Ever sit in a church service and say, "Wow, there aren't many folks here today?" Too often we can get hooked on numbers. Our mindset should instead be, "Wow, look who is all here today!" We can do this with any ministry we are involved in. Take a blog, as mine, sometimes I can look over and check to see how many followers there are. That is the wrong thing for me to do. I just need to focus on what the Lord is laying upon my heart to share, and whether I have the audience of 1000, 100, 10 or 1 the important thing is that I am following Christ. I am being that willing vessel for Him to use.I know many read and do not follow. Some are daily readers, and others have just stumbled along. But I have found that those who come and stop in and are blessed just by what the Lord intended them to see.
When Jesus was the willing vessel for His ministry, He wasn't counting followers. Ofcourse He would have wanted everyone to come as He does today, but He did focus on those who were there with Him. He was blessed by those who came. Whether Jesus would have just had a few to give His life for, or the entire world as He did, He still would have opened Himself up and gave all He had.
Some have large ministries and they reach thousands if not millions, such as Billy Graham and Beth Moore. We are not all called to be a Billy Graham, but we are called to minister to those around us. Just as my Pastor can reach many each Sunday or through his love of trout fishing, I will come in contact with many he will never meet. God has placed us right where He wants us, and He places those in our paths for a reason.
Your ministry may be a blog, a teacher, a Pastor, a speaker, a writer, or your ministry may be your work place.You may even be a softball coach for your child's team. You may belong to a quilting or scrapbooking club. The first place our ministry begins is in our own hearts, and then it spreads to our home. Whatever your job, what ever your passion you can reach out to those around you. Each moment in time that we get to spend with another is a ministry.
I know in Awana on Wednesday nights, there are times we may say, "We have a low crowd tonight." In that we are saying that we are missing those who are not there, but we are taking each one of those children and acting as if they were the only ones there.
If each person just reached out to one person a day, look at that ministry. Wow! That is a lot of people to reach for the Lord. What is your ministry? You may think you don't have one, but each of us do. We are each called to share the gospel of Christ, and for each one we do reach out to, for each one we open our hearts to we are moving in the ministry God has called us to reach. As we reach out others will reach out, and so on. Hearts are touched when we share from our heart to another.
If you think about it, every ministry started out with just one person, and from there two came, and then is grows with love and prayer.Each ministry grows in God's timing. If you are just starting out, don't worry about numbers. Don't think no one is listening. Just keep pressing forward, obeying Christ, for He has a plan in your life, and He will lead you to the ministry He is calling you to. Each door will open, and when it does you will know without a doubt that it is He that is doing so.
Ephesians 4:11-16 "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, but the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ-from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."
