(by Kim Thoday)

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Contentment and Ministry (by Kim Thoday)

I am fortunate in pastoral ministry in that I have an excellent mentor who I meet with each week for an hour or so in an intentional mentoring relationship. My mentor is Leigh Wilson, a recently retired Baptist minister, with over forty years of ministry experience, wisdom and mentoring expertise. He might be retired from formal ministry but that has not stopped him from continuing to minister in many significant ways. He is a highly respected minister with a wide variety of experience from rural congregations, to school chaplaincy, to ecumenical mission and industrial chaplaincy.

We were recently discussing the issue of contentment and pastoral ministry. Both of us related to each other one recurring disappointment in ministry, namely, that while we both have had innovative ideas and have implemented them over the years, largely they have gone unnoticed. We were frank with each other in admitting a certain resentment that others seem to get all the glory within our denominations, some of whom seem to mainly have an ability and penchant to market themselves well. Perhaps it is that we don’t market ourselves? But Leigh helped me recognise that while that may be true, there is a more fundamental issue. And that can be summed up in the notion of contentment.

Whilst Leigh would be the first to admit that he is on a continuing journey of discovery as a Christian, he has come to a point in his life where he is increasingly feeling content with the particular ministry type or style to which God has called him. I find this counsel, especially at his stage of life and experience in ministry, quite humbling. He describes his gifting as a minister, as one of a seed-sower. He reflects back on his life and ministry and sees this now more clearly than ever. He recognises that he loves the up front roles, but that in many ways God has used him most powerfully in ministry to the one; that is on a one to one basis. As ministers we need to be more honest about some of these issues. If we were more honest we would admit that part of our motivation for ministry is to be listened to, to be looked up to and in our more ego dominated moments, to be a person of fame and importance. And that is not all bad, especially if we can admit it and also appreciate the humorous side of our attempts to suppress all of this. The reality is that we, just like any other human being, need job satisfaction. This is how I am using the idea of contentment, not in the sense of maintaining a status quo, rather, contentment in the sense of a sustaining purpose in life and vocation.

One problem for many of us in ministry, perhaps especially in the so-called “free church” tradition is that one dominant model has been promoted as being the bench- mark of success. This model is the multi-staffed, managerial, Bible belt Church that markets itself to mainstream culture. It is a model of Church now pursued with much vigour in the neo-Pentecostal denominations, that have specialised in the area of hi-tech marketing particularly to popular and youth culture. The reality is that the vast majority of us in ministry will not turn out to be the high fliers of corporate mega- churches. We should praise God for those who have the special calling to exercise Christian influence and leadership over vast numbers of people, or for whom have special ministries that influence public policy and political process. The issue is, however, that there are many kinds of models of ministry and church style and one particular model is not the most successful. A mega-church model is not a transferable model to all contexts. For instance, in many of our rural centres, such attempts at transference have been highly divisive while cross-denominational collaborative projects appear to be working well. The reality is that most ministers will not have the opportunity, particular gifts, resources, personality, pragmatism, and so on, to become the “high profile, mega church success” of the dominant cultural corporatised collective vision. And anyway, is it in any sense a biblical vision?

There needs to be another way of assessing ministry, no matter whether you are Superintendent of Wesley Central Mission in Sydney or whether you are Chaplain to the local high school. The good news is there is another way. But (there is always a ‘but’ to any real answer), it will not happen overnight. Jesus presents us with a way of being a minister not based upon the dominant values of culture and society. Now Jesus certainly had crowds of people flock to him at different times in his ministry and he wasn’t averse to being the life of a party or two. However, the Gospel narratives show that the high profile events were not what essentially characterised his ministry and shaped his mission. The crowds came and went with the normal fickleness associated with crowds. Indeed on a number of occasions Jesus avoided these “media” events. If anything Jesus’ mission and ministry was defined by an inner journey with his Father and an outer journey of ministry with the ‘one/s.’ In other words, for much of his ministry, Jesus responded to the needs of small groups and individuals. Primarily his ministry centred upon the discipleship training (mentoring) of the Twelve whom he had chosen to be his disciples, who would later become the Apostles after his Death and Resurrection. Primarily his mission focussed upon meeting the needs of individuals and their communities. He often invested in the life of the one: one blind Bartimaeus, one Syro Phoenecian woman, one Samaritan woman, one Zacchaeus, and many others. In ministering to the ones, as he ministered to and trained his own disciples, so the Jesus’ movement gathered momentum.

Jesus in many ways was a seed-sower. Sometimes the seeds took root, other times not, as in the case of a rich young man with large estates. Some seeds took root after his Death, as with the disciple Peter. Whether we are sowers or reapers of the Gospel, or like Jesus both sower and reaper, the critical measurement for ministry is our level of contentment. Job satisfaction is about contentment. Contentment will not come from straining after the styles and models of others. We should learn from others yes. That is the art of discipleship. Contentment, or job satisfaction, in ministry comes ultimately from the inner journey of time with God and from ministering within our limitations according to the gifts and training God has given us. This kind of contentment also emanates from the godly wisdom that the dominant values of culture are illusionary. The crowds soon vanish when the entertainment is over. Fame is deadly. Power corrupts. Wealth is insidious. We realise how human the Church really is at these points. For often the vision and measure of successful ministry is about crowds, fame, power and wealth. When we seek crowds, Jesus sought the one. When we seek fame, Jesus sought humility. When we seek power, Jesus sought service. When we seek wealth, Jesus sought simplicity.

