By Paul Clark
“Drop anchor and fish.” It’s something I recently told a young pastor on our staff. Sometimes we can get lost amid all the voices, books, blogs, tweets and churches out there telling us how to do ministry. We can find ourselves, using James’ analogy, “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” We can easily get lost reevaluating, questioning and rethinking our ministry plans until we develop a sort of ministry paralysis.
When you speak to a person about their ministry and their conversation is punctuated with quotes and references from people who are not in your city, not ministering in your context, not at your church and among your people, and most importantly, not you, then you know you have a problem.
While principles of ministry are useful, ministry is done in context. And at the end of the day, a pastor has to prayerfully decide what ministry will look like for them and then drop anchor and fish. Otherwise, valuable time will be lost puttering all over the lake looking for the best place to fish. And the truth is God blesses faithfulness and commitment more than he blesses the latest strategy.
An old friend of mine used to say the number one quality in successful ministry is “sticktoitiveness.” Obviously, there’s a squiggly red line under that word in your editor, but I think you get the meaning. Choose the best ministry paradigm given the context you are in and then stick to it. Success is built over time, not overnight.
Paul Clark is pastor of ministry environments/operations at Fairhaven Church, Centerville, OH. He has served in the areas of church administration and operations for 18 years. His passion is to translate great vision into organizational reality, sharing his thoughts and ideas at www.visionmeetsreality.org and @paultclark Twitter account.
