Failure - Part 2

What follows is a continuance of the previous devotion.

The web-based Church Crunch (1/20/10) ran an article entitled "5 Ways to Fail as a Ministry Web Team." The 5 ways were…

 

1. Try to Do Everything

2. Say 'Yes' All the Time

3. Process? What's That?

4. Forget that Ministry is About Relationships

5. Be Clueless About the Rest of the Organization

 

I found that they proved just as true for the life of a Follower. I detailed the first 2 in the previous devotion. Here are the final 3.

 

3. Process? What's That? -  This means, "have a plan." Satan has a plan for us so, if we don't have a plan, God's plan, we will default to Satan's. This could be called a rule of life. My plan is my Baptismal Vows plus a few more. My plan included regular, daily time with God, forgiving, reaching out to serve others using my gifts, regular worship, giving blood every 8 weeks, tithing, one day off a week among others.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

4. Forget that Ministry is About Relationships – Jesus had a lot to say about religious task doers. He calls them hypocrites, empty graves, and dirty cups. This is not to say that he did not love them. He did. But he knew their well ran dry when they made the subtle and often unnoticed shift from serving God through servicing others to self-justification by "being good." Relationships –with God and others – are what the God who is love expects. Being good is simply not enough.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)

 

5. Be Clueless About the Rest of the Organization – Business guru, Patrick Lencioni, calls the phenomenon, "silos." We resist team work and, instead, go it alone, relying on what worked before and what we like without regard to the rest of the community (church, family, business, etc.) False-starts, missed opportunities, mistrust, tradition-worship result of our failure to use the Godly synergism of being the Body of Christ. Body, not organ.

 

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. 1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)

 

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV)