Play in the Kingdom
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The Part I Play in the Kingdom Paper
PART ONE: My Fit in Ministry (Before):
I am involved in the evangelism ministry and my objective is to help fulfill Christ’s Great Commission by bringing as many people as possible to Christ. This is based on Matthew chapter 10 where Jesus exhorts his disciples to go out into the world and help spread the good news (NKJV, 1980). Before starting the course, activities of my ministry included witnessing to individuals on a one-to-one basis, holding crusades and rallies, and going to missions in order to preach to lost souls in my locale, all across the country, and in other parts of the world. We also helped to spread the gospel through social media using Facebook and Twitter and our ultimate objective was to get into radio and TV broadcast to communicate God’s word. However, our activities were not clearly based on our true strengths and weaknesses but were largely premised on our perceptions on what we thought we were called to do and what we thought was our preferred choice of ministry.
Prior to taking this course, I had not considered whether evangelism was truly my calling and in what areas I was gifted. I did not know that I could accurately self-evaluate myself to find out what my greatest spiritual gifts were as well as determine my weakest spiritual gifts. I always thought that entry into ministry was based on gut feeling. Thus, the course was welcome as it gave me the skills of evaluating my gifts and using these gifts to maximum effect. After taking the course, I am convinced more than ever that I fit in the evangelism ministry and that this is my true calling.
PART TWO: Spiritual Gifts:
Based on the analysis of my spiritual gifts, showing mercy, administration, and evangelism are my strongest gifts in that order. On the other hand, my weakest gifts are exhortation, giving, and prophesy (Ephesians Four Ministries, 2014). I strongly believe that my spiritual gifts fit in my ministry. I feel this way because I score highly in evangelism, which is my ministry path. Even though administration and showing mercy are ranked as stronger gifts than evangelism, I do not see this as a minus because I can exploit these two to strengthen my evangelism ministry. For instance, I can exploit my administrative skills to raise more funds for my ministry and plan properly to ensure that we get the greatest impact using minimal resources.
Since I am not strong on prophecy, exhortation, and giving, I believe that I can incorporate other people who are more gifted in these areas to help strengthen my ministry path (Ephesians Four Ministries, 2014). Some of the people who can help me in this regard are prophets and people who can make accurate prophetic messages, cheerful givers, and pastors. Cheerful givers will contribute to help my ministry meet its expenditures as well as assist the needy. Assistance of the needy will help bring more people to the body of Christ and hence help in my ministry’s objective of converting people to Christ. Finally, pastors will shepherd the people that my evangelism ministry has helped lead to Christ and thereby ensure that they grow and remain in salvation.
PART THREE: Church Evaluations:
During my evaluation of different church ministries, I got interested in several other ministries. Among the ministries that particularly interested me are the prayer and teaching ministries. The prayer ministry interested me because prayer is the fulcrum upon which successful evangelism turns. The teaching ministry interested me because converts need to be taught after they have been won.
The two ministries fit perfectly well with my ministry path of evangelism. This is because prayer is a necessary ingredient for saving lost souls. As admonished in Colossians 4:2, we need to continue earnestly in prayer. We are required to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) (NKJV, 1980). This is especially true for those in the evangelism ministry, as we require interceding to God on behalf of lost souls so that He can save them through our ministry. Additionally, evangelism goes hand in hand with teaching because people who are converted to Christ need to be mentored and taught continuously so that their faith can grow and they can become strong Christians. It would be useless to labor in the field converting people to Christianity only to abandon them and leave them without Christian teachings. Christian instruction helps to strengthen the faith of those who are newly converted besides providing illumination to those who had gotten saved earlier.
PART FOUR: Interaction with Church Leaders:
I interacted with very many church leaders and all of them left me with positive and lasting impressions. Many of those I interacted with are renowned and successful Christians who have left a mark in their respective areas of ministry. What stood out the most for me was their humility despite their extraordinary achievements. Despite their seemingly larger than life profiles and reputation, most of the church leaders were self-effacing, friendly, reachable, and unassuming. They are people who manifest humility and give true meaning to the scriptures of Matthew 18:4 which says that those who humble themselves shall be the greatest in God’s kingdom, James 4:6 and 10 which says that humility is the key to greatness. Other bible verses which emphasize the value of humility and helped me understand the church leaders are 1 Peter 5:6 and Proverbs 22:4 (NKJV, 1980).
This has deeply affected my ministry. I have learnt that humility is the key to personal greatness as a Christian and to a godly character. I vowed to use this principle as one of the driving forces that would help us attain our objectives of winning more souls to Christ. Towards this end, we are no longer focused on ostentatious public displays in a bid to impress souls to Christ. Our focus now is one – to present the gospel of Christ to multitudes. We endeavor to show meekness and modesty when reaching out to lost souls and to be friendly and approachable to all people. While evangelizing, we have purposed not to go for flashy or showy equipment or instruments but display a more unassuming face. After all, true salvation and true achievement comes from God and he will lift us up in His appointed time as long as we embrace the virtue of humility.
PART FIVE: My Fit in Ministry (After):
I still feel that I am in the correct ministry and that my calling is well and truly in evangelism. Based on the teachings I received during the course however, I now feel that I need to do much more in order to succeed in my ministry as well as win more souls to Christ. I need to exploit my greatest gifts of administration and showing mercy to advance my ministry. In this regard, my next steps are to use my administrative skills to win new partners who will support the ministry as well as get people who have the gift of giving to help evangelize through giving. I also realized that shepherding the flock is one of my weakest areas.
My next step therefore will be to seek out pastors who are strong in God’s word and who show a true calling to help me pastor and shepherd the flock that we win to Christ. We will also identify those who are gifted as pastors and shepherds within my team and help them to advance their gifts so that they can minister to those who obtain salvation. Another step will be to pass on the knowledge I gained from this course to my fellow ministry members. I believe that this will help them realize their true calling and strengthen my ministry too. For people planning to get into ministry, I would advise them to first of all pray about it and do a self-evaluation to see where their greatest strengths are and where their weaknesses are. This will help them leverage their strengths and plan on how to improve on their weaknesses. As well, they need to consult other people who have served in the ministry in order to get first hand experience of what it is like, what to expect, and how to prepare for service in the ministry. In all this they should put God first.
References
Bible gateway. (2014). Retrieved on 1st April, 2014 from
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12
Ephesians Four Ministries. (2014). Free Spiritual Gifts Analysis. Retrieved on 1st April, 2014
from http://www.churchgrowth.org/cgi-cg/gifts.cgi?intro=1
NKJV. 1980. New King James Bible, New Testament and Psalms. Thomas Nelson, Inc.