Cheryl Weaver

Are we “Doing” Ministry?

My heart is burdened today by the concept of what ministry is and what it isn’t. I think we sometimes are confused on the concept of the subject matter of this broad and vast topic. Really, think about it all our Christian life we hear about ministry, “the Ministry” “being in ministry”, “doing the ministry” and I would like to share on this topic and in that some may receive a different perspective and understanding of the true form of what ministry can be about.

Ministry I am sure in it-self has many definitions and pending on the church doctrine and the denomination you are connected with there are again another set of thoughts connected to such a word. There are a couple of areas that I want to dissect right now as it is laying on my heart.

Ministry as I have shared with many is something that happens between you and the Lord. You were created to minister to your Lord and Savior first and foremost - worshiping and being in relationship is our first calling to ministry and truly our only calling (Due 6:5). It is out of that place of ministry to the Lord through worship, adoration and love between the Father and the child that God releases a wake of gifts, anointing and fruit that will simply follow you everywhere you go. As we adore the Father, He adores us and we can’t ever out give the Lord as we spend time with Him, He spends that time multiplying it back to us in love and changing us to being made into His image. Thus, then wherever we go, wherever we walk, (like Peter & Paul) even then our shadow has anointing to bring about changes in the atmosphere for Jesus (Act 5:15-16). Jesus lives in us the same power that raised Jesus from the dead! (Rom 8:11) THINK ABOUT THAT! We are because He is! We, I think downplay the Holy Spirit’s role in the Trinity, yes, He is the comforter, He is the helper, and He is the Spirit that dwells with in. But Jesus was able to do what all He endured because He was a MAN with that same SPIRIT within Him! The same Spirit that resisted the enemy in the wilderness, the same Spirit that lead Jesus to the garden of Gethsemane not for His own flesh but to overcome the flesh of His manhood and choose the will of the Father. Why, because of the SPIRIT of GOD living within Him to enable Him to walk out the will of the Father on the earth. This is the same SPIRIT that lives in us to accomplish ALL that He requests and even greater as we align our belief with His! (JOHN 14:12)

Do you understand that GOD HIMSELF LIVES IN YOU (Rom 8:9,11)…. Not a junior token gift, but the GOD of the Universe who created the HEAVENS and THE EARTH with His WORDS… He gave YOU and ME the same spirit to SPEAK LIFE into existence, taking dominion here on earth as His Voice, Hands and Feet! (Gen 1:26-28 )

Ministry is the incredible revelation of this mystery of the Gospel on a daily basis as we worship and adore this awe-powerful being who loves us so much that He placed himself in these limited bodies to prove HIS limitless existence!!! YOU ARE HIS VISUAL AID ON THE EARTH. (Eph 6:19-20)

Ministry in itself is lifeless and limited by the very title, if it is relegated to anything outside of our personal relationship with our love King Jesus. Let us not create a form or a structure and call that ministry… PLEASE!… Ministry is not something we DO!… it is a by-product of the NATURE of Christ being formed into our soul… the pressure of His limitless love being squeezed into our limited beings and releasing abilities way beyond our fleshly carnal nature and enabling us to be here on the earth “Little Christ’s” loving beyond our ability, which then sets others free not by “doing, but by BEING in Him”! (Gal 4:19) God is L O V E, Love covers, God is in you, and we are in Love with Him. (1 John 4:8b) There is a circle of Life that is released as we walk in the depth and breadth and width and the height of that love. (Rom 8:39) You can’t help but love others and in the process of that amazing pressure overwhelming you it is changing your nature minute- by-minute as you embrace it, it is a catalyst that is synergistically transforming all living things everywhere around you. That transformation is the process and nature of ministry… complete from beginning to the end all by the Lord’s pursuing love and nature being made within the very soul of man and woman. The Gospel is a daily transforming Truth if you aren’t being transformed you don’t have the true Gospel.

We are the richest example of ministry as LIFE all around us is being transformed by the SPIRIT of love and selflessness in us. That nature in us is being radically loosed on the people around us by the Spirit. This is ministry. Ministry is organic. Ministry is a verb not a noun and it is a journey not a destination. It is not a location in a building or an act that we perform for GOD. It’s a dance of love weaving back and forth with the Father understanding His heart in ours and our heart in His. This dance of reflecting His nature on the earth; radically reflecting him causes the world and all around it to enter into a dance themselves and that response becomes an organic movement. Then the Father engages His other children because of the Love you are loosing back towards the Father and then it’s released over those in your path. It is a magnificent limitless powerful GOD living in the very finiteness of our human condition and bringing Glory to himself. MIRACULOUS!

