I’ve started noticing something weird about DTC conferences. I’ve had fairly major roles in the last three, especially the last two, where I “coordinated” the teaching. I won’t go into details, but after each conference I went home and turned into a quivering pile of jello for a while. To top this one off, after I started congealing, I got sick for a couple days.
So I have a difficult time answering when people ask me “How did DTC go?” If I were to answer for myself, I would say something like, “It ranked somewhere between having a root canal and getting appendicitis.” Except I haven’t had appendicitis so I’m not quite sure about that.
On the other hand I’ve consistently gotten feedback from others saying they got a lot out of it.
This has perhaps led me to the following spiritual truth:
The more you do ministry, the less satisfaction you get out of it.
I hope anyone interested in ministry will read that sentence carefully and ponder it. I have two reasons for this.
- “Thinning the herds” — I think many people get into ministry thinking about how personally satisfying it will be, how much THEY will get out of it. I’d like to encourage these people to take up sales, politics, acting….
- “Getting in on the secret” — This second point is the real heart of this blogpost. Ministry has a secret, which is that it is infinitely satisfying. But the more you get into it, the more the satisfaction moves from the temporal to the eternal—and so it becomes more infinite, if you will forgive the phrase.
What I’m trying to say is that ministry is not emotionally satisfying, financially satisfying, or even relationally satisfying. Oh, any of those things might happen along the way. But none of them are guaranteed or even essential to ministry.
For example, I used to think that ministry was inherently relational. But I’m even convinced that while ministry fosters relationships, it may foster them for someone else (rather than the minister).
As a member of the “older generation” I have come to realize that I will never be tight socially with the “younger generation.” Over time I have actually come to be rather more grateful than not for that fact. But I can facilitate their community; I can be the father figure or adult in the room that can (sometimes) help them get perspective on things. And people do look up to me. So there are relationships, but they are more at-a-distance.
Recently I was meditating on Paul’s personal requests to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:9-18:
Do your best to come to me soon.
For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me.
Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus.
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.
Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.
At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them!
But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
While there is certainly a triumphant conclusion here, there is also an air of melancholy. People have left him. Nobody stood with him when he was on trial for his life. He’s so penurious that he wants Timothy to pick up a cloak he left behind in his travels. He’s lonely, and as he already mentioned, he knows he will die soon. All this ministry and “Luke alone is with me.”
There is little satisfaction left for Paul. All that is left, as a sort of consolation prize, is…what was it?…something about a “crown of righteousness.”