Yesterday I had a terrific time doing my first round of visitations as a part of Mentored Ministry. Today is the day of my first speech for Foundations of Proclamation. I love the way ministry experience spills over into classroom experience in seminary. Yesterday I just prayed with people, and it was wonderful. It was really great. Some where in good nursing homes, and others were in less polished nursing homes. The point is we prayed with everyone everywhere. At the end of the day I felt good, but physically drained. Prayer is such an awesome gift from God.
In today's 3-4 minute speech I have to talk about some way God has touched my life in the last six months. Well, the baby hasn't arrived yet so I'm going to talk about prayer. I had planned to talk about the importance of context, but as I prayed about it, I began to see context in a different perspective. What if context is not about physical location? What if context is more like something from the Billy Joel song "New York State of Mind?" It occurs to me the context of ministry has very little to do with location, and in some instances very little to do with the specific people I might try to minister to. If I focus on those things then it becomes about the same old me, myself and I. I do not have the ability to effectively minister to anyone. Every time I try it is because my ego has become over inflated again. For me there is nothing more frustrating than trying to help someone else only to fail because I was trying to work by my own authority, or by my own skill. Talk about ego. Yesterday, as I was going with my mentor to do hospital visitations it occurred to me the context of ministry is prayer. Paul told the church at Thessalonica to "pray without ceasing." I think that's some advice I should follow a little more closely.
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