My wife texted: Praying for you to enjoy worshipping the Lord even in the midst of ministry!
People assume it must be easy to worship and walk with the Lord - you're in ministry after all. Not exactly. Here's one challenge:
Ministry is work, kind of like accounting or plumbing. There's stuff to do to keep the operation moving forward: Sermons to prepare, e-mails to write, copiers to fix, services to plan, etc. Just like with any job, these tasks can be done as an act of worship offering our best to the LORD and trusting Him to do something great.
Or we can treat ministry like a lot of people treat their jobs - it's just a job, a way to make a living. Stuff has to get done in order to keep the job, so I'll get it done. No sense of offering gifts and talents to the Lord, no sense of hoping for something greater, just the daily grind.
So whether you work in a ministry job or not, you can worship in your work or you can work your work. Your job doesn't determine your worship, but your worship sure makes a difference in your job.
Here's a second challenge to worshipping in a ministry job: We're all sinful and desperately in need of a Savior. Every single one of us. No one is immune to the sin disease. But in ministry jobs there is sometimes a devilish thought that people in ministry jobs are a little closer to God, a little more well connected, and well, they should be a little more mature, a little further down the road.
Which can set you up for a little disappointment when you run into gossip, laziness, dishonesty, and law driven judgementalism. You can still worship, but you better have your theology right, the theology that reminds you : we're all desperately dependent on the LORD for grace today. Remember that and you'll worship the One who again and again forgives, restores, renews, and perseveres with us, regardless of our chosen jobs.
