Let’s Talk About Ministry
A quick break from the devotional
Every so often, I plan on taking a bit of a break from the devotional and sharing with you some of the stuff I have on my plate in hopes you’ll be praying for me and the projects themselves.
So, what is today’s focus project? I’m glad you asked! Let me tell you about DOULOS!
I’m currently working on my very first commercial small group discipleship study (my best friend and pastor of 103rd Street Baptist Church in Jacksonville, James Turner, is co-writing it with me) for churches, small groups, and individuals alike. As discipleship minister at the various churches I’ve served in over the years, I’ve written small group studies before, but only for that particular church and with specific custom specifications. Doulos: Finding Your Place in Christ’s Ministry is not only the first study I’ve written meant for a broad audience, it’s also very near and dear to my heart.
Doulos? What’s that?
Doulos is the Greek word that means ‘bondservant’ or ‘service’. In the context of the five session study, it refers, of course, to ministry. Whether you know this or not, every follower of Christ is called into some type of ministry. Some are called to make ministry their career (vocational) and some are called to ministry within their day-to-day lives. Whether at work or school or church services or at the hair dressers, we’re all called to do ministry in the world around us.
Finding that ministry, naturally, can be rather challenging. Case-in-point: My own life.
Don’t know what I mean by that? Go back and read my post from March 31 entitled We Interrupt This Regularly Scheduled Program. It goes a long way at describing my long journey to discover the ministry God has called me to.
What I didn’t spend enough focus on in the aforementioned March 31st post though is my state of mind through most of that journey. The constant doubt and indecision. The questioning everything. The sense of failure over the fact that I just couldn’t find my place. Even the slow burnout and eventual apathy midway through that journey. All these things vexed me in one way or another (and probably many more) throughout my struggle into ministry and I never understood why. Never understood why God wasn’t just spelling it out for me. After all, if He CALLED me to a ministry, why wasn’t he making it clear? I can’t tell you how many times I’d go to my spiritual mentors (David Garrett (my former youth minister and lifelong discipler) and the co-author of this study, James Turner) and say, “Oh, maybe God wants me to do this!” Or “I think God is leading me in that direction.” I was like one of those windup toys—or maybe like a Roomba for the younger generations who know nothing of windup toys!—that would bang his head against a wall a hundred times until turning and moving in the opposite direction for the next big shiny.
Have you ever done that in seeking your ministry (yes, no matter what you might think, you HAVE been called to ministry…whether vocational or otherwise (those nursery workers sure look awfully tired! Maybe they need a little help, eh?))? Have you ever felt so far out of the loop you begin to wonder whether God wants you anywhere near one of His ministries?
I certainly have. And what I didn’t get at those times, but do now, is that God was showing me my ministry was not some distant time or place. It wasn’t going to be some dramatic fire from the sky moment. He was going to use what I naturally did in my own time and in my own way. What I naturally gravitated toward. What I loved to do (or what he put a love for in my heart). Was that going to be vocational so I could dedicate a hundred percent of my time to ministry or was I going to be volunteer? The answer to that is still wide open (especially as I plan for retirement from my day job next year with lots of years of ministry left in the ol’ gas tank), but that’s beside the point. The point I learned and hope you will learn as well is that ministry isn’t some tuxedo-wearing gala with trumpets blaring Pomp and Circumstance as we go about God’s work. It’s about doing ministry where we are. When we are. However we are. It’s about throwing ourselves into the wild and pointing to Jesus like one great big neon sign for anyone to see.
So, what’s Doulos about? Did I just spoil the whole study? Not at all. Like I said, this study will take place in four sessions (spread out over weeks or even as a big one day seminar-style event) with one final big session as it’s fifth (which will be a graduation ceremony of sorts to help you get plugged into something you’re passionate about). It is geared toward discovering your spiritual gifts, your talents, and your passions and seeking out ministries within your church or community you can get involved in. And if there’s no ministry near you that captures your interest or aren’t suited for your spiritual gifts, talents, or passions, we’ll be showing you how to think outside the box and create your own ministries for your church and community.
Thing is, my journey has been unnecessarily long and painful. With this study, I’m hoping to spare as many Christians as possible from the same painful steps I took to get where I am now. Doulos will encourage you while opening your eyes to the near limitless possibilities for ministry in your life and I can’t wait for you to participate in it!
I’ll close with this: recently, I had an experience that kind of irked me with a person in my church. He’s not familiar with my background. Not familiar with my own ministries. All he knew is I write some Christian blog every once in a while and a few silly murder mysteries. From the way he spoke about it, he obviously didn’t consider that a ministry because it wasn’t an official church function. He was trying to encourage me to get more active in day-to-day ministries within the church, not realizing just how much time and energy I spend each week working on this newsletter, my nonfiction, and even my fiction. His heart was in the right place. But all too often, people have a very narrow view of what ministry can be. Don’t let people like this discourage you from finding YOUR place in Christ’s ministry! And hopefully, that’s precisely what Doulos will show you.
So, when will this study be ready? Not sure. We’re still developing it. Once it’s written, we’ll then need to test it, so I’m thankful that we currently have three churches in my community that have agreed to be our guinea pigs to work out any kinks before it’s officially released. Once that’s done, I’ll be releasing it into the wild for you and your church. And be assured, I’ll shout it from the mountaintops when it’s ready to be picked up.
What I ask now is for your prayers as we continue developing this very important study. Prayers for the newsletter devotional. Prayers for direction and discernment. Prayers even for a couple of works of fiction I have coming down the pipeline. Just please pray for me. One of the things I’ve learned in recent months is the amazing results of prayer. Not just in seeing God work through prayer, but in the closeness of my relationship with Him with each chat session He and I have. You have access to the very throne of God! What a privilege! Take advantage of it. Pray, pray, pray! And thank you in advance for those prayer.
In the next couple of weeks, I’ll scatter more of these project updates with ya’ll. I’ll soon be sharing a bit about my other Christian nonfiction projects coming down the line (including The Case for Kringle: God’s Christmas Missionary and Small Talk, Big God: Sharing Christ with Your Gift of Gab), AND even a sneak peek at my upcoming murder mystery The Knives Before Christmas! I’m also in the plotting stages of a very Frank Peretti-style supernatural thriller I’m thrilled to tackle. The Christian publishers out there now shy away from speculative Christian fiction as if it was the plague. They’d far rather be safe and produce more bonnet romances and such than possibly offend someone with supernatural thrills under a Christian worldview. Despite that, I’m going to give it a shot (which was my original plan when I first started writing fiction back in 2008).
I’m excited about all these projects, so I hope you will be excited to hear about them! And once again, pray for me as I work on them.