Disclaimer : This article would hurt the sentiments of all those who have not understood the meaning of the Greatest Commission. If you are a person who cannot digest solid spiritual food, please do not proceed any further.
All my life, I have heard testimonies from preachers from the Pulpit. Many of these testimonies have made me cry. Many of these testimonies have made me to take new decisions in life.
One very common statement that I have heard from preachers in the pulpit is this, “I was working for 20 years in a Secular Job. Now I have left my job to do full time Ministry for the Lord”. I used to have so much respect for such people who left their worldly jobs to do God’s work all the time. But when I started to fellowship with such ministers of God, I practically came to know more about them from their FRUIT.
This got me into thinking
1. “Are there any Full Time Ministers? And if they exist, who are the Part time Ministers?”
2. “Are they man made terms?” or “Are they God ordained terms”
To find answers to these questions, I fixed appointment sessions with Pastors and this article has some of the discussions I had with one Pastor.
Scene 1: Location : At a coffee shop.
Characters:
1. Prason (Me)
2. Rev. Dr. Prophet Full Time Minister (Name changed) (FTM)
Me: Hi Pastor, Good evening.
FTM: Hi Prason, Praise the Lord
Me: Is there something called as Full Time Minister and Part Time Minister? Or Are these man made terms?
FTM: Yes, There is a difference between Full Time Ministry and Part Time ministry. If you read the Bible, you will see that Peter, James and John left their father's profession of fishing to follow Jesus. They dedicated their lives fully for God.
Me: Then what is Part Time Ministry?
FTM: Part time ministry is done by people like you. You are working in a secular organisation. So when you preach about Jesus in your free time, you become a part time minister.
Me: Thanks Pastor for the explanation. But was the Great commission of Jesus (Matthew 28:19, 20) split into Full time and Part Time? Or is it a call for every Believer?
FTM: Last commission is for every Believer. But still some people of God are called by God to do full time Ministry and the rest are part time ministers.
Me: Ok Pastor. I got the basic answers to some of my questions.
The Pastor and I had a long conversation and the rest of the article is written in prose format for easy understanding. From conversing with the pastor, I realised that his PhD thesis was not approved, but he still got the Dr-Tag prefixed to his name by paying Rs.1500/- (We have many Doctorates in Christendom like this. I personally know a few duplicate Doctorates in Christendom and a few of them are in my FB friends list too)
On a closer walk with the Pastor with whom I fellowshipped, I came to know about his daily schedule.
Sunday : Morning - Two services (English and Tamil), Afternoon – Bible study, Evening – Outreach ministry with Elders in the Church
Monday : Updating the reports on the computer
Tuesday : Rest (Time with family)
Wednesday : Whole day rest. Evening : Church service (One hour)
Thursday : Rest (Time with family ),Evening : Family Visiting time ( 10 houses. Ten minutes each at each house)
Friday : Rest in the morning, Evening : All night fasting prayer in Church (Miracle night)
Saturday : Rest in the morning, Evening : Choir practise (2 hours),Night : Log onto Sermon central online portal and prepare sermons for the next day (http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-topics)
Foreign Trips are not included in this list. This is the weekly life of the Pastor and He calls himself as a full time worker for the Lord. I am not generalising every Pastor here. There are Pastors who have dedicated their lives for God and I know one dedicated Pastor in my own family. I also know many wolves in sheep’s clothing in my own family network.
In Ephesians 4:11-13 we learn that there are five special gift-ministries whose job is to equip the saints, or sanctified ones for the work of service. A minister is a servant, nothing more, nothing less. (I Corinthians 3:5-7) We are all called to serve both God and man even as Jesus was. He came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and sent us to do likewise. (Matthew 20:28 John 20:21)
If you are working in a secular organisation, don’t call yourself as a part-time worker. You are a full time worker in God’s vineyard too. You have to be w witness for god in your workplace. God has placed you in your firm so that you can be a salt and light to your colleagues. Are your colleagues seeing Jesus through you in your workplace? It is easy to evangelise to poor uneducated people. They have fewer questions and they will easily accept the Lord. But who will evangelise to the intellectual community in your workplace? Who will evangelise to your boss who has an MBA from IIM? Have you ever prayed to God to give you wisdom to speak to your boss with wisdom? Are you depicting the fruit of the spirit at work place? Or are you being taken away with the tide? All these questions are applicable to you and me.
It is time for us to lose all of the man-made ideas of what a minister or servant of the Gospel of Jesus is. These have caused a lot of confusion and failure in the church, as both men and women have attempted to conform to an image presented to them that they were never intended by God to mimic. Pastors must attempt to be administrators and evangelists must be nomads, but is God really saying this? Or is He really leading us to release the gifts that He has planted in us in both ordinary and extra-ordinary ways? Without realizing it, we have become slaves to a system or way of seeing that has limited all of us. The full potential that both the ministry and the people who they serve have been prevented from coming forth. It is time to break free from this into the true liberty of Christ. What is He really about? When we consider this we will realize what we all are to be pursuing.
Paul the apostle, whose ministry and life has had such a dynamic affect on Christianity and the world, had a natural trade that he took pride in. By making tents, he was able to keep not only his ministry going, but also the brethren that traveled with him. All of this, he said, was to be an example for us. (Acts 20:34-35, 18:3, II Thess. 3:7-9) Think of it! You are in the company of one of the greatest of God's servants, as you labor for God's kingdom and the benefit of others. People are caught in the man made terms “Full Time Ministers and Part Time Ministers”. We have created preachers for ourselves. By some preachers in our day Paul would not have been recognized as a minister of the gospel at all. Three months ago, I attended a Church in which the ministers were asked to come up and pray for the people, but there was a restriction made. To be recognized by this well-known preacher (Rev, Dr, Prophet) you must be either a pastor or a "full-time" minister. Those who worked a traditional job and preached "part time" were not accepted.
Now we know that the recognition of men should not be our goal, but we do need to acknowledge each others' special abilities in God without respect of persons. If I plant the seed in someone that they are inferior I would be better off if a milestone were tied to my neck and cast into the sea. Any system or idea that destroys or hinders spiritual growth and ones ability to effectively serve God's people should be questioned. God help us to stop perpetuating a way that fails to treat every individual as one who is important and needed by the whole church. To fully function in the body of Christ, we need to make use of every gift God has given each member. The foot is not more important than the hand, nor the eye more than the ear. (I Corinthians 12:20-21) Today the harvest is great, but the labourers are few.Certainly we would all prefer to be released from secular occupations, in order to more fully give ourselves to the ministry of the Word, but we can't all be like Peter. Some of us must be as Stephen and the other deacons who took care of lesser duties in order that Peter could fulfill His calling. God is calling us all to full-time service in Him. We serve him every day as we serve others on our jobs, in our families, at our schools, and in our local gatherings of believers. May we all become great in the Kingdom of God, as we learn to be the servants of all. So if you are a Pastor, "Stop calling yourself as a full Time Minister. You are not a Busy Bee in the Body of Christ. You are a fellow worker in Our Lord's Vineyard"
The greatest Commission has become the Greatest Omission because of Man made terms like “Full Time Minister and Part Time Minister”.
Evangelise, Make disciples by baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and teach them to obey everything what Jesus has commanded us.
Shielded in God's Love
Prason
No comments:
Post a Comment