Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc.

by Skye Jethani

While the sons were fixated on the father’s wealth, the father was fixated on his children. This is what they both failed to understand, and it is what both Christian consumerism and Christian missionalism fail to see. God’s gifts are a blessing and His work is vital, but neither can nor should replace God Himself as our first calling.

the world can convince a person he is worthless, that he is undeserving of love, then no amount of external well-being will repair what has been stolen from him.

Our calling as pastors is to rehabilitate, to give people back the dignity the world has taken away. That happens when we carry the presence of God into every room we enter and into every life we encounter, and there announce the good news that they are created in the image of God and are inherently worthy of love, and that God has revealed the extent of His love for them through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. This work of restoring dignity is always incarnate; it cannot be accomplished merely through systems, structures, or programs. Rehabilitation requires the present and mysterious mingling of humanity and divinity.

To be a pastor is to represent the presence of God, who is present with others. It is to see people—full, embodied, messy, sinful, beautiful people—and to see them the way Jesus does, as creatures of unsurpassable worth. To be a pastor is to freely give what we possess, which is nothing the world values and yet is the most valuable thing in all the world.