The bench-mark of success in ministry is a level of contentment that says I am investing significantly in the lives of others; I am planting the seeds of salvation and discipleship. Naturally we want to engage in effective ministry and it will be important to gauge our effectiveness through surveys and critical evaluation. Often though, the real measurement is somewhat elusive. Sometimes we can only observe the effects of our ministry over time and with hindsight. And sometimes we need to re-evaluate our assumptions and methodologies. Some of the most effective ministry we will do will lie hidden in people’s lives and it may not always be easy to see the growth until the seeds sown have germinated. Sometimes we can be tempted to think that effective ministry is when large numbers of people are responding in some observable way at an evangelistic rally. Such events and moments in ministry can be important, yet my experience is that the lasting impact upon people with the Gospel is when we minister to the ‘ones’ either individually or in small groups. When this is done well and with planning then this effect radiates out as they in turn mentor others. Leigh, my mentor, recently joined our new Church plant. And to his great surprise and delight he found in the Church a guy that he used to see years ago when he was a Chaplain. At the time this guy was not a Christian, yet Leigh planted the seed of the Gospel into his life. Just recently, as part of his life story at one of small groups, he publically acknowledged Leigh’s influence upon his life in his journey of becoming a Christian. The other week, he led public worship around the Lord’s Table and Leigh witnessed the ‘one’ whom he had reached out to, now reaching out to him as communion leader. There is much to be said, I think, for the mentoring and discipling of the potential few, who will mentor others, and in turn who will mentor others and so on, so that the lost will be saved and our communities transformed. There needs to be, however, a determination, and at times a stubborn one at that.

This determination, I believe, must be threefold. Firstly, if ministry is as much about sowing as it is about reaping, then we need to be resilient people, in that the results will often not be obvious. We need to remain faithful. We need to remain obedient. And this faithfulness requires prayer and community. That is, to sustain biblical ministry we need to develop a regular and disciplined inner spiritual life. Particularly in our frenetic world we need others to help us on this way. So secondly, we need community. We need at least a few others around us to encourage us and with whom we can be accountable. A trained mentor for ministry or a spiritual guide can be a life- saver. Thirdly, we need to know our identity. Or to put it another way we need to continue to know where our allegiances lie and this requires not only a commitment to prayer and community, but also to on-going study and openness to learn in a changing world. As Christians and especially as Christian ministers we need to keep reasserting, in the face of changing times, to whom we belong and to what we belong. For it is how we live out this question that will shape our identity and ministry.

Malcolm Muggeridge, one of Christianity’s modern apologists, once said:

“There was one point in my life when I decided to kill myself, and I swam out to sea, resolved for a variety of reasons that I didn’t want to live any more. Partly it was a mood of deep depression, and partly actual difficulties. I swam out to sea until I felt myself sinking: you get a strange kind of sleepiness that afflicts you, as if you were just about to fall into a deep sleep. I thought that I would take one last look at the coast, and that would be the end. I saw the lights along the coast; and I suddenly realised that that was my home, the earth – the earth my home, and that I must stay on the earth because I belonged there until my life had run its course. Then somehow, I don’t know how, I swam back.” (in Jesus Rediscovered).

It is important in ministry that, as we wade out into the deep blue sea of life, we continue to keep our eye on the coast of Christ. Otherwise a strange kind of sleepiness can affect us and before we know it we are ready to give up or we have given in to the swift and dangerous tides of the dominant culture. It is important to keep asserting to whom it is we obey and to which country we ultimately belong. Jesus once waded out into an ocean of wilderness. Matthew records that he spent a starving forty days and forty nights in the desert after his baptism as a time of preparation for his ministry (Matt 4:1-11). In the desert Jesus was tempted by the devil and the temptations involved those illusory but enticing currents of cultural domination. The devil finally tries to tempt Jesus with a gift of all the world’s fame, power and wealth. All Jesus has to do is to bow down and worship the devil and all will be his. Just as Jesus was tempted in his ministry, so we can be tempted. Even in Church life, fame, power and wealth can become the alter by which we make our sacrifices. But Matthew makes it poignantly clear that these jewels, whether of the desert or the deep blue sea are of the devil. These treasures will never bring contentment. They are illusions and illusions are disastrous when we make them objects of worship. Instead Jesus keeps his eye upon God and suddenly the devil departs and angels minister to him. So too we must be determined in our resistance of those culturally defined measures of successful ministry. Contentment in ministry happens when we really live and minister from where we belong.

Blessings in Jesus’ name,

KIM THODAY, HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

http://www.hewett.org.au