After preaching at a church yesterday I enjoyed lunch with a few lay people from the church. This congregation is currently seeking a new pastor. These lay people were passionate about wanting to see their church explore new ways of doing ministry in the community. They had numerous questions about how their church could become more missional in their efforts. It was exciting to see the passion of these folks because it suggests that their church is about to enter into a new period of growth and service to their community.
It seems that so much of church work drains the passion from people. Many pastors can remember the enthusiasm they felt when they first graduated from seminary or began a ministry at a new church, but some of them have not felt that passion for many years as the day-to-day demands of ministry slowly robbed them of their passion. Committed lay people can testify to that same loss of passion. After years of faithfully serving their church, the frustration of seeing little happen can begin to eat away at our passion. Our efforts can soon become mechanical producing few results which only takes away even more of the joy and passion of serving Christ.
From time to time it is important that each of us take a good survey of our various ministries regardless of whether we are clergy or lay leaders. We need to examine our motivation for serving and take a passion check to see if we still feel the excitement we once knew. If not, we need to stop and begin praying that God would restore that passion to us and try to determine what took it away from us in the first place. Maintaining the passion for our ministries is one of the keys to enjoying a long, fruitful ministry.
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