Research often leads the charge when faced with something new. But faith and humility give a new ministry life, direction, and a future.
I’m advocating calculating and costly faith steps here, not blind/whimsical/pseudo-spiritual decisions.
Your friends will be impressed if you can quote all the statistics related to your ministry start-up as well as some Francis Chan or Mark Driscoll but the only way a new ministry will please Jesus is if it’s empowered by faith and humility.
Faith
- Adventure or risk can be confused with faith–a desire/tolerance for both are needed but if they supersede the desire to please Jesus and walk boldly then a person has probably missed the boat.
- Is often spoke of only in relation to the future–“what’s your vision,” or “I can see Jesus doing _______” but there has to be evidence in the past of God at work both in the ministry starter’s life and the ministry context. I’m not saying you need a spiritual resume to start a ministry (I did not have one) but evidence that God has prepared you to be a starter–my example of the Lord’s preparation was the numerous times I found myself in a new school, home, or family members growing up–then while a student at UCLA our CCC ministry exploded and was forced to start over. I was comfortable with uncertainty, new situations, and awkwardness.
Humility
- The ministry context should expose a ministry starter to a significant degree of humility and on the flip side confront the pride in their life on a deep level. When I headed to Chico State I counted over ten significant areas of humility/pride being exposed/challenged on a weekly basis.
- Biblically grounded vision–for me if a ministry leader cannot communicate the scriptural foundation of their vision they are off track and in it for the wrong reasons. It does not have to be polished but evident and heart-felt.
If you are or have been involved in a ministry start-up I’d love to hear your thoughts/additions/corrections!
Even when there is scriptural basis be prepared to be called precisely the opposite of what you expect. Sometimes the opportunity to practice humility comes from fellow believers, rather than the actual ministry situation.
good thoughts daniel!
Hey Brian,
I have a post coming out on churchcrunch next week that is in tune with this one. It is about our startup, Agapage. We recently went to a donation driven business model. It has been a pretty big leap of faith for us, but we are already getting a pretty big response.
What I hope and pray is that a whole new era of church software can get started. Not one driven by profits, but by service. Guess we’ll see. I am hoping that Mike and I can walk the humility/faith route that Jesus would want us to at least.
Anyway, I’ll be interested to get your thoughts when it drops next week.
jared i’m excited to read the post! i’ve actually wondered about that model and will be interested to see how it’s going fr you.
my family and i are in the process of raising financial support in order to report to my new role as director of new media strategies.
it’s a HUGE leap of faith to be dependent on Jesus in this way, but it’s also a huge privilege to watch him provide. praying you see the same thing as you and mike step out boldy!
Your awesome bud. I google’d faith and you were the first image. Miss seeing you hope to get together sometime this fall. b