{"id":31576,"date":"2022-09-10T15:35:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-destructive-approaches-to-ministry-we-must-avoid\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T15:35:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:35:49","slug":"3-destructive-approaches-to-ministry-we-must-avoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/3-destructive-approaches-to-ministry-we-must-avoid\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Destructive Approaches to Ministry We Must Avoid"},"content":{"rendered":"
Photo by Moritz Mentges on Unsplash <\/p>\n

By Daniel Im<\/em><\/p>\n

A couple years after getting married, my wife, Christina, and I moved to Korea. Until then, though we had visited other countries, neither of us had ever lived outside of Canada.<\/p>\n

In fact, we were about to purchase our first home in Montreal, but when I got a job offer to work at one of the largest churches in the world\u2014I\u2019m not exaggerating, it was a church of 50,000 people\u2014our priorities conveniently changed in an instant.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t this a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity? I\u2019d be stupid to say no, right? After all, we don\u2019t even have children yet. This would skyrocket my career. Just imagine what this would look like on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9! God has to be in this, otherwise, why else would I get such an opportunity? I\u2019m going to make such a greater impact there than I would here, so isn\u2019t this a no-brainer?<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve forgotten which of those phrases I said to Christina, which ones I kept hidden in my heart, and which ones I wasn\u2019t even aware of myself, but that paragraph pretty much sums it up\u2014and I\u2019m not proud of it.<\/p>\n

Within a couple months, we sold everything\u2014including my beloved Volkswagen GTI\u2014packed what we could in a few suitcases, stored what we could at Christina\u2019s parents\u2019 place, and bought a one-way ticket to Seoul, South Korea.<\/p>\n

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The plan was to stay there long term. Christina enrolled in Korean lessons, was working with me at the church, and started her masters degree in counseling. I was pastoring, finishing up graduate school, and teaching English on the side.<\/p>\n

Life was really good, until everything started to unravel. And by everything, this time I really do mean everything. <\/em>A few months after moving into our new apartment, we lost our jobs, our closest friends, and our home.<\/p>\n

We lost our livelihood and everything was taken out from under our feet. In short, my ladder-climbing-r\u00e9sum\u00e9-building-career-rocketing adventure abruptly came to an end, and we had to move back to Canada.<\/p>\n

I was devastated.<\/p>\n

Once the dust settled, I started wondering if we had somehow made the wrong decision. Maybe we were never supposed to go in the first place. Perhaps I incorrectly assumed that God was leading us (because of my mixed motives), when in fact, it was just a good opportunity.<\/p>\n

I was also ashamed.<\/p>\n

What would I say to the doubters who thought we were making a mistake to sell everything and move halfway across the world? What would I say to my parents who were leery of us going in the first place?<\/p>\n

What do you do for work?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As children, we\u2019re asked what we want to do when we grow up. As adults, we\u2019re asked what we do for work. And at the end of our lives, we\u2019re measured by what we\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n

If you remember telling your parents that you wanted to be an artist, musician, or athlete when you grew up, you probably learned from an early age that not all jobs are created equal. What\u2019s up with that? Who made the decision that becoming an engineer, lawyer, or doctor was fundamentally better than being a creative anyway?<\/p>\n

And what does \u201cbetter\u201d even mean? Just more money? And why do parents feel like it\u2019s their universal responsibility to set their kids straight and teach them this proper <\/em>hierarchy of jobs?<\/p>\n

Referencing an article in The<\/em> New York Times,<\/em> Timothy Keller put it well:<\/p>\n

So many college students do not choose work that actually fits their abilities, talents, and capacities, but rather choose work that fits within their limited imagination of how they can boost their own self-image. <\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

There were only three high-status kinds of jobs\u2014those that paid well, those that directly worked on society\u2019s needs, and those that had the cool factor. Because there is no longer an operative consensus on the dignity of all work, still less on the idea that in all work we are the hands and fingers of God serving the human community, in their minds they had an extremely limited range of career choices. <\/em><\/p>\n

That means lots of young adults are choosing work that doesn\u2019t fit them, or fields that are too highly competitive for most people to do well in. And this sets many people up for a sense of dissatisfaction or meaninglessness in their work.<\/em><\/p>\n

No wonder we over identify ourselves with our jobs\u2014we\u2019ve been conditioned to do so, both from within and from without. So to satisfy both our internal craving for meaning and our external drive for a particular quality of life, we look for the perfect job.<\/p>\n

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See also  The Group Most Likely to Still Be Missing From Your Church<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Pressure, platforms, and pretending<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What happens when our being is defined by our doing? When we believe the lie that we are what we do? And when this becomes the primary lens through which we measure success?<\/p>\n

1. Pressure<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Wouldn\u2019t you feel an enormous amount of pressure to do more so that you can get more, have more, and be more? Unfortunately, this is a never-ending cycle because there\u2019s always more to do. It\u2019s kind of like laundry\u2014it never ends.<\/p>\n

And even when you think you\u2019ve done enough, there are always others who have accomplished more than you, which then leads to even more pressure to do more. <\/strong><\/p>\n

2. Platform<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In today\u2019s world, in order to do bigger and better things, don\u2019t you have to have a platform? If people don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, are you really doing it?<\/p>\n

While platforms in and of themselves are neutral, the problem is that they often open the door to a compartmentalized life. This leads to a separation between the private and public, and as it grows over the years, fewer people are let in on the inside, until eventually you\u2019ve locked everyone out\u2014including yourself.<\/p>\n

Now to be clear, this doesn\u2019t have to happen, but unfortunately, it\u2019s often what does.<\/p>\n

3. Pretending<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If you can\u2019t keep up with the pressure, and building a platform isn\u2019t going as well as you thought, isn\u2019t the next best option just to pretend? Fake it \u2019til you make it, right? Buy followers on social media, pay people to purchase your products, and pad your numbers.<\/p>\n

If it worked for some of the most recent startups, why wouldn\u2019t it work for you? Just listen to the podcast, How I Built This, <\/em>and you\u2019ll see how many hacked their way to success.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the thing about pretending is that it always leads to anxiety. You\u2019re constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering when you\u2019ll be found out, and what will happen then.<\/p>\n

A life dictated by doing is not much of a life at all. How many more executives, entrepreneurs, and spiritual leaders need to lose their families, and their own souls, for us to get it? And how many more public personalities need to implode, before we learn from their mistakes and pivot?<\/p>\n

When we let this lie define our lives, we inevitably end up neglecting the relationships that mean the most to us, our emotional well-being, and our spiritual health. Isn\u2019t that why we\u2019re called human be<\/em>ings, and not human do<\/em>ings?<\/p>\n

DANIEL IM (@danielsangi)<\/strong> is a pastor at Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and is a podcaster. He’s the author of several books, including <\/em>You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life & Love, from which this is adapted and used by permission from B&H Publishing Group. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Dig Deeper at Lifeway.com<\/div>\n
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You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life & Love <\/h2>\n

Daniel Im<\/p>\n

FIND OUT MORE <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times? What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation? 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Moritz Mentges on Unsplash By Daniel Im A couple years after getting married, my wife, Christina, and I moved to Korea. Until then, though we had visited other countries, neither of us had ever lived outside of Canada. In fact, we were about to purchase our first home in Montreal, but when I … Continue reading “3 Destructive Approaches to Ministry We Must Avoid”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}