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Blogs > Indescribeable > Simply Indescribeable


Indescribeable 66F
5216 posts
8/8/2006 6:39 pm
Ministry of serving
Remember the first time you served ice cream? All of the were so grateful that you were there to serve them, perhaps lined up at the counter.

When your life is touched by the ministry of serving you go out and find someone else who needs to experience the joy of serving others. In so doing, you become a coordinator of ministry--not just a doer, and you start actively empowering many others to experience what it means to live out the Gospel.

The thing the stymies this wonderful process is that it starts to be very fun to have a whole line of people who think you are totally fabulous because, well, because without you they might not get their ice cream.

In fact, sometimes that feeling of being the cheery ice cream supplier gets so rewarding that we start to really want to always be the one scooping out the ice cream.

And, then, if things really start getting out of hand, I, uh, I mean, that person, who regularly scoops ice cream might start to think that they are the very best ice cream scooper in the entire world.

In fact, it could be a very real possibility that NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE can scoop ice cream in such a holy, Christ-like way.

And then what happens if the pastor, for example, insists on serving ice cream every single day because, well, everyone likes ice cream? That's nice, except the pastor is being a real hog. He's doing ministry . . . yes . . . but not for the sake of the Gospel transforming lives but rather for the sake of a lot of people thinking he is holy and a very nice person for giving them an extra scoop of ice-cream.

See what I mean?

It's kind of like what Jesus did, you know, studiously turning the attention of everyone he met away from political power grabbing, trying always to get on his good side, and toward genuine relationship with God.

At the very core of who I am and what I do, this is what I want . . . for myself, for people I meet, for this whole entire world, to be transformed by the living and the sharing of the Gospel.

Wouldn't it be amazing if the transforming power of the Gospel, instead of being clutched to our chests and hoarded like a ice cream scoop, could be handed over and multiplied again and again and again, until the transforming power of the Gospel changes not just us but the whole world?

When will we learn this is not about us, no matter how good we are behind the counter?

(¯`•♥•´¯) ¤`•.♥.•´ ¤ (¯`•♥•´¯)


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