What I learned was that I had to surrender to His will before I could truly get to know the joy of serving the Lord. Because of being in the military and then having jobs that required me to move ever few years I have had the ability to attend a number of churches. Not all churches that I went to were a good fit and even though I didn’t have peace about joining the church, I normally did it anyway. Because of not having peace, even though my heart’s desire was to serve the Lord, I didn’t get the opportunity to do so. It wasn’t because anything was wrong with me or the church. It simply was because it was not according to the Lord’s plan, His timing, or it may have been that it wasn’t the right local church/membership partnership for me to serve. I honestly believe that when God places a certain burden on our heart, anything from the calling to preach, to teach a Sunday School class, to become an Evangelist, or even cleaning the church, the Lord not only prepares us, but prepares our church family to support His calling on our life.
Each local congregation has small differences that makes it uniquely suited for the ministry it has been call to do. Not all churches have to have a bus route, a Christian school, or even a nursing home ministry. God will move the church in the direction of the people He has called it to minister to and using those members of the local body of Christ to fill the positions the ministry requires. A church that does not have a Christian school may not have members within its congregation who feel led to go into Christian education. A church that has a nursing home ministry will have a member of its congregation whose heart is burdened for that particular ministry and will have the abilities and skills to do that particular ministry. I believe that a lot of churches and a lot of Christians get into trouble because by its design, a church will want to expand the ministries it operates to reach as many people as possible with the gospel. Without guidance from the Lord and willing hearts to completely surrender to Him, it is easy to be carried upon the currents of emotion. It becomes easy for churches to extend themselves beyond the plan that God had for them. It becomes easy to create a ministry with the full belief that it was God’s will only to see that ministry collapse. Where God burdens the church in a particular direction, He will have already moved the right people within the church to allow the ministry to bear fruit for His glory.
Not all of us will have the same burden laid on our hearts. The church where I am a member has several people who each have different roles and are totally surrendered to the Lord. We have men in our church that have the ability to do some pretty major construction work, including wiring, plumbing, concrete work, and sheet rock finishing. These men have been given the burden to become responsible to the maintenance of our church properties. This is the burden (and abilities) that the Lord has given them and it benefits the ministries of our church. We have some ladies that have a heart for children. Some serve in our nursery, in youth-focused Sunday School classes, in our children’s church, and various other ministries for the young people in our church. Others have the gift of accounting and finance, computer maintenance, automation, and upkeep. Some have a natural ability to keep us all focused and on track. The truth of the matter is that there is enough work for every one of us to do at our local church if we will just surrender ourselves to the Lord and allow Him to use us as the right tool for the job He has for us.
