Tuesday, January 19, 2010

When ministry throws you lemons, your thoughts?

So every now an then there will be something, as a church staffer, that can more or less be an arrow to your heart regarding the hard work that you put into your ministry. Whether it's a friendship register comment box that complains about me wearing jeans, or the occasional comment about distaste in musical styles. The point is that every now and then working in ministry will throw you lemons!
Today I had a letter sent to me that was very hurtful and full of accusations which were not at all true regarding a decision I had to make regarding an instrumentalist's ability to play at my church.
I want to throw out my two cents regarding the work that God does in His church and how in even the most personal of ways, the devil tries to hinder it. This is not the first time I've gotten letters like this, in fact, in some areas of ministry, particularly music ministries, letters like this are to be expected. Ultimately you cannot please everyone nor are we to please ANYONE, but the ONE and ONLY God of the universe. I'm so thankful that the God I serve has no preference of musical style as long as the message is this: for His GLORY do we sing, for our Salvation in Christ do we praise Him! The devil cannot and will not prevent me from proclaiming that message as long as I live, and cheep shots like hate mail definitely won't phase me.
There were two ways I could have responded to this letter: one, "I'll show him a thing or three regarding biblical principles of worship..." or two, "I'm going to pray that the Lord works in this person to see the error of his ways and forgives me for the wrong he feels I've committed."

What are your thoughts? Have you had any of these letters come your way? How do you respond to them? Do you respond to them?

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