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

by Skye Jethani

Many churches, both large and small, seem to engineer their ministries around the antithesis of redundancy: singularity. They are dangerously fragile because a single leader is often the focus of nearly everything that happens, and not just on Sunday morning. I’ve seen some churches become paralyzed when the senior pastor is on vacation or even just out of the office.

When pastors are confident that their church can function or even flourish without them for a season, they are more likely to find the courage to seek help for themselves or their marriages. As long as the entire system is built on the premise of singularity rather than redundancy, pastors will be incentivized to deny their needs and minimize their problems. The pastor cannot risk sharing a weakness or admitting a failure if there is no copilot to take the controls. Therefore what may have started as a manageable challenge is allowed to expand into an insurmountable disaster. In short, singularity may be more efficient in the short run, but redundancy keeps more leaders serving and churches thriving in the long run.

With a great many Baby Boomer pastors nearing retirement, and their churches facing transitions, the risks may only be increasing. So many of these churches, especially the personality-driven megachurches, were engineered on singularity with one very dynamic leader/teacher at the center.

makes me wonder if I might accomplish more by speaking less, and whether a great deal of what I cram into a message is more about meeting expectations (mine and the congregation’s) than truly benefiting my hearers.

The error pastors make is assuming that Sunday sermons are primarily for teaching content rather than inspiring devotion. Teaching is critical, but a large-group lecture, as most of us experience on Sunday, is a terrible forum for effective learning. It’s an ideal setting for preaching, however.

illuminating a vision of a loving God, who invites us to share in the perpetual, eternal relationship that exists between Father, Son, and Spirit? If a preacher can’t accomplish that in fifteen minutes, he missed his true calling.

President Lincoln’s far shorter address, on the other hand, didn’t even contain the words “Union,” “Confederate,” or “slavery.” Instead he lifted the sights of the audience to illuminate the ultimate meaning of the war and fill them with the hope that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”

Jesus commands us to make disciples, teaching them to obey all that He has commanded.

REFLECTION AND APPLICATION Undertake a review of your last two or three sermons. Reread your notes/manuscripts or listen to the recorded message. Upon reflection, what could have been removed from the message? What was unnecessary or included simply to fill time or draw attention to yourself rather than the Lord?

What can you do with this additional time in the worship gathering to help your congregation catch another glimpse of Christ and His kingdom?

We live in a dark world. Our hearts long for goodness, beauty, justice, and peace, but they are often hidden behind the shadow cast by evil and sin. This is why preaching is so necessary. Whenever the kingdom of God is proclaimed, it is like a bright burst of light. In those brief moments, the shadows recede and we are given a glimpse of a world behind the darkness.

In Dallas Willard’s VIM model of spiritual formation, he differentiates three parts: Vision Intention Means

Despite my hours of preparation, thoughtful use of visuals, and tangible takeaways, most people retained very little of the nutritious content offered to them.

how would people thrive if they couldn’t retain biblical knowledge? How would they grow? How would they follow the commands of Jesus?

Preaching this way will not always have the end goal of application, but rather inspiration. As Willard says, “It’s the beauty of the kingdom that Jesus said was causing people to climb over each other just to get in.”5 Only after people have a vision of God (the love, beauty, justice, and power of His kingdom) will they be ready to intentionally seek and employ the means to experience him through obedience—

Preaching to inspire rather than instruct is a distinction we see in Jesus’ own ministry. The Greek word for preach (kerusso) means “to announce.” This is not the same as the word for teach (didasko), meaning “to instruct.”

Jesus’ preaching was a revelatory act. He announced the kingdom. He turned the lights on so people could see the kingdom that lay “at hand” just behind their present darkness.

Even Jesus’ most celebrated sermon was intended more to inspire than instruct. The Sermon on the Mount paints a vivid image of a life lived within God’s kingdom—a life that does not lust, lie, or manipulate; a life full of love, charity, and prayer. But the sermon includes very little “how to.” Jesus’ purpose is to reveal the kingdom, to illumine a sublime vision of a life in intimate communion with the Father.

But Jesus does not send them to “teach”—that command comes after His resurrection. Rather, He sends them to “preach.” Teaching requires proficiency with a set of knowledge—knowledge these men did not yet possess. But preaching is different. Announcing the kingdom only requires one to have seen and experienced it.

Understanding the difference is crucial. If we see the purpose of preaching as primarily instructing, then it will be confined to an individual exercise, a responsibility granted only to the most biblically educated, articulate, and proficient in the congregation. But if we believe preaching is primarily the announcing of the kingdom, an unveiling of a vision of God’s glorious reign and our life in it, then the responsibility to preach cannot lie solely with the pastor. It properly belongs with all of God’s people—

If the purpose of preaching is illumination—the unveiling of a vision of God’s kingdom—why do we limit that responsibility to only one person in the church? Why not allow others to drop their coins into the box for the encouragement and edification of the whole group? Surely a single mother, or recovering alcoholic, or teenager who has experienced God’s reign can give us a glimpse of the kingdom as well. They, too, have coins to give. Teaching may be the domain of the spiritually mature, but preaching belongs to the whole body.

a ten- or fifteen-minute segment of our Sunday gatherings we called “Offerings of Worship.” People in the congregation are invited to stand and share a story, a prayer, a passage of Scripture, a song, or a piece of art—anything they wish to give as worship to God and encouragement to the community.

