The never ending forward/backward movement of ministry

"This fellow welcome sinners and eats with them." - Luke 15:2b Last night, my wife asked me, "Have you ever feel like you want to quit". "All the time", I said. We were just coming back from a college/career Labor Day retreat. I didn't do much (after getting a good speaker for them), my wife was doing the cooking for 70 people over the 3 nights/8 meals period. In one of the small group activities, they were personalized a modern coat-of-arm, and taped them on the wall. One of the question on the coat-of-arm was "Name two people you admire." And the next morning I found myself wondering the hallway, trying to count how many of them mentioned my name. Just one, while the High School youth group leader got several. "That's pride!" the quiet voice spoke in my heart. "The spirit of a servant is that of humility. A good servant should be invisible and never seek attention to themselves." Besides, as I moved further into a higher level abstraction of the work in discerning and visioning, and with the commitment to cultivate my family and my 5 years-old son, I will not be able to maintain a high level of interfacing with the people as I did before. "When you feel like people don't like you, should you continue to minister to them?" My wife asked. I told her about my wandering in the hall way looking for my name, and feeling sad because I don't see my name much. I told her about the conviction of pride from God. I think she knew the answer to her own question all along. She was just want to vent her anxiety. "Do you think our group will get anywhere?" "Not really", I answered. "The group won't get anywhere, but the individuals will." What happens here is the nature of ministry. If the Christians were growing and matured, getting themselves to a point of serving and caring for others, making biblical decisions for their lives, etc. Then by definition of Christian maturity, they were supposed to attract many more messed-up and broken people into the body, and the cycle will start all over again. So if we serve to build a church to reach the ideal image of the church, sooner or later we will be frustrated. "Spiritual Pornography" - that was the term one of my mentors used to describe the temptation for ministers to lust after an ideal, non-existence, and impossible church. Back to the lectionary text for this week. The danger is settle for what we have and not what we lost. One of the maxim I learned from strategetic is that we should be concerned about what we have, and not what we don't have. Keith Drury wrote:

A returning hunter focuses on what he got, not what he missed. A good duck hunter might miss dozens of ducks and still bag "the limit." Any duck hunter who keeps whining about those he missed won't last long in this sport. Face it, with just one shotgun, and hundreds of ducks flying away, you are bound to miss plenty. Leaders don't focus on the "missed ducks" either. No leader gets all the ducks. Perhaps you don't have enough resources. Or, the flock is elusive, flying too fast, your aim is lousy or your gun is dirty. Or some other reason. Leaders don't let their mind dwell long on the ducks they've missed. Neither do golfers, or quarterbacks, or ministers. Do you ever come home from church and join your spouse in the depressing game of tallying who was missing that morning? If so, you are focusing on "missed ducks." Ever get all bent out of shape when one woman calls to ask the time of the meeting you've announced ten times already? If so, you're worrying about "missed ducks." Or, do you use up valuable energy brooding about those who didn't pledge to the capital campaign, didn't vote for your call as pastor, didn't sign up for the small groups, or refused to respond to today's altar call? If so, your focus is on the wrong collection of ducks. Leaders focus on the ducks they get, not those they miss. Jesus was such a leader. He missed prize specimens like the rich young ruler. He missed most of the people in his home town where they dismissed Him as too ordinary. Even after three years together He wasn't able to make a true convert out of Judas. In fact Jesus once watched more than 5,000 missed ducks fly away in a single day. But he didn't focus on them. Rather he kept His eyes on those he did have. He seemed to consider missed ducks an "overhead cost" of leadership.

I have been fixing my mind on the guidance above for a long time. But now, perhaps with the text this week, I could have another anchor to make a creative tension between the two polars in order to think through these kind of issues. Here we read:

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:1-10)

It is easier to focus on what we have left, the 99 sheep or the 9 coins. The effort required to search for lost one is much more strenuous. What I need to do is to keep balance on this two anchors: focus on what we have, but also searching for what we have lost. How? I think the key is to see the connection between the two polars: we need to focus on what we have, in order to search for what we have lost. The mission is to reach the lost, but in order to do so we must have matured disciples on hand so that we can minister to them effectively. We need to focus on having the capability to nurture, to celebrate when the lost returned. How are we doing at assimilating the lost into our existing community? How many people in the group could welcome sinners and eat with them, while NOT conforming/becoming like sinners? (Right now, the attitude of the group is polarized on two spectrums. On the one hand, some feel like, "we welcoming sinners and eat with them, because we are just like them". On the other hand, some feel like, "we are no longer like them, so it's hard to welcome sinners and eat with them." Both extremes are wrong. The key of connection between these extremes and balance this creative tensions can be found in one word: Grace. Once we fully grasp the grace of God in our lives, we will be compelled to move forward and not behave like the world, but we will also be filled with compassion to move backward and reach the lost world too. Let's see how we could applying this in the time to come...