Just before the giving of the Law at Sinai, there’s a curious incident in the life of Moses: his father-in-law comes for a visit. While he’s there, he happens to see his daughter’s hapless husband plowing through some leadership tasks and Jethro decides to give a little friendly but firm advice: “You’re doing it all wrong.” I was supposed to give these people the words of God, Moses might have thought to himself. I didn’t realize there were going to be so many questions about logistics and inheritance!
That might sound familiar to many of us whose work includes not just ministry, but also a tentmaking or parachurch organization—a school, an orphanage, a shop, a studio, or whatever it happens to be. One of the biggest sources of difficulty may not be the work itself, but managing the complex relationships that arise from overseeing people in our work and then ministering to those same people in our church. How can we deal effectively with complex work and ministry authority relationships?
I was a part of everything.
In 2007, my wife and I joined a tentmaking ministry in Asia—work during the week, ministry on evenings and weekends. During our time there, the program was staffed by a team of fifteen to twenty people who lived close together. Within a few years, I was overseeing the large majority of what went on in work, in ministry, and in the living community. It was exciting, but from time to time, I bumped into frustrations of one kind or another. I would feel frustrated that I was running everything; it seemed like little happened that I did not suggest. Other people sometimes felt frustrated with the decisions that I made about work, ministry, or community. Most of all, as time went on, a sense of friction began to appear between me and some of our team members—not always about something specific; often just because they could never get away from me. As the boss, I might need to have a challenging conversation with a team member at work, but then the weekend would bring our church services, and there I was up front, preaching. There was little or no respite at the birthday dinner afterwards, because there I was at the festivities!
If that sounds like a less-than-ideal way to do things, it was. But it happened naturally enough. A leader was needed to direct the ministry, so the people asked me to come—and I did. Then they needed someone to lead the work side of things, and I was the only one interested in the job. And once you’re in charge of most of the things, people start asking your opinion about how to do the rest of the things. For my part, I was young and eager to get involved. I saw problems in the ministry and in the work that were not being addressed, and I had ideas about how to address them. However, fast-forward to the end of our time there, and you’d see something quite different. Instead of being the guy in charge of everything, I had been working for some time to divest myself of responsibilities. I stepped back from leading community life, and several more people were involved in ministry leadership. What had happened? Had the team become a lot more interested in volunteering? Well, not so much. But I had learned a few things.
Mission creep hurts.
The first thing I learned was that “mission creep” hurts. If you’re not familiar with mission creep, it means that originally you set out to accomplish objective A. Along the way, you think B might be helpful as well, and perhaps a bit of C. Before you know it, you’re stretched way too thin, trying to do A to G and everything in between. Avoiding theological mission creep is a critical part of healthy ministry work, as Paul makes clear with the phrase, “as of first importance,” in 1 Corinthians 15:3. It’s also key to managing good relationships when you’re in charge of many things. Being in charge brings a certain amount of unavoidable conflict and friction. Want to reduce that? Stick to only the things you need to oversee. For me, that was leadership of the work project and preaching on Sundays. Those were the things I’d been called there to do. My other brilliant plans—from prayer projects to theology studies to holiday activities to book clubs—didn’t have to happen. By not doing them, I reduced my range of potential conflicts. If something I thought would be nice or useful but not critical came along, I suggested it to everyone. If nobody stepped up to do it, I just did nothing. It usually didn’t get done—and that was fine!
Humility in leadership is learned.
That’s because the second thing I learned was the value of humility. When we started our work on the field, I didn’t think I was proud; I thought I was trying to get things done for everyone. And yes, I was! But that attitude can do a lot of covering for the kind of pride that says, “I think this will be really useful for everyone, so it has to happen.” It’s the kind of pride that says, “They’re telling me they don’t want to do it, but once they get into it, they’ll see how helpful it is!” It’s the kind of pride that’s especially common in young leaders, but it can do real damage. People resented me for being high-handed, dismissive, and close-minded, when I was just trying to be far-sighted, solutions-oriented, and proactive. The Lord used a couple of sharp criticisms to help me see how much talking and how little listening I was doing. That didn’t mean that I changed everything (particularly on the employment side because our team had to continue working hard to put out a high-quality product) but it did mean that I pulled back from doing work and ministry the same way. I realized that by acting like the expert at all the things for which I was in charge, I was putting my priorities and my way of doing things ahead of everyone else’s. Rather than considering others more significant than myself, I was frustrated that they weren’t falling into line. That attitude needed to change.
Gratitude is crucial.
It wasn’t an enjoyable experience for me, but that was okay, because the final thing I learned was to be grateful. When we work hard at something, we want it to turn out great. When all the things we work on are tied together into a single package of work, ministry, and community, a disappointment or clash in one area can easily sour the whole experience. But God’s Word unfolds a hopeful pattern of gracious blessing even in the most painful of sin-twisted situations. The Lord brought this home to me most of all in the last words of 1 Corinthians 15, that we should be “always abounding in the work of the Lord,” despite every setback. Why? Because not one bit of work for the Lord ever fails to find its value and reward in Jesus! Because we know “that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.” It can be very tempting to sink into discouragement—what I did made it worse, or why did I come here, or is this ministry worth it? But instead, God encouraged me to be thankful for the blessings we saw along the way: people saved, friends helped, lessons learned, and worship given.
Complex ministries are never perfect, but humbly accepting imperfection with gratitude for each blessing given and a focus on what really matters can mean the difference between strife and frustration and thankful, enduring friendships.