I may have come more prepared than Kathy, Michael, Paul, or Timothy, and my content may have focused more on Scripture than personal experience, but my purpose was the same—to enrapture my brothers and sisters with the beauty of God and His kingdom, inspiring them toward faith and good works.

Sunday morning is anything but worshipful for many pastors. We are so preoccupied with the details of the service that calming our souls and communing with Christ is nearly impossible. But hearing how others are encountering God, seeing His power in their lives, and catching a glimpse of His kingdom through their preaching has taught me to be a sheep again, and not just a shepherd.

there are other ways to move preaching away from an individual exercise and toward an expression of Christ’s body. During my years as a teaching pastor, we shifted the church steadily away from a single preacher and toward a team approach. Part of our motivation was practical. Having multiple congregations and wanting to develop new speakers was important,

Ron spent most of his career as a missionary; he lives and breathes God’s mission, and his heart aches for those who do not know Christ’s love. I can preach faithfully about evangelism, but when Ron talks about it, there is an added power—the lights burn more brightly and illuminate that aspect of God’s character more fully. Through him the body is inspired toward mission more effectively.

The New Testament tells us that Christ has given some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. And other passages highlight the diversity of gifts given for the edification of the whole body. But when only one person’s gifts and personality are given expression in our gatherings, or if Sunday is seen as the private domain of teachers, we limit the vision of God His people experience.

Preaching doesn’t have to be merely instruction. We need to have the darkness of the world rolled away and a vision of God’s kingdom illuminated before us. This responsibility to inspire does not lie with the pastor alone, but with all of God’s people.

Using Willard’s VIM model of transformation, assess where each of the three components are occurring within your ministry community: • Where are people receiving a ravishing vision of life with God? • How are they being called to make an intentional decision to pursue this vision for themselves? • Where are they being equipped and given the means to live out this vision?

If our goal is to teach people to obey all that Jesus commanded, then we may want to rethink our commitment to comfort on Sundays.

System two is the analytical functioning of the brain that is required to rethink assumptions, challenge ideas, and construct new behaviors and beliefs. System two must be active to learn. Research shows that the brain shifts gears from system one to system two when it is forced to work, when it is challenged and uncomfortable.

But is easier the right goal, or should we be seeking engagement, which requires more work of our listeners rather than less?

Jesus taught in a manner that engaged His listeners and challenged them. He expected them to work in order to understand His teaching. He asked them questions, wrapped His teaching in opaque parables, and often taught in distracting settings.

How have you made church too “easy” for people? How have you set the bar too low?

Read the apostle Paul’s description of his own communication ministry in 1 Corinthians 2:1–5.

According to the International Labor Organization, Americans work more, take less vacation, and retire later than people in any other industrialized country.

Our culture is more work-centered than any other on the planet. Given this reality, those of us committed to Jesus Christ cannot ignore work as a critical area of spiritual formation, but two-thirds of churched adults surveyed by Barna Group said they have not heard any teachings about work at their church.

Millennials are accepting our culture’s message that their value is defined by their achievement, and that work is primarily about self-satisfaction rather than advancing the common good.

we have the challenging task of affirming the original goodness of work as a God-ordained part of our humanity without falling into the culture’s trap of making work into an idol.

redeeming work requires an orderly rhythm of work and rest. Without regular periods of rest, our work loses its meaning and value and deteriorates into chaotic toil. We may ridicule cultures that legislate six-hour work days and eight weeks of annual paid vacation, but ceaseless work does not lead to flourishing, either. What our culture has lost is a rhythm of work and rest in a frantic pursuit of achievement. We have become as work-saturated as we are sex-saturated, and “more” has not proven to be “better.” We are making a lot of noise but very little music.

But taking a day each week to rest is more than a way to find rejuvenation. Sabbath gives us the opportunity to step back from our immediate demands to put life into perspective, to appreciate the fruit of our labor, and to see our work in the larger context of God’s work.

Just as the constant consumption of pornography will distort our ability to experience real intimacy, Nass says the evidence shows that constant engagement with digital technologies may be killing our concentration and creativity rather than cultivating them.

I have found that transforming the noise of toil into the music of work requires weekly and daily rhythms of rest. Keeping boundaries on my phone usage, pausing regularly through the day for prayer and Scripture reading, and practicing the Sabbath have not diminished the value of work in my life, but instead have helped me appreciate its value far more.

We assume that the work we do in the world is a matter of personal desire. We often ask children, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” By itself this is a harmless question, but behind it lurks a vision of individual autonomy with no room for God.

we have rejected the idea that our work is a calling we receive from outside of ourselves. We have rejected a theology of vocation.

But how do we discover our vocation? How do we know what work God is calling us to?

Discerning our specific callings comes through a mature communion with the Holy Spirit.

But if we do not slow down, cease from our work, and learn to commune deeply with God, we will not be equipped to hear His call.

We see this pattern in Jesus’ own communion with His Father. The beginning of His public ministry, the selection of His apostles, and His journey to the cross were all started after first ceasing from His work and ...

“How do I know what I’m supposed to do with my life?” they sometimes ask me with more than a little anxiety depending on how close they are to graduation. “Tell me about your communion with God,” I’ll ask.