Ministry Hours???

Thirteen years ago this month, Jan and I began missionary training at Global Frontier Missions. The program provided 20+ hours of classroom training, lots of reading and writing homework, and roughly 15 hours a week working with refugee communities in Clarkston, Georgia. At the end of each week, we would send in our written homework and a log of our ministry hours. Tracking my ministry hours for one year helped me to better steward my time while serving in Mexico, Asia, and the Middle East. For the past three years, much of my work has been done remotely, combined with overseas travel. I continue to carefully steward the fleeting hours of each day. However, several years ago, something changed. It happened while I was sharing a teaching on the division between the sacred and the secular.

The line between the sacred and the secular is a false demarcation. When Jesus reigns supreme over the life of a believer, the Kingdom of God impacts all of life, including relationships, work, finances, parenting, politics, and yes, even "ministry". But what is ministry? How we count ministry hours should depend on how we define ministry. We often consider ministry time in the context of what is done at church, or for an outreach event. Preaching, teaching, evangelism, prayer, and maintaining the church are given greater spiritual recognition than the societal transformation that happens every day in the lives of the nameless faithful saints who minister wherever they go.

A dear friend once told me, “You can through a rock in any direction and you will find ministry”. I believe this to be true. The Christian life is a life set apart, or made sacred. As we walk by faith, we perceive everything we encounter as redeemed, or as having the potential for redemption. There is no secular, everything is sacred in the Kingdom. There is only a world that cries out for redemption, freedom, peace and joy. With this perspective in mind, the false "secular" world becomes a vital sacred place of ministry. If we are walking intentionally throughout the day, time at the grocery store becomes ministry hours. A phone call to encourage a friend, or spending time with someone who needs a friend becomes ministry hours. As followers of Jesus, we are released into the Kingdom of God as ministers of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” Because of what Jesus did in our lives, we’ve been given a lifetime of ministry.

Because I’ve been condition for years with the concept of a sacred-secular divide, I occasionally find myself still tracking ministry hours. But more often than not, I see conversations with neighbors, weekend gatherings, phone calls and work meetings as ministry, Long drives in the car, time reading a book on a plane, or quiet mornings on my porch that provide self-care are all counted as ministry hours. Preparing a meal, cleaning the house, practicing hospitality, and doing something that improves the quality of life for others are also counted as ministry hours. With this paradigm shift in mind, it’s actually easier to count the hours that aren’t ministry. Maybe you consider something like social media outside the realm of ministry hours. But if your reading this blog, you probably found it on social media. So go ahead and add another 10 minutes to your ministry hours this week. Or maybe we should stop calling them ministry hours and call it something new like, the abundant life.