How to Start a Free Bible Ministry

 What Christians call "ministry" is a misnomer. In fact, the word isn't in the Bible.

The Greek word we translate over and over as "ministry" is actually "service". Find any entry for "ministry" in the New Testament and replace it with "service" or "servanthood"; "minister" with "serve", and; "minister (noun)" with "servant". It works better, doesn't it?

Over the centuries the Church has so professionalized serving Jesus and his Body that qualifying to serve him requires excessive hoop-jumping. One of the results our obsession with what we "do" for God. Sometimes it's a challenge to hear Jesus in all the chatter about "my" ministry, "your" ministry, "his/her/their" ministry, etc.

Portraying "ministry" as some kind of higher calling, or special spiritual designation upon some believers has become big business among professional Christians. But doing the same thing with the words servant, serve, or service wouldn't be as easily commercialized.

Plus, you may have been led to believe that only pastors, missionaries, Bible teachers and the like have been given a ministry, but every believer is called (and equipped) to serve.

Far too often, well-intenioned folks ask me: "What is your ministry, Derryck?", For many years I would respond, with proud humility, with a flowery description of the wonderful things I did for God. We've probably all heard (and maybe said): "I have the ministry of healing/evangelism/intercession/pastoring/blah-blah-blah, as though our Christian service defines who we are.

So here it is, the big kahuna of all deceptions regarding ministry: It is not ours to control, and it doesn't belong to us.

Christian service (ministry) is simply how God's Spirit chooses to express himself through his people. The joys and challenges of yielding ourselves to Christ as instruments of compassionate service belong to us alone, but the actual servanthood neither begins nor ends with us - it is the overflow of God's presence in our lives.

It is through poignant and painful experience that I have learned about the dangers of claiming and holding on to something that did not originate with me, cannot be maintained by me, and will never be completed by me - Christian service. Many others (maybe even you) are also learning this liberating truth the hard way.

A few paragraphs ago I mentioned the hoop-jumping required of many ministry candidates. Let's chat about this in a bit more detail.

These days you can't plant a church without being "trained" (and sometimes certified) by a guru church planter, denomination, or church-planting program. It is a really good thing all these programs weren't around when the 12 disciples took off to the 4 corners of the globe, because it's doubtful that Peter, James, John, or the rest of them would have made the cut.

When my family and I moved to Siberia to plant churches in the early 1990's, I knew zip about the mechanisms of church-planting. All I knew was that the Lord spoke very specifically to my wife and me about moving there to do just that. Within a few months there were 8 church planting projects underway.

Most of those churches are still going strong today. All are pastored by Russians, and several have multiplied many other churches throughout Siberia.

Crazy, miraculous stuff took place that changed thousands of lives forever, and all through a few passionate, imperfect, wild visionaries who blindly believed that God's grace and power are more than enough to get the job done.

There was nothing special about any of us who had the joy of participating in what God did in Siberia, but we learned first-hand that service (ministry) flows organically through people who are caught up in a love-affair with Jesus. On virtually every page of the Bible we see and hear examples of what God does through fickled human beings who dare to take him at his word.

Jesus prepared the first group of New Covenant servants by leading them all over Judea for 3 years. They were regularly confused, amazed, passionate, fearful, and even doubtful as they trudged around the countryside with him.

After Pentecost, that ragtag group of misfits turned the known world on it's head simply by recounting what Jesus did and said, and responding to the leadings of his Spirit.

שינוי כתובת

Why do we insist on things being so different today? I think it's because our flesh has gotten in the way and deceived us into believing that WE are in control of what Jesus does through us ("our ministries"), and that WE need to make sure OUR students are fully prepared to be missionaries and church planters around the world. What a sad and monumental deception!

Don't misunderstand. I am neither anti-education, nor a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants proponent. It is always wise to seek good counsel when our hearts are stirred to serve our Lord in a specific way. However, we walk by faith, are empowered by grace, and equipped by the Spirit of God.

So if this shoe fits your foot, I encourage you to lay down your efforts to find, keep, or have a ministry. Instead, revel in the inexplicable love of Jesus as his Spirit places longings and desires (some of which may seem very strange) in your heart and mind. Walk where he leads you in humble confidence, trusting him to tune your heart to heaven's melody of servanthood. Then rest in him as he performs wonders in and through you.