Principles Of Ministry | unityinchrist.com

It is imperative that we as pastors rely on the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit in our ministries. Perhaps one reason why the church has turned to secular humanistic psychology with such enthusiasm is because it lacks the supernatural power of God.

The church is God’s. Jesus said “I will build My church…” (the personal pronouns are emphatic in the Greek). It is His work, the problems are His problems, the people are His people. We are not to be building our personal kingdoms, we are to be flowing with Him.

To do so, we must seek His will for the ministry daily, confess our personal inabilities, and rest on His strength. How easy it is to fall into the trap of relying on self, especially in areas that are routine.

Christian book stores, seminaries, and denominations are filled with programs that propose to teach us how to raise money, how to attract new folks, how to administrate, how to counsel those in need, how to evangelize, etc., etc. But one key to the success of Calvary Chapel is that Pastor Chuck and those who have learned from him ignore all that. We are not interested in spiritual “how to” books and seminars, instead we seek the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. We look to Him each day in prayer, we search His Word, and there we find direction for the ministry for today. He gives us ideas and plans, He instills vision that is breathed by His life.

So many of the programs around us are adopted from the world. Evangelism programs are based on worldly sales techniques, administrative courses come from business management principles, counseling techniques come from secular psychology, the “science of church growth” is based on demographics and marketing strategy. And of course, much of it works in the sense that you can build a church that way. The problem is that it’s not the Lord’s church, so if you build it, you’ll have to sustain and maintain it.

Laying all of that aside is hard on the flesh, but in the long run much easier. Rather than striving to build and sustain, we can let God do His work. It takes all the worry out of ministry. It’s His work; I can just relax and enjoy watching what He’ll do. My responsibility is simply to seek His face, rely on His Spirit, and obey Him.

When we do rely on Him, all the glory and honor goes to God. And, we must be very careful to give Him the credit for what He does; and, conversely, we must be careful not to blame Him for what we do. God will not share His glory with any person, He knows we can’t handle it. All praise and glory must go to the Master Builder, the chief cornerstone, the Head of the Body, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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