Indispensable

So, I've heard...

...that we are not indispensable to the ministries we do. Never indispensable to the growth of God's Kingdom on Earth. They say.

In other words, God doesn't need any one of us in His enterprise of saving the world. However, He mercifully and graciously calls the keen among us to His mission of turning individuals, families, cities, and nations to Christ. He owns our ministries. Not us. There is neither place for self-promotion or self-deprecation.

To a certain extent, I get it. As consuming, challenging, and S.H.A.P.E. compatible ministry might be to us, ministry is not about us. Neither is it our identity, prestige or reasoning yardstick.

(S.H.A.P.E. is the acronym for Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experience coined by Erik Rees in his book which proposes that one might live the life he/she was meant to live if one knew his/her S.H.A.P.E.)

Yes. But for me, it is also a no. After all, ministry is not merely a production line; it is more often than not about building relationships with the people you minister to. The minister is not merely a Kingdom worker; he or she becomes a friend. The minister is family. He or she fills a place in hearts that nobody else can fill. (Are any parts of a body not indispensable anyway? Even the appendix matters.) And so, certain staff losses hit the church harder. Losing a missionary on a hard-pressed team leaves a big hole to fill. Ministry goes beyond the four walls of the church. A Christian leader who endorses injustice, dishonesty, or wickedness gives Christianity a bad name. The death of a devoted wife and mother devastates her family like nothing else can. I was one of her children.

I struggle to hold this dialectic in tension. On one end of the dialectic, indispensability. On the other end, everybody is not indispensable. And so: Complacency vs. stress and burnout. Indifference vs. guilt and self-condemnation. A purpose-driven life vs. a purposeless life. Been there, done that.

Now, as one who is still sort of in the (church) ministry but not really, I struggle terribly. Of course, you could say that this is the season of mothering a very young child and that should be my "ministry" now. My focus. I certainly don't necessary disagree. But, while part of me feels relieved that I am not really needed in my church as a minister (in the sense that my taking a break doesn't really affect the way things run), another part of me feels like I am expected to bear some ministry fruit, having graduated from the seminary - and honestly, there are needs aplenty. Part of me knows that I lack the capacity to get too involved in church ministries right now, but another part of me thinks that I am not pushing myself hard enough and giving too many excuses. Part of me is mindful that God is gracious and knows my limitations; another part of me feels like I have disappointed Him. I am getting better at saying NO to ministry opportunities (to be fair, I couldn't muster up enough mental and emotional energy to attend music rehearsals and stuff). I even turned down my nomination as a CE committee member last month.

Sometimes, I don't even know what I am doing in church anymore. Besides running around in the creche.

And gosh, what would the people at church think? That is beside the point. It's what God thinks that is important. Who cares what people think, right? Right?

Identity. I need to ascertain my identity in Christ. I am not merely a servant. I may not be the people's minister (in the usual sense of the word). But I will always be a child of God.

This is the journey that I have decided to embark on from this day forth.