3 Things I Learned About Starting A Ministry
We called it the Meeting Place.
In 2019, I finished the Perspectives course with some close guy friends of mine, and we were fired up! We wanted to serve Jesus to the ends of the earth, but all of us weren’t in a place to pick up and go. Not all of us had the means to move to the ends of the earth.
But we all had the same desire: to build a stronger community for college-age Christians and grow deeper in our faith.
We decided to call it the Meeting Place, and that’s all we knew. We met every Monday morning at 6 or 7 AM at a local coffee shop and we started talking and praying it out.
This project started to shape out at the beginning of 2019. I had been home a year and a half from Torchbearers Albania, and I was confused and wondering why God hadn’t shipped me off somewhere into the jungle yet.
“I still have work for you in Fresno.”
“UGH. Fine.”
But, as I prayed to know God’s will, God laid a passion in me for young adult Christians like myself who were also needing community with fellow believers.
I apparently wasn’t alone in that passion.
Our “staff” grew to six members, and we felt like the Avengers. We were up early and out late. We were piecing together each week’s event over coffee, breakfast, and lunch. We were exhausted, yet energized. We met so many people our age who came to the Meeting Place, and we all grew deeper friendships with one another.
Every week felt like a flop and a success. It was crazy wild! When summer ended and the ministry sort of sputtered out, I looked back over that time and wondered if what we did was worthwhile.
The ministry didn’t boom into success, and it didn’t shake Fresno.It happened, but in the quiet. And God used us. I look back, and I can identify three main takeaways I learned from starting a ministry.
Ministry is the Art of Creating Community
I stepped into ministry with an expectation to “get in, get out” essentially. I was going to help start it up, then bail so the more “ministry people” could work, but the truth was, God purposefully put me in that role, and I wasn’t to do the bare minimum so I could move on to more attractive pastures.
Local ministry sounded boring and unexciting to me. My dreams were in rice fields and jungles far away.
That’s a very heretical way to view something God has given you. I treated it as some sort of due to pay before God let me go to my actual mission work.
I was so arrogant about what I deserved to be doing that I almost missed the joys of what I had already had.
Our final event was an all-nighter, and I remember sitting outside at 6 AM in my best friend’s backyard, listening to the morning, and realizing what a beautiful thing God started through us. That’s when I realized I needed to stop dreaming about the distant horizon and invest in the life around me.
Jesus was in Fresno too.
Ministry is about creating community, and a heart for ministry is a heart to see people come to have a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
I learned so much about the importance of community within ministry leadership, within ministry life, and between the people we were welcoming every wednesday night. They weren’t just numbers, they were faces, they were testimonies, they were wonderfully-made individuals who loved Jesus.
And I grew the most when I stopped talking and listened to them.
Paul highlights this in Romans, and it resonates with me even now.
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.”- Romans 12:3-13
Practice hospitality, be devoted to one another, honor one another. These are words that breed community, and it’s through community we build discipleship. If you are contemplating starting a ministry, be open and ready to participate in creating and joining the community.
Ministry is a Plumbline
Do yourself a favor and read James 3 because this chapter came up a lot for us as a staff.
Suddenly, the parts of our lives we had allowed to go unchecked or we swept under the rug were becoming loud issues. It’s alright if I use some foul language, or make a couple off-color jokes right? Oh yikes, now my behavior sets the precedent for our entire ministry. That’s a lot of responsibility!
Yes, none of us are perfect. Faking perfection for the sake of righteousness never helped anyone, but to be an effective part of the body of Christ in this ministry means I had to subject myself daily to the piercing light of Christ.
In everyday life, it’s easy to live with a little less prayer, a little less Bible study, a little less holiness here and there. When you are running a collaboration focused on bringing more of God’s kingdom on earth, not spending time with God is a little like deciding not to drink water.
Even more so, how can I hope to disciple others if I am not taking the time to be discipled myself?
When we step into roles that represent the name ofJesus, we must know that we will be held accountable. There will be a plumbline or measuring line held against us.
The goal is not to be “good enough” at that moment. We cannot get on our tiptoes trying to reach the height of the stick and say, “Have I made it? Look how tall I am!” We should be found pointing to Christ saying, “I will always fail to meet that mark, but let me show you the one who does.”
Ministry is Unpredictable
“LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.”- Isaiah 26:12
The last thing I want to share is this - Ministry is unpredictable. That’s the point!
You cannot bank on anything except God. He will show up and show you how He wants to use your ministry. We had so many hiccups and questions and mess-ups. I learned I could never sink my trust in anything material, and the only thing that never changed was God.
I entered the Meeting Place project with a vision and a goal. It didn’t go the way I thought it would, but I see now the fruit God was growing through our adventures. He used the Meeting Place in ways I never could have put together on my own.
I think that’s the point. If ministry was predictable, I would make it all about me and my leadership. I would just need to lead well enough and bring my A game each and every day. But ministry is not about me. It’s about Jesus.
A ministry of Jesus has to start with acknowledging that we each have been given unique tools and talents that make up the body of Christ. My leadership skills are not what is holding the ministry together. God holds the work and asks me to use my gifts. We live our lives thinking that we are the critical piece or that we are the one bringing the people, the power, and fuel for our ministry. But we are only the vessels.
We are the empty pots that are filled with Jesus. The Holy Spirit sends us out in his divine power.
God’s kingdom comes through the ordinary, the boring, the daily conversations, and the quiet prayers just as much as it comes through the wild, unexpected, unpredictable, and memorable.
Ministry was something I thought I could figure out, but it’s been a year, I’m older, wiser, and I still have no idea how ministry happens. All I know is that when God starts something, He will finish it. He will always see it through to His purposes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mia Grace loves sunflowers, words, old hardcover books, and fountain pens. She adores Jesus Christ, and seeks to listen and obey him in her life. Her life verse is Isaiah 52:7, and her prayer is for every girl to grasp the height, weight, depth, width, and power of Christ's love for them.