One Year On

Tomorrow marks the day when I will have been ordained into the position of minister of Dumfries Free Church of Scotland. I have had cause to reflect over the past weeks about the past year and some of the things that I have learned:

i) I am a great sinner who needs the grace of Jesus Christ every day. People assume that the ministers have it together and sometimes we do however most of the time we dont. Most of the time we are sinners who are doing their best to minister to other sinners. I still get it wrong I still have those wrong thoughts and still get angry and still...fill in every sin that is in your life because it probably is in mine as well.

This is designed to constantly throw me back on the grace of Jesus Christ because without him I can do nothing, without the working of the Holy Spirit we will achieve nothing. The day that I forget this the day when I think I have it all together is probably the day when it is time when I am in greatest danger.

ii) Not every sermon will change the world. If we are honest when we are at college we imagine preaching sermons that will change the world, that will draw thousands in, the sermons that in 50 years time people will still be listening to.

The reality is that few of us will ever reach those heights, few of us are called to exercise such an influential and far reaching ministry. However we are all called to be faithful in our station to preach to the best of our ability week by week and we leave the rest to the LORD.

iii) Not every sermon is useless, see above. The most discouraging thing in ministry is to think that the word is doing no work, that your sermons are nothing but 30 minute epilogs which have no effect. Yet in reality sometimes the word is working in people's lives in ways we cannot see or appreciate. People who are becoming slowly but surely changed from one degree of glory to the next.

iv) Ministry is hard work we are constantly giving of ourselves, giving of our time and our energy to serve the people of God and of course that is what we are called to do. However many people assume that what they see on Sunday is the result of five minutes work on Saturday night when the reality is that it is the result of study during the week coupled with concern for Mrs. Jones who is in hospital, Mr. Brown who has just been bereaved and a worry about so many things that happen in the church during the week.

I say this not to have some kind of pity party but until you have been there in the coal face of the ministry it is impossible to imagine the emotional burden and weight that your pastor carries round, the stress and anxiety that he is under.

v) Sunday night tea is a terrible idea...by Sunday night I am exhausted I have poured myself into preaching twice emotionally and physically I am drained, you get to the end of the service and people want to talk to you about their bunions. If I have seemed grumpy on a Sunday night this is why not because I dont care but because at that point I have no energy left.

Ministry is a great privilege, it is great to be allowed into people's lives to speak the word of God to them but what we remember above all is that we are all sinners saved by grace until Christ returns none of our churches will be perfect but until he does we strive to love one another better and to live lives worthy of the calling we have received.