Published in: Christian Life

Mistakes I made when I started my Ministry – Part 2

Author Hari Rao

Published on: September 28, 2015

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I hope you have read Part 1 of this post, and as promised, here’s Part 2 of mistakes I made when I started my ministry.

Ambition v/s Godly Passion

Philippians 2:4
“do not merely look out for your own personal interests…”

It is possible that you can do the right thing with the wrong motive. Often this can be the case in ministry. We may want to serve and help, but with ulterior selfish motives.

We may do a great job at camouflaging our selfish motives from people, but our God can never be fooled. He looks beyond our actions into our motives.

[bctt tweet=”It is possible that you can do the right thing with the wrong motive. ” via=”no”]

Philippians 1:17
“the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives”

Ambition is selfish, passion from God is not. Ambition is about you, passion from God is about others.

Ambition says I will build the biggest ministry, Godly passion says I want to serve my generation.

Ambition brags about achievements, passion is grateful for the opportunity to serve.

Let us serve God with innocent hearts and a godly fear that we will be held accountable for our lives.

Couldn’t say “No”

On one of my ministry trips, I had agreed to meet 3 different families on the same evening, and I ended up eating 3 times within a span of few hours.

Despite that, one family was really upset with me because I did not eat a special curry they had prepared especially for me.

[bctt tweet=”Ambition says I will build the biggest ministry, Godly passion says I want to serve my generation.” via=”no”]

The problem was not them, it was me. I had to learn to prioritize and say no.

Although this story is not disastrous to ministry, in the past I have accepted several invitations to speak, even when I didn’t really want to go as the schedule would be too hectic.

It eventually became difficult for me to do what I really wanted to do, because I was just afraid of saying ‘no’.

As young ministers, we must be able to say no when necessary and be able to make quality decisions that align to our convictions and purposes in life.

Chose ministry over friends and family

It was one of my dearest friend’s wedding and I was thrilled to be his best-man. However, I had also accepted an invitation to speak at a church that Sunday morning.

While my friends were accepting about it, or at least they seemed to be, I now realize that it wasn’t a wise decision to accept a ministry assignment on the day of the wedding.

I have had a few incidents like this one, where I chose ministry assignments over relationships (not a nice feeling).

Now that I’m older and a bit wiser, I have learnt that family and friends always come first. Always.

Finally…

I’m grateful to God who in His mercy and grace has given me wisdom to realise some of my mistakes in the earlier part of my ministry. I sincerely hope that you have gained some insight from these two blog posts.

I would love to hear from you, leave a comment below.

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