed the homeless by passing
out sandwiches near the duck pond at the Beverly Hilton. It
commits time and resources to something that misses the mark by
a wide margin. This is the difference between actual ministry
and whatever it is that Church Folk do.
There is typically very little that is convenient about
ministry. Ministry takes place when and where it is needed.
Church Folk put on shows at a time and place of their
convenience. This event, as originally designed and executed
independently by PraiseNet Associate Editor Rev. Neil Brown, used to occur after sundown on
Halloween, some years extending well toward 11PM. There was a reason for that.
The kids they’ll see on a sunny Sunday afternoon will be church kids. The crowds
Neil used to scare half to death when he ran it were street
kids, part of the throng of youth who typically wander the streets after dark on
Halloween. Parents using bed times and school nights as a rationale
for hosting a Halloween alternative in the middle of a Sunday
afternoon nearly two weeks before are suffering from rampant
Mommy Disease. Their kids are going to be up late, if not up
half the night, on Halloween regardless of what they do. They’ll
be sneaking out to parties or going trick or treating, they’re
already stacking up DVD’s of gory, satanic horror films to
watch. Hosting a Christian alternative on some other date just
clears the way for that behavior.
I bring this up not to criticize this or any church or even Church Folk,
but to make the point: despite the event's many positive attributes, whatever else it may be, this is not ministry. This is Church
Folk substituting their own logic for actual commitment and
investment in people’s lives. Here we have people exhausting
themselves practicing, preparing, building sets, donating time
and money and food, driving kids to practice, the church
investing money—while missing the mark by ten full days. The
point of a Christian Halloween alternative is not to have a
party for children. The point is to act as a deterrent to
satanic ritual. The more kids Neil could involve in the planning and
execution of his event, the fewer kids were wandering the street in emulation
of pagan ritual. Back in the day, many neighborhood kids, out in
the street long after dark on Halloween, ended their journey at
church, because that’s where the action was. That’s where all
their friends were. This event was Neil’s Venus Flytrap, luring
in the strays and then snapping shut, trapping the kids there
until their parents came to pick them up. And, while they were
there, Neil taught them Who Jesus is. Neil was conducting
ministry. I have no earthly clue what the event is meant to
achieve anymore, the event over and doors shut before sundown on
a day when kids aren’t wandering the streets after dark. More
than that, I am sadly disappointed that not a single person
involved in it seems to notice or care that all that time,
energy, commitment and sacrifice has no real purpose. That
they’ve substituted a Church Folk mindset for Kingdom thinking.
Missing The Mark: Feeding the homeless at the Beverly Hilton.
Because God Said Go
I can be pretty selfish with my time and when someone intrudes into that time, I get annoyed. Maybe that is at the end of a long day when I just want to relax. Or it’s on my day off on Saturday when I just want to spend some time with Mary. Every time God brings someone into my life for the purpose of ministering to them, that may be the only chance I’ll ever have to serve that person, so I need to make sure that I make the best of that time and not view that person as a bother, but rather as someone who Jesus wants to love through me.
Pat Damiani
Inconvenient Ministry
Ministry, to call itself ministry, needs to be purposeful.
Ideally, we want it to be effective, but the effectiveness of
your ministry is in God’s hands. It’s not in the numbers, not in
counting heads or how many people show up. “Well, then how do we
measure a program’s success?” a pastor once asked me. Answer:
you don’t. Performing ministry is not about success or failure.
It’s about obedience. We go
because God said “go.” We help because God said “help.” Our
biggest challenge should be to make sure it is, in fact, God
saying it. Some people want to believe God told them to firebomb
an abortion clinic, or spread around insane, unfounded racist
claims that the President of the United States is a Muslim.
These people are passing out sandwiches at the Beverly Hilton.
They’re lost. Deceived. Responding to the echoes inside their
own heads. They demonstrably do not know God. They are carrying
on their tribal thing—white or black—instead of being led by the
Holy Spirit.
By biblical model, ministry is usually that which is the least
popular, the least supported, the least understood, the most
mocked, and the most severely punished. Real ministry usually
involves risk of some kind. It is rarely glamorous. The most
effective ministry is often that which is least sought after. It always involves sacrifice. It is
almost never convenient, and you almost always end up performing
it alone.
There will be thousands of kids wandering the street after dark
on Wednesday, October 31st. There likely won’t be anybody out
there teaching them Who Jesus is. The audience for a Christian
Halloween alternative is not the kids at your church. It’s the
kids not at your church. The kids who don’t go to any
church, but who used to come to this event because it was fun
and scary and jam-packed with all of their friends. It was open
late so they could come by after trick-or-treating or after that
party, and this was the staging area where parents would know
where to pick up their kids after they’d scattered across the
neighborhood.
This was ministry. This served an actual purpose. What is was
not was convenient.
Christopher J. Priest
14 October 2012
editor@praisenet.org
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