I recently helped someone over several months. We didn’t interact much, but they do regularly read my online posts and texted this:
“Chris, thank you so much for everything man! …I have so much respect for you and what you’re doing at the church! Your approach to ministry has truly revived my faith in the church!”
I’m a better writer than leader. No one’s knocking on my door to learn Renovation Community’s Church Growth strategies. Given our commitment to serve society’s overlooked, under-resourced, and mentally ill, we may never be the favorite ‘go-to’ church for stable middle class families looking for an “awesome children’s ministry.” And, no matter how much we work on our building, it may always look old.
AND THAT’S ALL OK.
Seriously. It is.
Praise God for the pastors with tremendous leadership capabilities who can help churches numerically grow. Large churches with large budgets can help others in ways we never could.
And praise God for churches that can help middle class families meet God and find a church home.
But I need not imitate people entirely different from me, with different gifts and passions. God didn’t uniquely create me only for me to clone myself into someone else.
The same is true for you.
Learn from others. Try ideas that worked for them. Grow. Put yourself in challenging situations to see if you have more in you than you realized. Wisely weigh others’ counsel.
But don’t be someone God never intended.
God put others in your life that you may help them and LEARN from them, not BECOME them.
When you strive to follow God faithfully in all areas of your life, others will benefit. I trust God had a plan in mind when He allowed my path to intersect with this other person’s path. God knew I (a pastor with limited natural leadership abilities who oversees a small church) could help this person in ways a ’10-talent’ leader of a mega-church never could.
So just imagine the missed opportunity to impact this person’s life if I’d been serving Christ somewhere I didn’t belong, striving to be someone I’m not.
Be who God created you to be, as faithful as you know how to be. And watch God use you in ways beyond your wildest dreams.
