 Stepping stone? No!
I did not use Children’s Ministry for a stepping stone toward the Senior Pastorate. However, I can see over the past three years how God has been preparing my heart for the Senior Pastorate. I am eternally thankful for God directing my path toward where I am today - The Senior Pastorate. Before I transitioned out of my previous church, a mentor who is also a former pastor told me, “The two most important things a pastor can focus on are: Prayer and the Ministry of the Word.” While I understand why he counseled me toward these two tasks and I believe they are Biblical (Acts 6:4), I would like to take time to narrow our focus down to one priority as leaders in ministry. Our priority is simply this: The Glory of God When God’s people were allowed to return and worship God after seventy years of exile, they returned to a temple that was in ruin. God’s people then started to lay the foundation (Ezra 3:10), but became discouraged by their adversaries. For sixteen years, God’s people became focused on other tasks: rebuilding their own homes, farming, work, food, and drink, while God’s House remained unfinished. A prophet named Haggai is called by God to emphasize rebuilding the temple. In Haggai 1:7, God declares, “Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified…” The glory of God was the priority for God’s people. Rebuilding their own home, farming, eating food, earning wages were not sinful. When the priority shifted away from God’s glory, God rebuked the people and called them to ‘consider their ways’. As leaders in ministry, we can be distracted with ministry and easily forget that our priority in ministry and in all of life is to glorify God. With the demands of leadership continually shifting and changing, it’s important that we daily refocus our priority in ministry. With this in mind, over the next three weeks, I will discuss three ways we can give glory to God as leaders in ministry.
Check back next week as I write about giving God glory in each of these aspects.
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