Ministry isn’t something we move towards, ministry isn’t something we plan for, and ministry is something we try and do, become, or fix. Ministry isn’t a program or a strategy, it is a BY-PRODUCT of an everlasting deep love affair with a Savior who paid for everything you have ever done, you’ll ever need and all that is in your future. Ministry isn’t something that can be defined… How can you define GOD? Attempting to create something and call it a ministry is in its very nature already contrary to the very nature of Jesus and what he came to reveal on the earth. The box of Ministry of the day and time of Jesus was modeled in the Pharisees creating rules and regulations, stipulations “FOR GOD”. This is much the same example or format of Ministry we still see today in many places. We can have the best intentions, take Saul, his passion was unmerited for God and yet the blinding of self-righteousness “doing something for God” perverted the very nature and essence of who God is, love; He came to seek and save the Lost, loving one another. We like Saul can be blinded by our desire to “DO” for God out of our lack of “Being IN” God, and then the natural progression of “Doing” for God are acts of performance. Then that meets our own gratifications and is completely devoid of the character of God himself, which is rooted in selflessness. Thus, we move into “a form of religion and denying His power.”(2 Tit 2:3-5) Yet our words and actions seem all so good on the outside and we are often blinded to the true motive of self-fulfillment. God is selfless. This is the hardest thing on earth to grasp… the nature of God in us to be completely selfless and full of Love. It is the purpose of our Heavenly Father to create us as vessels that are utterly helpless to completing such a task without the total and utter dependence on HIM moment by moment, day-by-day. He longs for our relationship! Jesus was one with the Father provoked to doing what HE heard the Father saying by love and obedience to the Will of Him who sent Him.

Is there anything called ministry that we can offer or do… yes of course, but I say no, not really. Is there good works that we all can perform oh yes, does it benefit others yes, Faith without deeds is dead. How much more full could it be, if we were moving and living and having our being in Jesus moving from the same heart intent that Jesus moved in towards the Father? (Acts 17:28)  My exhortation to us today is that we are not called to FIX anything. God is the author and finisher of our faith and He will complete what He has begun in us. (Heb 12:2, 1 TH 5:24) We tend to fall into the codependent quantitative statuses of the world’s standards of, “there’s a problem, I will create a program to fix that problem”. In “ministries” it often looks like you have a personal problem and I will help you fix it or there is a problem in this area lets create a program to fill it. Jesus went from village to village creating relationships connecting people by His loving obedience to the Father’s love. (Mat 9:9, John 4)

Helping denotes debt that one is providing something that you owe back. It creates an environment of superiority and comes often from wrong motives. However serving someone is more like healing, it’s mutual, done with the motive to give to the Lord and is a gift to him with a benefit to someone else. There is distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form of judgment. All judgment creates distance, a disconnection, and an experience of difference equaling inequality.* We tend to want to HELP God and HELP His people by FIXING them. This mentality comes out of a heart that wants to be loved back and is insecure in their own relationship with the Father and others therefore releasing codependency into the Body (not trusting that He will do what His Word says the same sin as Eve and Adam), thus we help God out by creating a program to do His job or we carnally or logically reason out a solution, shortchanging ourselves and others around us the miraculous rescue of heaven invading earth. We give out of a blinded desire to really receive love and having our own needs met. When our identity is truly in the Lord and we understand the LOVE He has for us, there is no need that man can satisfy or give you any longer and you cross over from a place of “helping God and His people in doing Ministry” to receiving the FULLNESS of God and walking daily in that fullness. His nature in you in this place begins to transforms everything around you. You become the revival in your sphere of influence intoxicated with Heaven on Earth loosing the breath and love of God.

We have nothing to offer the Most Powerful Creator of all time. We can simply give back to him our life, worship and adoration. He is not interested in our fleshly performances that gratify our soul… He is however madly in love and highly respects our surrendering of what we know to His ability to loose His power, nature and fruits in us to show off His Glory and handiwork on the earth, thus as we share the testimony of all He is in us it breeds change in others, it’s contagious intention love. So let us be authentically recused from our human condition of ministry programs, platforms and platitudes and become laid down lovers of Jesus transforming a culture out of pure obedience to following after our Savior wherever He leads.

Blessings of Great Joy,

Cheryl Weaver ;o)

May the Lover of your soul and the healer of your heart captivate you so radically that you totally abandon yourself to him, fully and completely, being released into the greatest adventure you could ever have on Earth! I did and it’s truly INTOXICATING!

*In the Service of Life, Article from Rachel Naomi Remen Spring 1996