About a week ago I was taking my normal walk in the evening contemplating the question of "What makes ministry work? This was a pragmatic sort of reflection that is not a normal process for me. On this day, however, it was a grinding thought that was demanding answers. Of course, the danger in this kind of thinking is that asking what makes ministry work seems a bit man centered and, therefore, potentially dangerous. Yet, in this moment, the Lord led my mind to these words of the Apostle Paul: "It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops" (2 Timothy 2:6).
In this second letter to Timothy, his disciple, Paul is encouraging Timothy to soldier up in the difficulty of challenges and to run the race to the end. He uses three metaphors in chapter 2:1-6 to make this point to Timothy, one of which is this odd example of a farmer. What in the world does faithful endurance have to do with farming and how did this verse answer the question: What makes ministry work? Now, I am no farmer. I can't even plant flowers outside of my house and they grow! I am a novice to say the least here. Yet, in a spiritual way I am a farmer, but of a different sort; and so are you!
One thing I do know about farming is that it is unpredictable, and this is due to the fact that a lot of the factors that produce a crop are outside of the farmer's control. The farmer cannot control the weather. Storms, rains, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., none of this is in their control. Neither is the harvest of the crop. The weather and a host of other factors play a huge part in the nature of the harvest - whether they have one as well as the quality / quantity of it. Farmers need the harvest to provide the produce necessary for others but also for their own life and family provision. The farmer needs the harvest but the harvest, in large measure, is outside of his control.
The farmer, however, cannot be deterred. Yes, he must understand that there are factors that he cannot control but none of this should cause them to cease the work they can and must do. The farmer must be diligent at his work knowing what is out of his control but, if he does not do what he is supposed to do, there will be no harvest at all! If he does not take the time to plan and plant and water, etc., regardless of the weather, no harvest is possible. It is this, the tenacious, no quit attitude and action that makes ministry work.
The pastor who plods (who studies, pastors, prays, disciples, evangelizes and agonizes over souls) is doing the work that must be done so that there can be a harvest, even though the harvest belongs to the wisdom and plan of the Lord. All we can do in life and ministry are the things we are commanded to do. Fruitfulness is the promise of the Lord, but it also comes in His time and in His way. The growth of a church or our growth in personal spiritual maturity is the Lord's business and yet, it is ours too!
I do not know what the Bridge Fellowship (the church I pastor) will look like next year. I know what I want it to look like, but the factors that make it what it will be are outside of my control.
On my walk and time with the Lord, however, I was reminded of my role in all of it: to PLOD. To do everything that I could and should do all the while knowing that the spiritual weather as well as the quality and quantity of the harvest is out of my control.
Think about your life. You are a farmer too! You cannot control circumstances, but you can control plodding: doing the same spiritual disciplines over and over again out of obedience to the Lord. Stop looking to make the harvest. Stop looking for the harvest. The Lord does not bless our plans or intentions, but He will bless and even reward our faithfulness (our plodding in obedience) because obedience honors Him and is honored by Him. I think it is helpful for us to never forget this one truth:
"The Lord is not concerned about our fruitfulness as much as He is concerned about our
faithfulness."
Fruit bearing is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But preparing and putting our souls in the culture to be ripe for fruit-bearing - this is our business. Jesus, in the gospel of John, chapter 15, commands it as well:
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine,
neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in
me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.