A friend of mine who is planting THISchurch dispensed some advice to me that I’d like to pass along to you.

“Work with the people in front of you” he said “Not the people you wish you had in front of you”

What a great word for a person in ministry. (or for any person) It’s easy for me to get excited about results or programs or possibilities. I want to Build a chapter, I want to plant a church, I want to lead a small group. And the people who are involved eventually become like props inside the visionary’s mind. The temptation then is to get upset that the props are not correctly filling the holes you have built for them. They are supposed to be more mature, or less mature, or more evangelical, or more Justice oriented.

But the bottom line is that that’s ridiculous. The people are the point, they are the reason we have churches and small groups and chapters, and if they don’t fit our expectations that’s because our expectations are wrong.
I want InterVarsity K-State to be huge. I want to hire more staff, and have a group for every ethnicity on the campus, and do 101 ongoing service project ideas I have, but that doesn’t matter, because there will be nothing good about any of that in IV K-State doesn’t first become a ministry that deeply impacts the lives of the particular individuals that have become involved in the ways they need to be impacted. Not just the ways I need them impacted.

Lord I believe. Help My Unbelief.