Service and Selflessness

It is amazing to me how many people hold titles yet do absolutely nothing in ministry. Moreover, when these individuals are confronted about this, there is no evidence of any desire to work ministry. It is important that a leader discerns the spiritual culture present in their leadership board.

• Do you find that spiritual engagements and activities are not prioritized?
• Do you find that the affairs of life carry more value than the things of God?
• Do your leaders come to church services?
• Do they make decisions that will hinder their availability to God?
• Are they ministering in the lives of others?
• Can they be relied upon to effectively manage and complete the projects and responsibilities assigned to them?
• Is it common for your leadership team to make sacrifices for the sake of ministry?

Those chosen to serve must have a servant's heart and become a willing sacrifice. The minister must make no decisions for their own life, but seek to please God first above all else. The first responsibility of the minister is to "deny himself" and be willing to suffer loss of all things, even their own life, for the sake of the gospel. Jesus is upheld as the example, who "humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Are these things present in the leader you are ordaining?

2 Timothy 2:4

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Philippians 2:5-8

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Matthew 20:26-28

26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

27 And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.