For Willing Leaders

My hopes in writing this are to inspire those of you who are new in ministry and haven’t found your cause to keep seeking. For those of you who are in the middle of fulfilling your cause I would love to encourage and remind you that you are not alone. God had to change my perspective of His calling in order for me to run free and not feel overwhelmed.

In my first nine years of full time ministry, I was working under the belief that, at best, all we could expect was to simply scratch the service of our broken world. God changed my perspective. He showed me that through Him it would not take more than our willingness to change this world. For me this was a huge relief because as a leader for years I thought my job was to convince people against their will to go out to serve and give, also to push those who were giving and serving to do even more.

God helped me to put 2 and 2 together. He reminded me of the incredible examples of how He used ordinary people to do the miraculous in order to save his children. That lead me to be curious to want know how many of His children needed saving? How many people are dying of starvation? How many orphans still need homes? How many lost souls are in need of a savior? I looked up several stats and I was overwhelmed. Until my curiosity, lead me to look up how many Christians were in the world. There are 2.1 billion Christians. With an army that big, what can’t we fix? What can’t we solve? There is not one heart wrenching injustice that cannot be fixed with those of us who are willing. Of course, we are willing, that’s why we are in the ministry but I think a lot of us including myself have felt worn out and overwhelmed because we have felt that we will have to carry the load alone.

Here is what I have experienced to be true in my personal walk with God and by witnessing others getting involved. First God always multiplies every effort. Second, once someone experiences the joy of giving and serving their appetite gets wet and their level of willingness expands.

Our job as leaders is to encourage people at their level of willingness to simply use it. I believe many people do not use what they have to give because they do not believe it will matter or because they do not know where to use it.

As leaders, God has bestowed an army upon us to accomplish the miraculous. I used to over complicate what it meant to be a miracle. For the woman praying out to God right now, that she will be able to feed her kids tonight my team or your team showing up at her door will be that miracle talked about through her family and generations to come. For the young man who has never been loved, in fact called a mistake, God’s love pouring through us will save him from a life of crime and destruction. Seventy percent of all the men in prison spent time in the foster care system, in fact eighty percent of the men on death row spent time in the foster care system. The level of brokenness caused by growing up this way can only be healed by our Savior, who he will only know if you and I are willing to send some of our team to go and tell him. These are only two examples of ways to be a miracle and maybe neither one of these are a passion compelling you to act. However, there is a cause God has commissioned you to fight with the army He has trusted you with. I hope that inspires you to never underestimate the impact God wants to make with your life and to relieve you to know that you are going to fight your cause with a willing army.