How to Know If a Ministry is Failing in God's Eyes


Mustard Seed Faith
It's easy to see if a ministry is really failing. Remember, God is spirit. The only way to please him is in spirit and in truth. You cannot please God by your church building, church income, membership size or Sunday worship programs.

Actually, the ministry Jesus showed us in the bible was so simple. It's super simple, in fact. It's mainly on preaching, miraculous healing, and discipleship. Just these three. We don't have to add anything to this. Jesus did only these three and he did well. He pleased the Father to the max.

To see what really makes us fail big-time in ministry, click here to read the article.

Preaching

You don't have to be a titled preacher to do this. Just share the Word. All you need is knowledge of the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. These two equip you to the max. The Word of God is God breathed "so that the man of God may be adequate, fully equipped for every good work," [2 Timothy 3.17].

You see the words, "fully equipped"? That's what the Word and the Holy Spirit (God's Breath) do to you.

But man made it complicated with his bible school, seminary, masters, doctorate, ordination and everything. Some say you have to attend seminars on evangelism and learn this and that to be "equipped." But truth is, all you need is the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul told Timothy to simply, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth," [2 Timothy 2.15]. Just do your best. You don't need seminars or seminaries.

When I was new in ministry, I just did my best with the Word (asking the Holy Spirit to teach me each time) and went out to share the Word through the power of the Holy Spirit. I didn't care if people would accept Christ or not. I just shared the Word from the heart. I left the results to God. No stress or pressure. Ministry was simple.

Today, I'm an ordained minister but I don't make a big deal of it. Ordination makes you well aware of God's call on your life, but it's not what empowers you to preach. You can preach the Word without being ordained, and God will still be happy about you. The anointing from the Holy Spirit is all you need. And every believer is called to go preach the Word and make disciples.

Discipleship

You don't share the Word to fill your church building with people and get the highest or mega-est church membership of all. To most pastors, that's what evangelism is all about. A contest to prove who's the greatest.

Proper understanding, however, tells you that sharing the Word with people gives them a good chance of being saved from hell. Concern for lost souls is why you share the Gospel. Period. If that is your motivation for evangelism, then you will not bother with results. You will leave the results to God. But if you're after the contest, you will follow up, visit, doggedly invite, etc.---none of which Jesus did. Because Jesus' genuine concern was for lost souls, not recognition.

Then God draws some people to you to disciple. You don't force them into your church. You don't pester them to attend your church services or come back next Sunday. Results of your evangelism depends on the Holy Spirit alone. You should keep your hands off the results. Let God talk to them. It's the Spirit's job to convict and convince, NOT YOURS. And the Spirit decides which church people should attend. not you. That's Jesus-style evangelism.

You should share the Word and leave, just as Christ did. Simply wait for the Father to draw disciples after you.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, [John 6.44]
No one can really be your disciple unless the Father assigns them to you. In your greed, you may grab people to your church and up your membership and church income, but they will miss their true place in the spirit realms. They will miss their true potential in Christ. And you forfeited their right to that.

Thus, you see a lot of half-baked Christians in church, immature and seemingly incapable of maturing, bearing no fruit of the Spirit. They just become active in church. They may produce a lot of movements and noise and add to the numbers, but they never grow spiritually. Instead, they just get old and rotten. Pastors who grabbed them into their churches will answer for them.

Jesus never grabbed or ran after people and forced them into his church building. He simply preached and left people to decide on their own. His ministry was so simple---no need for committees for follow up, visitation, invitation, etc. Some churches even have teams (what I call Gestapo) who go after members who missed attending the Sunday church service or checking if a member gave his exact tithes. Jesus never did these things.

God will draw some people to you for Jesus-style discipleship. You should disciple them in life, not make them attend discipleship classes. And if you see some people leave your church to attend another, gladly set them free. Sometimes, you plant and others harvest, and vice versa. Don't think you have failed just because people leave your church. You have failed if that makes you feel bad and angry and rotten.

Miraculous Healing

Jesus' preaching was ALWAYS accompanied by miraculous healing---something you never see in church today. They have replaced this with medical missions. Medical missions are good. They help a lot. But Jesus never did them. What he did was miraculous, supernatural and complete healing, and the modern church should pursue this today if they truly desire to be like their Lord.

Everything should be done according to the way Jesus did ministry, because Jesus is the Way. If we want success, we should follow him. We should do "the same things."
"I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father." [John 14.12]
Imagine how complicated medical missions are compared to Jesus' miracle crusades. You will have to organize teams for procuring medicines, teams for inviting people, teams for cooking food for the workers, teams for checking the attendance and getting the personal data of the patients, teams for counseling, and teams of medical doctors. You will have to prepare promotional fliers and banners. You will have to lure people with freebies and goodies to make them come. All these are costly.

But Jesus simply walked around and people came to him in multitudes to hear the Word and be healed. As simple as that. No promotions, no announcements, no advertisement, no banners, no organized teams and Gestapos.
Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. [Matthew 15.30]
Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. [Luke 5. 15]
News about him spread, not because he announced or advertised himself, but because people were amazed and talked about him. He was trending. And it was God who was bringing people to him. That makes it much easier. Today, we claim that "God is with us" and yet see him nowhere supernaturally at work, unlike what God did in Jesus' ministry. All we see today are man's hard efforts which are mostly stressful.

Because ministry has become too complicated, a lot of ministers have become too sickly. A lot have died of deadly ailments. You ordinarily hear of ministers today who died of heart failure, strokes, and other stress related diseases. No one in Acts died of deadly diseases while serving God. Those who were sick got healed completely. We should never overlook these facts. Instead, we should seriously desire them in our ministries---not to up membership and church income, but to sincerely help people and glorify God.

A Failing Ministry

Here are features of a failing ministry in the eyes of God:

A failing ministry is one that always seeks to please people and attract and run after them. It's also one that has become too complicated and stressful. Remember, Jesus calls all who are tired to rest in him. He will give them rest. The yoke Jesus gives us is easy and the burden light. By all means, this is what people should see in us. We should make everything simple and easy.

If you've been tired and stressed out in ministry, why haven't you experienced God's rest at all? Why haven't you entered in? If you have, you will understand what few things really matter in God's eyes, and they are all simple things.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. [Hebrews 4]
Watch your character. It you're getting more rotten as the years pass, you have a failing ministry. You have not entered God's rest yet. We should go from glory to glory in Christ. This means as we grow old, we should get better and better. More importantly, we should be more broad-minded, understanding life and people better. This is the natural result if we truly walk with God everyday. We should become like HIM.

We should become more patient, understanding, kinder, quieter, simpler and meeker. We should have more self-control. Self-centeredness should be gone in us because we have fully understood how vain it is. We should boast of nothing but Christ and what he has done. The fruit of the Spirit should be fully ripe and glowing in us without effort.

I've seen a lot of ministers from different denominations who've grown old, yet all they could boast about were their titles and "great" ministries. All those years wasted. The more you have been with Christ, the more you should become his PR man. You grow fascinated with HIM alone. You can talk about nothing but him and boast about no one but him and his works. You talk about his Kingdom and righteousness always.

No matter if you have the biggest and mega-est church ministry of all, if you have not entered God's rest, you have failed. No matter if you have the greatest ministry accomplishments, if you have a rotten character, you have failed.

In God's eyes, real SUCCESS is not what we have done. It's possessing godly character in Christ.
With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. [Micah 6]
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