Serving in a Ministry……

Serving in a ministry should not determine you self worth. Now that your brow has wrinkled a bit, some explanation. If you have ever served in a ministry you have felt this at one time or another, or maybe you’ve witnessed it. You’ve poured your heart and soul into this thing, sometimes for years. Then for some reason it is not going well or it comes to an end. It happened to me…a couple of times. I’ll share one example.

In the aftermath of 9/11 the Father called me to lead a study that took real world events and put them in context of scripture. The Pastor and I prayed about it and agreed it was something to move forward with. So we advertised and I got the resources, study handouts ect ready for the mass influx of attendees. The day came and guess what? One person showed up!! I mean really? So I went ahead and did my thing thinking this was just the first class. Well nope, weeks turned into months and still just this one person showed up. We discussed the study and everything, man that one person sure was faithful to show every week! So I started to doubt I was doing the right thing. Must be something about the way I was doing it, maybe my accent, maybe I suck at teaching, maybe I’m boring? If I was any good more people would be coming to the class. I was in the dumps emotionally. I felt I was not of much use cause the ministry was not going as planned. After about 9 months of this I decided to just tell the one person in the next class we were done. Thanks for coming all these months, see ya in church  on Sunday. Then something happened I cannot forget. The L-rd intervened and taught me a lesson. He didn’t call into a ministry so I could feel good about myself. He called me to be obedient to the call, no matter what. I needed to be obedient during the hard times as well as the good.  He showed me the thing that should give me worth is being a child of G-d, a follower of Messiah, a doer of the Word. The Father’s message was clear…..serve till I tell you to do something else. Well I put on my big boy pants, got my thoughts adjusted and decided to tough it out. Then about 4 months later the Pastor ask me to do the study during his teaching time on Sunday nights……guess what? Attendance grew to about 40 or so and it went on for almost another year! Then the season of this teaching passed so something else could start and I moved on.

I said all that to say this;

Don’t let your serving determine your self worth. God knew you before you were born and laid out all your days……you are special!

Now some things just need to get done in a congregation. The lights need to be turned on, things need to made ready for the people. We can all do these things we just have to want to do them and have the skill to make it happen. That’s ok. They just have to get done. These are not necessarily the types of ministry I’m talking about here but the same idea about serving applies in general.

Some ministries do need people that are called, by G-d, and equipped to make them happen. If your in one of these and things are not going as it seems they should, a couple of thoughts. A congregation gets to decide what ministries it offers, fair or not that’s the way it works. Is G-d calling you to do a certain thing?

I serve on staff for the congregation and also under the anointing and call of the Father. One of a few things can happen. The church decides to move in a new direction or G-d changes my ministry / anointing. If the church decides to move in a new direction and I’m anointed to do what I do, then I’ll have to adapt or find a new congregation to serve in. If G-d removes the anointing or says it’s time to move on He’ll open another door when the time is right.

Blessings    Mark

Thoughts on Worship Styles

Time to get out the pitch forks and torches after this post. Before you get offended, that is the two people that read this blog, think seriously about what I’m saying.

The debate on what style should our worship should be has been around for a long time. One could call a heated debate on this topic “worship wars”. If your congregation is currently in a worship war let me know, I’ll pray for you, cause those things suck. Probably everyone has a style they prefer in a worship service……so how does a congregation deal with that? Lots of factors come into play here, lots. So what’s important? What should a worship service do? What is worship? Other questions may pop up in your mind as well!

Worship

The Hebrew word for worship simply means “bowing down”. Giving all our time and attention to something. Focusing, if you will, on a thing. In the context of a worshiping congregation that means bowing down, focusing on, giving our complete attention to….the Father and our Messiah. I know this is a simple explanation, I’ll do an in depth post just on this subject in the future.

What Should A Worship Service Do?

A worship service should allow ( not hinder) the congregation to experience the manifest presence of G-d. That is it. Do you have the manifest presence of G-d in your services? I mean the tangible feeling that He is here and working among His people. There is another sign that He has been in the service. After the conviction, cleansing, revelation ect comes the one thing that ALWAYS happens……JOY! Joy will always be the end result of all the other stuff that we feel when G-d shows up in a real way. Is there Joy in your services? How about in your private worship time? You do have a private worship time right? Cause you don’t have to be in church to have a little worship.

Now how that happens is where we get all turned around.

Style

Simply……Style don’t matter to the Father as long as it’s true worship and there is some life in it. However style does matter to congregations and that’s ok. A congregation that prefers a certain type of  music will be distracted from worship by another style that sounds strange to their ears. G-d allows congregations to make decisions, right or wrong, and He stands by them. This concept comes from Exodus / Shemot 18:19-26 where Moses father-in-law suggested a new way to make decisions;

v 21 And you, you shall look out men of ability out of all the people, who fear God, men of truth, hating unjust gain. And you place these over them as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.
v 22  And let them judge the people at all times. And it shall be that every great matter they shall bring to you, and every small matter they shall judge. And you make it easy on yourself, and let them bear with you.
v 23  If you do this thing, and God command you, you will be able to stand; and also this people will go in peace to their place.

Oh noo, the word judge!! Hate to ruin years of the “judge not” teaching but to judge in hebrew simply means to make a decision. when Yeshua said “do not judge” He meant do not condemn, but that study is for another day. So the congregation is allowed to make decisions. Read some of Paul’s writings you’ll see the concept there as well.

To sum it all up

A congregation must decide what style best suits it. No matter the style whether, liturgical, hymn based, rock, country, folk or pop styles. They can all be worship and achieve the goal, remember the goal for worship right?

That the Congregation / Worshiper experience the Manifest Presence of G-d!

Blessings   Mark

How Meetings Should Not Go

So Why the Tares?

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve posted up….get ready. I’m on a roll here. :O

So in the last post we saw that there are good and bad seed. Actually there is only ONE good seed. Any other seed is NOT the good seed. We see in the parable of the sower seed is the word of G-d and the sower is Yeshua. John 1:1 tells us

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Elohim, and the Word was Elohim.

So Yeshua is in effect sowing himself. Now in the parable of the tares the good seed are the sons of the kingdom, the kingdom of G-d that is. The tares are the sons of the wicked one.

Hmm, seed yields fruit after its kind, every time. An apple tree will produce an apple not a grapefruit…right? G-d set this down in the very beginning.

Gen 1:11.

And God said, Let the earth sprout tender sprouts, the plant seeding seed, the fruit tree producing fruit according to its kind, whichever seed is in it on the earth. And it was so.

Also I don’t think it a stretch to say if you ingest some fruit you might get some of its seed in you. Sorry back to the topic here.

Why does Satan sow the divergent seed in the field then? To defile the field, from our passage in Deut we see the yield of the seed and, by indication, the field is defiled as well because of this mingling of the seed. Since it doesn’t become clear who is who till the harvest approaches is there a way to tell before then? I say yes!  We can see attributes of the “other” seed all the way back in the beginning. That’s where I’ll pick up next.

Blessings    Mark