The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. – 1 Timothy 1:5
Today I am starting a series that I have been thinking about for a long time: What is ministry? This question is critically important for Christians to answer, because we need to know what we are doing and why we are doing it.
Too often we can use the excuse that something is “ministry” and therefore it is justified. It’s parallel to someone saying, “God told me so.” Well, how can you argue with that? If God told you something then it’s authoritative. Likewise, if someone says that something is ministry, then it must be authorized. Not necessarily so. Just calling something a ministry doesn’t mean that it is. The ministry excuse has been used by Christians for a long time to justify laziness, the misuse of church funds, tax evasion, dishonesty in business, vacations as missions, and much more.
The root of all of this confusion is a poor ecclesiology. What are we supposed to be doing as the church? What are our priorities? Should the church fund the youth group to go to Canada to paint a few walls in a struggling church, and then do some tourism? Should the church run a Christian school? How about a food bank? Or what if a Christian has a small business, how do we know when that’s a ministry or not? Who gets to say? Certainly not the government, the church should say so. And what happens if that ministry creeps away from its original charter? How does the church rightly act as the pillar and buttress of truth?
Many questions need to be answered here. What are the essential ministries of the church which distinguish it from all other ministry? What is a parachurch ministry and how does the church relate to it? What is Christian vocation and when would it be considered a ministry to or for the church? Who can be a part of a ministry? How does the exclusivity of membership in a ministry relate to the inclusive nature of the church? These questions and many more need to be answered.
There is one place that we must first turn to describe ministry. Before getting into the details about what is or is not a church ministry, we have to emphasize that there is really only one sufficient condition for ministry: love. Without love, I am nothing and I gain nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Love is the fulfilling of all that God commands us (Rom. 13:10; Gal. 5:14; Jam. 2:8). If love is truly our motivation, then from that will flow all that God would have us to do. We cannot have love as our motivation and sin against each other, for sin is not loving.
In one sense, it doesn’t even matter what we do. If we don’t have love, then we are not doing what God would want us to do. Many people will point to the things that they did in Jesus name, but because they did not love Jesus, they will not be accepted into his presence (Matt. 7:22-23). And this is what many people are relying on, that they are simply doing a ministry. We cannot simply be concerned with the things that we do, we must more importantly be concerned about the heart behind what we are doing, whether we do what we do out of a love for God and a love for others. If we do not have that, if we do not seek first his kingdom and righteousness, if we do not have our first priority in giving glory to God and doing good for others, then everything else that we discuss about ministry is meaningless. Our love is what makes something a ministry.
And yet, it is possible to be deceived in our thinking about our motivations too. We can believe that we are loving people, while not really loving them. We may think that our ministry is an act of love, but it might really be an act of selfishness. So how can we know? How do we know if we are deceived? Who can understand their own heart (Jer. 17:9)?
Well, thankfully, there is a standard of love. God is love (1 John 4:7-8). God’s word can pierce our hearts and discern our motivations (Heb. 4:12-13). As we behold the glory of our savior, whose own ministry of reconciliation is what saves us and brings us to God, we then pattern our lives after him, being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18; 5:18). And this is the basis upon which we will then evaluate ministry going forward. What is God doing, and what would God have us to be doing?
Stay tuned as we seek to answer the many questions about ministry in the weeks and months to come. For now, let us be praying that our hearts would be renewed in love for God and one another, so that from that love we may serve with humility with what God has truly called us to do.