Serving Bread

I spent the day with a group of local Armenian pastors and ministry leaders in a seminar led by Ajith Fernando. Brother Ajith is a renowned expositor, writer, and leader. He heads the Youth for Christ ministry in Sri Lanka and his influence has been felt worldwide. Through three sessions, Brother Ajith covered the topic, “Keys to Long Term Freshness in Ministry.” He outlined ten insights that sustain freshness in ministry.

1. Mercy: We are in ministry because of God’s mercy not because of our qualifications (2 Corinthians 4.1)
2. Thanksgiving and Joy: We need to ask for grace daily and battle against the emotions that want to take front and center in our lives. Joy needs to be the dominant emotion in response to our lives. Joy does not mean the absence of depression. We need to recognize that depression is part of life (“Stop feeling bad for feeling bad”).
3. Comfort: Allow our hearts to be soft to God’s grace. We need to allow God to regularly comfort us. It may often come in the form of friends.
4. Devotional Reading of the Bible: We need to approach scripture as hungry baby birds. Scripture is not just a text for sermons and Bible Studies.
5. Meditating on Grace: We need to regularly find times to privately worship God.
6. Prayer: To avoid burnout, we need regular times with God. In addition to our regular prayer times, we need to develop a group of prayer warriors. Sometimes these warriors may give us unsolicited advice, but that’s a small price to pay for the prayers. (Church mothers are a good place to seek those prayer warriors)
7. Belief that God is good: We cannot let disappointments crush us. We need to talk to ourselves and preach to ourselves the truths of God.
8. Surrender: The things we claim to are the things that will take away our joy. We need to surrender our ideas and plans and trust God for our futures. Are we arguing for a place in the kingdom or arguing for the kingdom?
9. Holiness: Sin and addiction will destroy us. We need to even employ shame to keep us from sin.
10. Community: When God calls us to a community, it will be good both for the community and for us. What is best for the community is best for us. When we lay down our life for the people, the people will lay down their lives for the kingdom.

Practical insights from Brother Ajith:

• Read Biographies—(I’ve ordered A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards (Library of Religious Biography Series))
• Be rounded in your reading—don’t just read practical books but books on theology as well.
• Plan out when I’m going to pray during the week. And the night before, make sure that I can still pray when I planned out I’d be praying.
• Develop a prayer warrior team
• Solicit pre-emptive prayers when encountering situations that will invite sin
• Develop friendships
• Mix up how I relate to God: Devotional Readings, worship (by song), different kinds of prayers (intercession, listening, petitionary)
• Pray for the people I’m mentoring