DiamondDodger

How about one of my favorites, “Jack of all trades … master of none!” On the one hand, someone who says this about you indicates that you have a broad range of talents and abilities while at the same time, it is pointed out that you excel at not one of them. A back-handed compliment if there ever was one. When you hear it, depending on who is saying it, you don’t know if you should be angry or flattered. When in doubt, just assume that the person is admiring you. If he is, then he will know your appreciation. If he isn’t, you’ll completely confuse him with your seemingly misplaced gratitude.

One place that seems to specialize in “jacks of all trades” is the church. Ministry in the church can, at times, be a juggling act of responsibilities and tasks. One week you are teaching a Bible study, the next week you are serving in the nursery. One week you are singing in the praise team, the next week you are detailing the preacher’s car (just kidding, we all know that’s Justin’s job).

Unfortunately, we’ve been perpetuating a practice that was never intended to be a part of the ministry of the church. You see, God wired all of us with special abilities and talents to fulfill specific ministry functions in the church body. In fact, the Scriptures even used the analogy of the human body to illustrate this concept. The Apostle Paul wrote:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12.12

He went on to point out that, like the human body, the body of Christ has specific parts for specific body needs. He stated:

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not the hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for this reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

1 Corinthians 12.14-20

So it is clearly established that each of us has a role to play in being a part of the body. So what’s the problem? Just this, if we assume that we all have been given specific talents, abilities, skills, etc. to accomplish the ministry God has for us, don’t we have a responsibility to discover, develop and put into practice those very things? How can we ever do that if we are bouncing from place to place, week to week, task to task?

Maybe the better question is to ask why we do it. There are many reasons. For instance, we do it because we don’t want sister so-and-so to always have to teach the third graders. We do it because we don’t want brother what’s-his-name to never feel like he can’t take a vacation. And we do it because we just don’t want people to feel bored or dumped on in ministry if the task is mundane or tiresome.

Here’s a hint: if a person regularly gets bored or feels dumped on when doing ministry, they shouldn’t be doing it. I know … that one caught you off-guard, didn’t it? Let me try it another way in case you struggle with this. If you are serving in a ministry and your heart just isn’t in it, quit! You see there is an issue there. It may be that God has given you talents and abilities in other areas other than the one in which you are serving or it may be that he has given you skills to do it; you just aren’t committed to doing it. Either way, you need to make a change.

It is amazing that whenever there is a job to be done at the church that becomes a regular recurring assignment, the first thing we do is put together a sign-up sheet to spread the workload over as many people as possible. Of course, in a small church like ours, that means many of the same people already active in 37 other ministry areas sign up and take on something else. If sign-up goes slow, we might even use guilt to try and get people signed up to take a round once every couple of months. In concept it may sound good … everyone takes their little piece … and it definitely sounds fair (after all, there are some jobs that are not-so-hot). The problem is that it just isn’t effective for real ministry.

Several years ago, the Walt Disney Corporation employed a program where its amusement park workers regularly rotated from one area of the park to others areas every few weeks or months while working there. The concept was based on an assumption that, given the chance to go to other areas of the park, the consistent “change in scenery” and shuffling of the workers would prevent boredom from setting in, thus improving not only worker morale, but also job satisfaction. The theory was great except for one detail. It didn’t work.

Rather than improving worker morale, the plan created discouragement as employees were constantly forced to learn the minutiae of different work areas. Rather than increasing job satisfaction, the plan left the workers unable to focus on important details of the job. In the end, the Walt Disney Corporation found that developing the varied skills of their workers in one area of the park allowed those employees to take more of an ownership and responsibility for what went on in that area. Job satisfaction and worker morale increased when the company matched people’s abilities and skills to the areas in the park where they were most needed and suited to work.

In short, what they learned is that the body is made up of many parts, and that those parts have a specific purpose. You just can’t make feet into hands or ears into noses. In the church we must seek to do the same. We must seek to find a ministry which matches the skills, talents, and abilities that God has given us rather than continuing this meaningless rotation of inconsistency and confusion.

It doesn’t mean we are limited to one thing at the church and it doesn’t mean that we ignore needs, hiding behind one-ministry thinking. But it does mean that perhaps we should each step back and consider dropping this whole “jack of all trades” ministry approach and change to a “master of one” ministry approach.

What if, for once, we defined an area of need, determined the ministry that needed to be done consistently at the church, and then, rather than putting together a trusty sign-up sheet at the back of the church, what if we asked (prayerfully and then verbally) if there was someone who might take this ministry and run with it—their task, their responsibility, their ministry for God! Read Acts 6.1-7 to see how this model worked. Focus especially on the last verse to see results.

It’s not unheard of. In fact, it is how we handle the preaching at our church. I know many of our church members may think: “Dave, you are paid to do it,” and they are correct, but I hope they (as well as you, too) understand that isn’t why I do it. I preach because I believe God has given me unique talents and abilities that are suited for preparation and presentation of the Gospel through preaching of the Word and I was challenged by the leaders of this church to do just that (being paid was just a fantastic bonus which allows me to do it and other administrative/pastoral tasks).

Consider what your answer might be if I were to ask you the following question: “Based upon the talents and abilities God has placed within you, to what ministry have you been called to serve?” Got your answers yet? You never know when someone might just ask what it is!

DAVE

Posted by Dave Smith on Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 10:43 AM | Permalink