What I’ve Learned About Ministry

Posted on April 19, 2026 by Barbara Harper

I didn’t attend church regularly until I was about sixteen. When I started participating in various church ministries in the next several years, I didn’t realize I had some mistaken expectations about how church ministry should go.

By “ministry,” I don’t mean just “full-time” ministry: pastor, missionary, evangelist, etc. Many are called to those positions. But every Christian is called to minister to others in some way. God has gifted each of us with spiritual gifts and talents to use in serving Him and each other.

Though I’m mainly talking about ministries within the church, there are also plenty of ways we can minister to one another outside of official church groups.

Here are some things I’ve learned in nearly fifty years of ministry in and out of church.

Try different things. As a young person, I had no idea what my gifts and abilities were. I was asked to work in the nursery and participate in children’s ministries, eventually teaching Sunday School and children’s church. I learned to do those things–but I didn’t enjoy them. Then one year, our Awana secretary asked me to be her assistant–keeping score in games, tallying points for team events, ordering supplies, getting the awards ready for the close of each night. I felt like I’d come home, like I had finally found my niche. As we pray and try different things, we’ll get a sense of where our gifts are. Feedback from others will help confirm where they see God working in your life.

Some things will go wrong. I used to think anything done for the Lord should go smoothly. I was mystified when it didn’t. Sometimes the devil actively attacks. However, often our troubles stem from living in a fallen world. Equipment will break down, weather won’t cooperate, etc.

We won’t always agree. I used to think that any group of people who loved the Lord and wanted to serve Him would be able to work together in perfect harmony. Experience shows otherwise, but I should have noticed that even people in the Bible didn’t always agree on what or how things should be done. Sometimes differences occur because we’re all sinners. Other times, our different backgrounds and experiences will form our views. It’s good to hear each other out. Sometimes different ideas will shine a light on an area we hadn’t thought about. We shouldn’t be overprotective about our proposals and methods, but hear each other out. Even when we need to stand firm about how something needs to be done, we can be gracious towards others’ opinions.

People will let you down. Once I was to meet another lady at church to put up a bulletin board together. I had a nursing baby at home who wanted to be fed every two to three hours and who would not take a bottle. But I felt I could get back home in time if my coworker and I got as much done ahead of time as possible–all the letters cut out, etc. When we arrived at the church, she did not have all of her pieces ready. I was so frustrated.

When we work with others, we’ll see they have feet of clay–and they’ll see the same about us. Someone will forget their turn in the nursery, not show up when needed, not complete the job they agreed to do. None of us is perfect. We’re all sinners. That’s one reason all those verses about forgiving one another and forbearing with one another are there in the Bible. We might need to have a discussion with them. We shouldn’t hold grudges or gossip about each other’s failures, but rather forgive and do our best to smooth things over.

People will surprise you. One time I asked someone who looked to me like she had plenty of time to help with a committee, but she said no. Then another lady that I would not have asked because she was so busy volunteered. We don’t know everything going on in another’s life, so we shouldn’t make assumptions about whether they are able to help. We need to pray before seeking coworkers and trust God to lead us to the right people.

Then there are dear people who just happen to be around and pitch in when needed–cleaning up after an event, going for needed supplies, stepping in the nursery when someone is home sick or has forgotten their turn, sharing a word of encouragement , etc.

I won’t always feel joyful in ministry. There are times we feel defeated, discouraged, overwhelmed, and wish we hadn’t agreed to help. There are even times I’ve locked myself in the bathroom, crying, before an event where I had a big responsibility. It helped me to realize that I feel that way in other areas of life as well. A lack of joy may indicate a heart problem, or it may mean it’s time for a change. But usually it just means we’re human. We remind ourselves we’re doing what we’re doing as unto the Lord. And I’ve often found that the joy does not often come before a task, but sometimes during and usually after it’s over.

I shouldn’t say no unless I pray about it. This was drilled into us by the head of our ladies group in the church my husband and I were in when we first married. I was asked to be on the committee that did monthly bulletin boards featuring a missionary each month. Bulletin boards had been the bane of my existence in college, where students had to do bulletin boards for various classes. But as I prayed, I didn’t feel I should say no. The next year, I was asked to head that committee for the following year. I didn’t look forward to it. But all that I had learned in school and on the committee the previous year finally came together, and God gave me some wonderful ideas for boards.

There are times to say no. In my early Christian life, I thought I should do anything anyone asked me to do. I quickly got overwhelmed. After we pray about it, we should feel no guilt saying no if we feel that’s God’s answer. If He doesn’t want us in a certain position, He has someone else in mind. In fact, one time when I did have to say no, the person who said yes did a much better job than I could have. I realized that saying no sometimes makes way for another to step into that place.

There are times a ministry has to shut down. When we lived in GA, we had a wonderful, active homeschool support group. One mom started it simply, but then it grew to hundreds of people. When the coordinator was pregnant with her seventh child, she just could not handle the group any more. We did without the group for about a year. But then one woman volunteered to do the newsletter. Another agreed to coordinate the monthly meetings. One by one, the various aspects of the group were taken on by others. It took that year of being without the group to make everyone realize how much they wanted it and to be willing to structure it differently.

