Innovative and Indispensable Ministry

Pride is undoubtedly the great enemy of all Christian ministry. One area where it often bares its fangs is in ministry transitions—a topic that has been on my mind a lot lately, as I transition from the mission field to ministry in the United States, from a chaplaincy to a pastorate.

A simple test to determine if you are bringing an overweening pride into your ministry is this: do you regard yourself as innovative and indispensable to the formation and continuance of the ministry?

In more precise words, do you believe that no one else could have established the ministry? If this is the case, you consider yourself more innovative than anyone else.

And do you believe no one else can carry on the ministry once you leave?[1] If this is the case, you consider yourself more indispensable than anyone else.

This is pride of a severe sort.

Worse still, this pride often assumes a palpably Christian veneer. The “irreplaceable” minister will speak glowingly of all that God has done through them—with the story always colored just enough to emphasize the awesomeness of the creature, not the Creator. When we get the glory for the ministry—for the amazing jobs we did, for the walls we broke down, for the people we touched—we have ceased to be truly Christian ministers.

“Does the ax raise itself above the person who swings it, or the saw boast against the one who uses it?” (Isaiah 10:15).