Looking Forward

I seem to have been attending a lot of friend’s MTS supporters’ nights lately. It’s been really really awesome being able to be in partnership with them in the Gospel both spiritually through prayer and practically like in financial support.

Seeing my friends all being so pumped and excited for the Gospel has been so encouraging and awesome! I’m so grateful that God has surrounded me with so many ministry minded people, so much so that it’s almost coming out of my ears!!! I’ve so challenged and encouraged and inspired by their willingness and desire to commit their lives towards the work of the Gospel… It’s not about doing something “noble”, or a “higher calling” per se… it’s about a change, a shift in perspective… a change in attitude to what life is about… an attitude of pursuing what is ultimately worthwhile and eternal…

I’ve also been surrounded with a number of friends who are contemplating and praying about going into full time paid ministry… This in itself has also been a huge encouragement to me… Seeing them grow in their excitement of what the future may hold, seeing them nervous and anxious of what may be, seeing them struggle with acceptance by family and friends, seeing them commit it to the Lord in prayer, seeing them being trusting and dependent on His guidance, seeing them being obedient and patient with His will, and most of all seeing their joy and zeal for serving the Lord.

You may well be thinking, “well, this is all well and good Paul, but how is this impacting on your own life?” and you’d be right in thinking this. And this is something that over this year I’ve been thinking about... How are all these models of ministries and service moulding me, and impacting my life?

I have no concrete answer or plan as yet per se… however, a part of me is certainly growing in desire to be more and more involved in ministry. Exactly what shape and form that takes is still yet to be seen, and probably won’t be for at least another year or two…

I’ve always had an inherent desire of some sort to do ministry, but it’s never really manifested itself as I’ve always had other ambitions, desires and plans… And I guess because of that, I’ve never been totally passionate yet about taking the plunge and entering FT ministry. I do have ambitions to go to Bible college and equip myself and grow in my knowledge and understanding for ministry… but whether that leads to FT ministry or not, I still do not know…

I’m also rather hesitant about MTS… A couple of years ago, I went through a whole phase where I was quite anti-MTS… I felt and still do to an extent that MTS has seemed to become the “trendy” thing to do… (call me cynical)… Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are definitely great benefits to be had in and from MTS… however, it felt for a while that it was being pushed as being the only way to enter FT ministry. That before you go to college, you need to do 2 years of MTS… I was also quite cynical, because MTS often requires you to leave your home church and go to another to be trained by someone else and supported by their church. At the time, I saw that my church was losing a lot of high calibre people to MTS, resulting in a void in leaders in several capacities at church. And because of this, I was quite disgruntled by the whole MTS system. My thinking was that “why do you have to leave your church and established ministries to be trained and equipped elsewhere FT? why can’t you do the same at your own church? Why does it have to be done on a FT basis?” questions such as these were running through my head. I really see the benefit for them in undertaking MTS, but is it necessarily for the greater good? I mean for a church to lose 2-4 leaders in one year is a big loss… and is it for the greater good of the current congregation to lose that many leaders in one hit to do MTS for them to gain valuable ministry experience elsewhere? Why can’t they gain that in their home church by involving themselves more in various ministries?

But I’m starting to digress, and that’s another story that’ll I’ll save for another blog…

Back to my thoughts about FT ministry… like I said before, I’ve always had a desire to be involved in ministry, and I am currently doing that in being involved in a couple of ministries at church, but the desire of doing FT ministry is also present in some embryonic form as well… I’m not repulsed by the notion of entering FT ministry, nor am I jumping out of my skin to do it, nor am I indifferent or nonplussed by it… rather, I’d say that I am open minded about it, and open to wherever God leads me… (which I guess is a good thing)…

But at the same time, I can’t be resting on my laurels, sitting on my butt waiting for God to give me some divine revelation and “call” me to some form of ministry… I have to be continuing to be actively serving Him in whatever capacity I am able… it’s a bit like looking for a husband or wife… u can’t just sit back and wait for God to drop someone in your lap… you have to be pro-active in, for want of a better term, engage in some active “spading” and see what prospective opportunities there are out there… :P

If I were to ask myself what’s stopping me from doing FT ministry? I’d have to honestly say nothing… at least nothing inherently… I don’t have any major stumbling blocks that may hamper or make it hard for me to commit myself to ministry… I have loving, supportive Christian parents, who are themselves involved in FT ministry… I’m not all that attached to my job… I don’t have any dependants…

However, knowing my parents (especially my mum), I know that they’d say that I’m still not responsible enough to make that kind of commitment… :P So that’s probably one reason why not to… Personally though what I really think may be stopping me is selfishness and pride…

I still want to pursue my ambitions before I consider further ministry… I want to pursue my photography business… however, I want to see how I can be using my gifts in photography and incorporate that into ministry… I’m not sure yet if that’ll work, or if that’s God’s plan… but we’ll see… if it’s not, and God wants me to go into further ministry, then I’m sure that he’ll challenge me and confront me to give away my photography ambitions…

Mebbe I can combine overseas mission work with travel/landscape photography… who knows?

But one thing is for sure… God is shaping and moulding my thinking and attitude towards ministry… where He’s going with this I have no idea yet… but looking forward I need to be ever conscious of being obedient and submissive to His good and perfect will…