On the other hand, sometimes a particular ministry lasts for a time and then gives way to something new as the times or the needs of the group change.

I won’t always feel sufficient. Like Moses when God called him to lead the people of Israel, I often feel insufficient for a job before I start. But even when I do something that I feel God has equipped me for, at some point I often feel overwhelmed. That’s a good place to be, though, because we learn by experience that His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Ministry will stretch us. If we never venture out of our comfort zones, we’ll never grow. It’s scary, but God will meet us in our need.

Keep first things first. Like Martha, we can be “cumbered about much serving” and forget the one needful thing: fellowshipping with our Savior and getting to know Him better. Serving is no substitute for growing in love for Him and His people.

There’s nothing like seeing God provide strength and ideas and even tiny details that make us marvel at His attention and love and care.

There is nothing like being used of God. That’s what ministry comes down to: allowing God to work through us in others’ lives. When someone lets us know that they were blessed, encouraged, instructed, or helped by some small thing we said or did, and we know it was only because of God’s grace, our own hearts rejoice and are encouraged.

The Bible tells us, “If anyone speaks, let it be as one who speaks God’s words; if anyone serves, let it be from the strength God provides, so that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ in everything. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 4:11, CSB). That’s our ultimate purpose in all we do: to glorify God with the strength He provides.

There is much more that can be said about ministry: there are whole books written on the subject. But I hope some of these thoughts help encourage you in your ministry for the Lord.

What have you learned about ministry along the way?

Revised from the archives.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Barbara Harper

I’m waaaay behind on my blog reading. But I wanted to go ahead and share the ones concerning Christmas before it was all over.

We Need a Little Christmas! I love both meanings of this post by Lesley.

This Is Not How I Thought My Story Would Go, HT to Diane Heeney. Good applications drawn from Mary’s life.

We Wait in Darkness: Some Thoughts for Advent. “In Advent, we wait in the darkness. But we do not, I am convinced, wait hopelessly. For while we wait, we can tend the flame. The stories each of our homes are telling can be ones that lend flesh to truth, goodness, and beauty, so that the waiting we do can tend the flame of the Gospel flickering inside our hearts.”

Goodnight Till Then. Those of you who know Tim Challies know that his college-age son died suddenly and unexpectedly a few weeks ago. Also from Tim: When All Seems to Be Gain, Plan for Loss.

Do You Ever Wonder? Lessons Learned from Rebecca. Both Rebekah and Sarah manipulated events instead of trusting God’s promises. We all leave a string of failures in our wake, but thank God He redeems them.

Looking for Joy? Abide. “In addressing His disciples hours before His arrest, Jesus tells them over and over to abide, to remain, to dwell in Him. He knows that they’re worried about what life will look like without Him, so He gives them these instructions for a specific reason: “that [their] joy may be full” (John 15:11).”

On Benedictions, Part 1: He Who Is Able. “This passage doesn’t promise that we’ll never stumble into sin. But it does promise that God’s grace can enable us to persevere to the end—to stand before his throne still blameless, still washed by the blood of Christ, still cleansed from the sin in which we all too readily engaged.”

Assurance in an Age of Cancel Culture, HT to Challies. These days of being so easily “cancelled” when the culture at large doesn’t like what we say can make us fearful of speaking out. “This article is an outpouring of my inner war with ‘cancel culture’ and fear of man. These Biblical truths are weapons of warfare for me in the middle of my fight with ‘cancel culture.’”

Meatloaf Ministry. If you’ve ever been part of a church food ministry or any behind-the-scenes ministry, this will bless you.

Social Justice in Our Divided Age. Not everyone means the same thing by that term, which causes confusion and even hard feelings at times. I thought this was a good explanation.

Happy Saturday!

Finding Ways to Minister

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Barbara Harper

We’ve attended large, active churches with multiple ministries happening at any given time. And we’ve attended very small churches with few official church ministries. Neither is right or wrong. Each church has its own personality.

On the plus side, participation in some aspect of church ministry is usually where I got to know people and began to feel part of the church. It’s hard to get to know others in just a few minutes before or after a service. Working side by side provides opportunities for further fellowship.

Church ministry also helps with organization, so the new mom doesn’t receive five casseroles on one day.

Church ministry is a good outlet for service. When I first started attending church, I didn’t really know what my niche was. After trying several things over the years, now I know where I feel my particular skill set fits best.

However, what God calls us to do doesn’t always fit with our skills. When Moses told God he was slow of speech, God didn’t contradict him. He just promised, “I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Exodus 4:10-12). God called Gideon to lead His army when Gideon was hiding away—not a promising beginning, humanly speaking. I’m not gifted in caregiving, but I was called to it for five years. Sometimes God calls us to do what we don’t feel naturally gifted to do to show “that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

Church ministry has some drawbacks. People tend to compartmentalize their service. When they participate in whatever church ministries they’re involved in, they think their ministry is done for the week.

