church versus ministry

I didn't publish a post last week as I usually do because we had two missionaries from Nicaragua staying at our house.  I was doing translation work all week and was simply too tired to post. 

The last couple weeks were spent meeting up with people including other pastors.  These experiences have been weird to say the least.  I met with one committee and was describing my ministry to them when one individual asked me what I wanted from them.  Apparently, this church, which is wealthy, is used to being asked to fund mission and ministry.  I was taken aback and told them I didn't want their money-what I was asking for was their prayers and I wanted them to prepare themselves for when I asked them to participate in my ministry.  I'm thinking I didn't make a good impression because we had such different ideas of doing ministry.  Financial support is essential to a community ministry, but those supporters need to buy into the vision and I guess I didn't cast a good vision.

Another pastor I met with is a very faithful guy.  He is pushing the church he serves to do more Bible study and to become serious about inviting others to church.  He told me about some of the outreach things they had done and how many people they had served.  The down-side to the mission work was that not one of those people were grateful for the assistance nor did they attend worship at that church.  For this pastor, mission meant growing the church and he felt that was his calling as well as the Biblical mandate.  He went on to say that it was his thought that doing ministry to the community without directing them to a church was sort of a waste of time.

These were some pretty crazy conversations.  My understanding of mission and ministry is so very different. Helping people with their relationship with God is one thing, but church membership is another entirely.  When Jesus asked Peter if he loved him he said "Feed my sheep", not go to church.  Jesus didn't even say to go buy sheep food, but to feed the flock.  Mission and ministry are about making relationships.  To love people, care for them and feed them we have to know them.  This is the model of the Christ; Jesus became fully human to know us.

I did have some fun last week at a conference with Pat Meagly, Delray Brooks and Kevin Bacon.  I was at a session meeting and got funded to go to a conference with Alan Hirsch presenting.

Best of all I'm beginning to get some vision of where this ministry should go.  I feel resource poor, but I fe
el like God's gonna make it work.  It is really hard getting my ego out of the picture so that God can work.  I started getting scared, too.  I'm asking for a Damascus Road experience but I don't want to be struck blind.  Before you laugh, I'm praying hard for God to give me a vision and that's how God worked in the past.

Please pray for me, follow my blog, give comments and offer direction!