I had just moved to a pastoral district and started visitations. I was driving on a road that was very confusing. It seemed that the house numbers ended before I got to the house I was looking for, and then the street continued and the house numbers started again, but at a higher number than what I was searching for. I asked people in the area and finally found it. I rang the doorbell . . . and a stranger answered instead.
I eventually texted the church member and asked for directions. I had spent all that time driving around looking for the right address but had put the wrong town in the GPS! I wasted all that time.
The wrong foundation
Can it be that we often work hard and do the right things, yet with no results, because we put in the wrong address—build on the wrong foundation?
My father used to say, “Son, manure is not good in the house. But if you are a gardener, manure is wonderful to place around a tree. All things, like education and money, are like manure. They are good only if you use them to increase your ministry and service for God.”
In ministry, more than in anything else, total dependence on God is central, crucial. Hard work is important, and education is necessary; however, success in ministry depends exclusively on a real knowledge of Christ that leads to absolute love, total commitment, and joyful sacrifice.
Saul had a great education, was hardworking and doing a lot for God and the church, at least in his mind, yet he was going in the wrong direction. He then encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, which gave him a new understanding of ministry and a total change of direction. His motivation changed. He loved Jesus so much that he was willing to lose everything joyfully (Phil. 3:7–10).
Becoming a growing church
The measure of pastoral success is not a higher education degree or how many baptisms you conducted but His presence in your personal life. Only a spiritual pastor can help a church grow in spirituality. How do you accomplish that?
Listen and speak with God in prayer. Set aside time daily for prayer and reflection. Jesus did that every single morning, and He is our supreme Example. “All who would become efficient workers must give much time to prayer.”1
Study the Word and reflect on it. Through the Word, you can know God, and He can communicate with you. “As our physical life is sustained by food, so our spiritual life is sustained by the word of God. And every soul is to receive life from God’s word. . . . We should carefully study the Bible, asking God for the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may understand His word. We should take one verse, and concentrate the mind on the task of ascertaining the thought which God has put in that verse for us. We should dwell upon the thought until it becomes our own.”2
Share with others. God doesn’t need you to share; He can use angels, a donkey, or even stones, but He bids you to share. If you love God and He lives in you, then you love others and are driven to share the good news with them. “Those who walk in this light are charmed by its beauty, and are filled with a desire to share it with others.”3
Serve others. God calls you to care for others. He promised to be with you when you serve others. Ultimately, at the Second Coming, God separates His people based on service. Jesus served, and He urges you to do the same. “To everyone who offers himself to the Lord for service, withholding nothing, is given power for the attainment of measureless results.”4
Countless results
Pastors and leaders should be passionate about prayer, the Word, sharing, and service if they are passionate about God. He promised that if we seek Him, we will find Him (Jer. 29:13), if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us (James 4:8), and if we lift Him up, countless persons will be drawn to Him (John 12:32).
God calls His servants to know Him, love Him, and fully and daily commit to Him. That’s where the power and results come from.
- Ellen G. White, Gospel Workers (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald, 1892), 286.
- Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1898), 390.
- Ellen G. White, “Receiving to Impart,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, April 4, 1907, 8.
- Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 7 (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1902), 30.
