I am led to write these down for you, so your ministry assignment will succeed because you have learned to avoid the things that kill the ministry of ministers who are employed in secular jobs or who are engaged in secular businesses.
Most people erroneously believe that working under somebody is more difficult than being self-employed. The truth is that you need more discipline when you are your own boss and greater responsibility is required of you. The problem however is that there
is nobody to demand accounting from you or to compel you to achieve.
If you have somebody over you, the person will put you under pressure and express disappointment if you neglect your duties. On the reverse, when you are your own boss, you can procrastinate for as long as you wish and nobody will place a demand on you. The result is that the ministry will die and such persons will say that their ministry failed because GOD DID NOT CALL THEM.
Most people who are earning peanut from paid jobs would have achieved more if only they disciplined themselves to build their own private enterprises. Absence of this self-discipline is the reason why most pioneer ministry works and private businesses suffer and eventually fail.
I want your rapt attention here!
How do you avoid seeing the work of the Lord suffer in your hands?
1. Respect the ministry work in your hand. That means to treat it as important. You cannot treat it as important if you don’t consider it so. Many people see ministry assignment as part time and at the end of the day, they don’t allocate a particular amount of time to it
2. Understand your assignment. Soul winning and building the Body of Christ is very important to God. Ministry is not one of the activities of your day or one of the businesses one can spend time on. Ministry is God’s mandate for your life to reach mankind. There is no amount of money you can give to God that He will take in the place of one soul. Ministry means to co-labor with God for soul winning
3. Allocate specific time to the work of the ministry. Just as we said earlier, if you treat ministry with respect you will have the time set aside for it. When that time comes, you must show that you respect your ministry work by turning down every other distraction to turn over to the ministry assignment
4. Set up your office structure for the ministry. This does not only mean in the sense of a building or rented office. If you meet with a team of even one person in your house, see it as office. Let there be spelt out goals for this team when you meet and remember to discuss those goals
5. Have material proof that you have a ministry such as, NAME, NESWLETTERS, TRACTS, BOOKS, FELLOWSHIP DAYS and MEETING TIME AND PLACE
6. Don’t neglect fiscal budget for the ministry. You have to decide the amount of money you are setting aside for your ministry work and the sources of such monies. It does not matter whether you have it now or not. Most ministries die because the minister only commit an amount of money to it from what is left over from other expenses. So if there is no left overs, then ministry has to wait. This will kill your ministry.
7. Create periodic report of how far you are reaching at the goals of your ministry. It does not matter how small, let there be the reports.
8. Submit your reports to the one you are accountable to. Whether you are doing independent work or you are heading a chapter or branch of a bigger organization, discipline yourself to submit your report. There is one challenge here if you are independent; nobody has the right to demand you give an account if you don’t decide to submit it yourself
9. Don’t build team with people who are too preoccupied with their own vision or those who see you as their meal ticket but not willing to grow. In fact, if you can afford it, employ one or two staff you can command. They are better than volunteers you cannot hold to account
10. Appreciate your team when they do well. Ask questions about their welfare and pray and counsel them. There is nothing wrong with assisting financially if you have but don’t waste resources on people who are not eager to grow. That is also why you have to organize periodic training and teaching for them. Once you observe a sign of deliberate insubordination, relieve that person. Rather work alone than work with a rebel. No amount of service he can give that will make up for the damage he will cost you the day he leaves.
11. Let the senior minister you are submitting to know by your attitude that you are listening to him. You do this by repeating the instructions he gave to you in your last meeting and explaining how you were able to go with it. You can also do this by sending him questions about issues you are facing in the ministry. You can also send your tithe and seed faith either monthly or as the Lord blesses you. If you don’t, he may loss you in the midst of other activities
12. Keep going for training; keeping studying and attend conferences from different areas. These will keep you fresh and update. But remember to let your mentor know of new teachings you get from other sources. Upcoming ministers have suffered spiritual derail because of some poison gotten from wrong sources.
I hope you find this helpful.
I love to get your reactions on this
Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com
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