Do Ministry Where You Are

Just three weeks ago I started a new season as the full-time worship pastor at FBC Madisonville, KY.

I have been in ministry for 40 years. That's four decades of planning services, special events, rehearsals, conversations, weddings, meetings, funerals, Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Wednesday night choir practice, etc.

So I could simply grab the best stuff of the last 40 years and just do my thing.

OR I could take time in these first weeks in my role and find out what the church needs. Then I could tailor those decades of experience to the needs of my new church family.

So, in my third week, I invited everyone in the worship ministry (vocals, choir, orchestra, rhythm section, tech team, youth band, children's music leaders) to a "Whiteboard Session" and asked them questions for over an hour. The priorities that emerged from that meeting were not what I expected. Well, technically, two of the three were things I didn't expect. And I mean REALLY didn't expect.

Now my energies have focus. As soon as we get things situated, we can take the summer season to get ready for a whole new era of ministry--both for me and for the church.

In other words, I'm not simply doing what I do in a new place. I'm doing a new thing in a 155 year old church. I'm not doing my ministry in their church, I'm doing our ministry in our church. It's going to be shaped quite differently than any of my previous church ministries.

So what I'm learning, and what I'm trying to pass along to you is this: do ministry that's enculturated into the church, the neighborhood, the city, the region you're in. Let them affect you as they are affected by you.

Dallas Willard often said, "God has yet to bless anybody except where they actually are." The same holds true for you and the ministry you do. God has yet to use anybody to do ministry except where they actually are.

Do ministry where you actually are. I will too.