Witnessing? Yes, I attended church visitation. Check.

At one church we visited, the only time anyone spoke to us or even looked at us was during the visitor greeting time of the service. It was like they crammed all their interaction with visitors into those few minutes instead of being alert to visitors and welcoming before and after the service.

Ministry isn’t something we turn off and on. We’re always on, in a sense. Yes, we need time to rest. But if a need comes up, we don’t say, “Sorry, I already put in my time this week” or “We only do that at the scheduled time.” Opportunities to minister don’t always come in convenient, pre-planned situations.

Then, too, we can be so busy in church ministry that we don’t have time to just slow down and interact with people. I can remember hoping someone else would greet the nearby visitor because I had to catch five different people before they left church for the day.

Some new church members’ first meeting with a pastor is almost like a job interview, as he considers where he can “plug you in.”

My son and daughter-in-law’s church has no organized ministries except for a few small Bible studies. That’s partly because they don’t have their own building yet. But it’s mostly church philosophy. They want people to be free to exercise hospitality and to minister to one another’s needs as they arise.

Our own church currently doesn’t have any organized ministries, either, partly because we don’t have our own building, partly because we’re very small. And I have found it so restful. Sometimes I look back at how busy I used to be, and I can’t believe I used to do all that. I was younger then: I’m sure that makes a big difference.

But people in both these churches do minister in other ways.

God has something for everyone to do. He has distributed to everyone spiritual gifts. But the ministry He wants you to partake in may or may not be through an organized church ministry.

Here’s what you can do if you’re searching for a way to minister:

Pray for God’s guidance and leading.

Minister from an overflow of your relationship with the Lord. There are times we do what we have to do, no matter how we feel. But God often works on our being inwardly before our doing outwardly. I love what Sue Donaldson says here:

Ministry is spillage. We have something worth spilling out to another—whether it’s our little ones, our mother-in-law, or a work colleague—when we are filled up to all the fullness of God. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:19 . . . “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” I want to start and end my day with God and His Word, otherwise I don’t get filled up. And if I’m not filled up with Him, I can’t spill out for Him.

What’s on your heart? Some years ago, a lady in our church came to me occasionally to urge the ladies’ group to form some kind of ministry to the elderly ladies of our church. We did a couple of things, but I was too swamped to start any kind of regular ministry. I did wonder, though, if perhaps this lady needed a little nudge or encouragement to start something. If this was on her heart, probably God wanted her to do something about it.

Be willing to step out of your comfort zone. One ladies’ group leader used to say, “You can’t say no until you pray about it.” We all know we can’t say yes to every opportunity: we’d be quickly weighed down. But neither should we say no automatically. The times I’ve grown the most have been times I didn’t feel up to the job, but I didn’t feel the liberty to say no, either.

Consider timing. Our families are our first ministry. Though God has something for all of us to do at any time, that big idea on our heart may have to be put on a back burner if we have little ones or a full-time job or an elderly member in need of caregiving.

What’s in front of you? We may be thinking about ministry as something big and grand. Too often we overlook the small opportunities right in front of us to say a kind word of encouragement or to help someone in some small way. I can tell you, after visiting several new churches due to moves with our family, the warm, heartfelt, spontaneous greeting from church members means more than the loud welcome of the official church greeter.

I’ve mentioned this lady before, but I was encouraged and instructed by the example of an older woman I knew in one of our former churches. She had taught school for decades, but had to retire early. She could have been bitter and disgruntled due to the situation. Instead, she just quietly looked for other ways to serve. She greeted visitors who were sitting alone and invited them to sit with her. She invited a couple of ladies at a time over for lunch—not for any agenda, but just to fellowship. She began a couple of ladies’ Bible studies. Another older lady I knew would stay with new moms for a couple of days if their own moms couldn’t be with them. Another sweet lady used to apologize for not being able to participate in our ladies’ group very much. But she took care of her adult special needs son, helped her widowed mother, was the on-call babysitter for her extended family. Her whole life was a ministry, even though she couldn’t participate in “official” church ministries as much as she would have liked.

One of our former pastors preached a message from 1 Timothy 5 about the kinds of things women were to be honored for. The context is determining how the church should minister to widows who had no one else to help them. After telling Pastor Timothy to “Honor widows who are truly widows” (verse 3), Paul lists everyday, ordinary characteristics: This woman has taken care of her family, is not self-indulgent, prayed, “shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work” (verses 5, 10). No mention there of a worldwide TV ministry or writing a best-selling book or leading a conference of thousands of women. There’s nothing wrong with those things, if God has called someone to them. But most of our ministry will be in small efforts.

I’ve benefited from official church ministry and from someone’s behind-the-scenes thoughtfulness.

God has something for everyone to do. If you can find a ministry outlet within your church, that’s great. If not, seek Him about ways you can minister, and then be alert for ways you can help people. Maybe you can assist someone in their ministry. Maybe God will use you to start a ministry. Maybe not. Maybe, like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, all those small acts that you don’t think much about will make big differences in others’ lives.

See also: