Over the years, I have often said to ministers:
“Be careful that the machine does not begin to rule the minister. The minister must steward the machine.”
Every growing ministry eventually develops a machine around the calling…buildings, budgets, staff, programs, administration, fundraising, opportunities, influence, and expectations.
None of those things are inherently wrong. In fact, many of them are necessary to faithfully steward what God has entrusted to us.
The danger comes when what was created to serve the calling gradually becomes the thing the calling must serve.
Success Has a Way of Revealing Us:
As ministries grow, so can influence, recognition, access, and even celebrity. There can still be tremendous good accomplished through it all.
Yet we should never underestimate the frailty of our humanity.
Sometimes our flaws are not diminished by success; they are magnified by it.
That is why we must continually return to our first love and remember the holy calling that brought us here in the first place.
What an extraordinary privilege it is that God would allow any of us to serve Him by serving people.
I have said for decades:
“While men reach for thrones to build their own kingdoms, Jesus reached for a towel to wash men’s feet.” And, “While we pursue high and exalted places, the Exalted One Himself, left His highest place, to pursue us.”
Perhaps one of the greatest dangers in ministry is not an obvious rejection of that pattern, but a slight movement away from it. A small turn can eventually take us a great distance from where we began.
We can subtly move from Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith…being at the center, until opportunities, influence, organizations, causes, or even good works themselves begin occupying that place.
It makes me think of the Garden.
There was the Tree of Life, and there was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Even something associated with good can become wrongly centered when Life Himself is no longer at the center.
Would We Still Do It If the Money Disappeared?
This is also why I have personally been cautious about funding opportunities, grants, government programs, and faith-based initiatives.
Again, I am not opposed to them. I know wonderful organizations with gifted administrators and business minded people who understand these systems and steward those resources with great integrity. Thank God for them.
But I remember when some of the first major federal faith-based initiatives were being discussed and I was invited into meetings surrounding them.
I watched people’s minds begin to click as they considered the money, possibilities, programs, and opportunities that might suddenly become available. For many, the motives were undoubtedly right. For others, perhaps not.
But it caused me to ask a question I have never forgotten:
“Would we still do this if the money disappeared?”
That does not mean people should not be paid for their labor.
They should be.
It does not mean organizations should reject resources that allow them to serve more people.
They should steward those resources wisely.
But there is a difference between a paycheck being the reason we serve and a calling being the reason we serve. This is the difference between the hireling vs. those who have a genuine passion and calling to serve.
When the funding dries up, the called will still find the crumbs.
Give them five loaves and two fish, and they will ask God to multiply them.
But either way, they will keep serving, because serving was never merely their program.
It was their calling.
Those are the people I am looking for. The Unsung Servants!
After more than four decades, I have had the privilege of encountering many of these people across our nation and around the world. Some have platforms and resources. Many do not.
Their names may never be widely known. There may never be conferences built around them, books written about them, or headlines celebrating what they have accomplished.
But I consider them heroes and champions.
They are the unsung servants who simply keep showing up.
They steward whatever God places in their hands. They multiply what they can. They serve the person standing in front of them.
And whether anyone applauds or not, whether the grant comes through or not, whether the organization grows or not, they remain faithful to what God called them to do.
There is nothing inherently wrong with building something large.
But may we never become so occupied with building the machine that we forget why the machine exists.
May influence remain a tool.
Because in the Kingdom of God, greatness has never ultimately been measured by the throne we attain.
Sometimes it looks much more like a towel.
The Wilderness Test:
There is another example we should never overlook, and it comes from Jesus Himself.
Before Jesus entered the public expression of His ministry, He was taken into the wilderness and tempted.
It is striking to me that the enemy offered Him some of the very things human beings so easily associate with success:
In one temptation there was the appeal to appetite and immediate provision:
“Turn these stones into bread.”
In another, there was the temptation of recognition and spectacle:
And then there was the offer of extraordinary influence and power:
“All these kingdoms I will give You.”
Jesus refused them all.
Not because provision is evil.
But Jesus would not obtain through temptation what could only rightly be received through obedience to His Father.
That distinction has become increasingly important to me.
The apostle John later warns us about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
These are ancient temptations, but they can wear very modern and contemporary facade and clothing, even in ministry.
What do I desire?
The danger is not necessarily in possessing resources, influence, or opportunity.
Stewarding What God Entrusts:
Jesus shows us another way.
He could stand before the kingdoms of the world and refuse to be ruled by the offer of them.
He understood something about true success that we desperately need to remember:
Success in the Kingdom is not ultimately measured by what we possess, how high we ascend, how many people know our name, or how much influence we accumulate. It is measured by faithfulness and obedience to the Father.
We are called to steward resources without being ruled by them.
We can steward money without loving money.
Jesus could be trusted with authority because authority did not own Him.
He could carry influence because influence was never His identity.
Perhaps that is one of the great tests of leadership:
“Can God place something significant into our hands without that thing eventually finding its way into our hearts?”
Our calling is to receive whatever God entrusts to us with gratitude, steward it faithfully, hold it with open hands, and never allow the gifts, opportunities, resources, or influence surrounding the calling to replace the One who called us.
Jesus was offered the high place and refused the shortcut.
He chose obedience.
That is a very different picture of success.
And it is one worth remembering whenever the opportunities surrounding ministry begin to look more attractive than the calling at the center of it.
Don’t let the machine rule the minister.
Steward the machine.
BY DOUG STRINGER