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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

Life of the Apostle Paul

David Wright

Conflict In the Church - Part 9

Clashing View Points - Part 10

Bread at Home - Part 11

When God Says No - Part 12

Confident Contagious Faith - Part 13

When the Fullness of Time Had Come - Part 14

Truth About the Unknown God - Part 15

No Insignificant Grace - Part 1

Prominent and Proud to Desperate and Dependent - Part 2

I Know Jesus and Paul, but Who Are You? - Part 17

Surprising Elements of Gods Will - Part 3

Lessons Learned In Solitude Quietness and Obscurity - Part 4

Lessons In Humility - Part 5

No Lone Rangers - Part 6

Content In Everything - Part 7

Distinguishing Marks of an Authentic Ministry -  Part 8

Never Give Up - Part 18

Hold Nothing Back - Part 19

Even the Strongest Leaders Cry - Part 20

When the Last Offer Comes - Part 21

Beware of Fake Science - Part 22

Paul’s Challenging Church -  Part 16

Reliable Anchor for Your Storm Tossed Soul - Part 23

Living Above Your Circumstances - Part 24

Well, this morning I want to ask the question, what's your ministry?

And some people are just so natural at being hospitable and other people they just don't see it.

Maybe you have the gift of helps, the gift of support if you will, which is always very largely a gift that we need more of.

Often we don't need more leaders, we need more helpers, right?

Maybe you have the gift of attendance, that's also vital.

Nothing more frustrating than spending hours and hours and hours on something and nobody shows up, right?

Maybe you're 1 that takes food to people in times of crisis.

Maybe you are a prayer warrior and you devour that list each and every week or daily and you're on that texting group that gets notifications throughout the day.

Whatever it is, any of you that have been involved in ministry for a good period of time know that ministry, while on the outside we try and make it look flowery and nice, and people come up and they give testimonies, and sometimes we get tearful and we say, praise the Lord, this is incredible, but the day in, the day out, the grind of ministry can be very tough.

I still remember in my first district saying, we need to have an evangelistic series and campaign, and we tried to rally the church, and we found this hall that we were going to rent, and we secured our budget and the funds and how many nights and so on and so forth and did all the advertising and we had 3 people show up and I knew that you typically maintain about 10% of those that show up on opening night So 10% of 3 is what?

That's exactly what we had for night number 2 and 3 and 4 and onward.

But ministry can be challenging at times.

I remember on another occasion having 2 people in my office in a shouting match with 1 another, and as it escalated, and as they stood up and were shouting, I was in between, and I stood up and I was going to say, we're not going to do this like this.

To which they simply pushed me back down into my chair, continued to shout over top of 1 another.

Who should be the next elder of the church?

Another place I was, very first Sabbath I arrived, the head elder, the patriarch of the church, if you will, started to interrogate me over potluck over why I felt called to ministry.

And so I was trying to answer his questions, but I could tell he certainly had an angle.

And everything I said about why I was called to ministry, no, that's not it.

And he continued on this path until finally he just concluded, you're not called to ministry.

I thought this is a good start to ministry.

By the time it was all done, by the time we parted ways, We were good friends and there was tears in our parting, but there was a little frustration at the front end, let me tell you.

I remember at 1 place being appalled because during the children's story, the woman was talking about fairy tales and unicorns and princesses and magic And then it finally concluded with happy ever after.

There was another time my wife and I were out visiting.

Lauren was just a baby, maybe about a year old.

This was before GPSs and smartphones, and we were pretty sure we were in the right place, but it just felt very eerie in this little hauler where we were, and we found, yes, this is the place.

And so we walked up to the door, and she came to the door.

There's some details about that first introduction that I won't describe, but we get inside and we're sitting there having a conversation with this lady and Lauren is just about the age where she can stand up at a coffee table and support herself and so she finds something that she's banging on the coffee table and we're trying to engage with her and not be too distracted by our own child and various things until the woman says, oh excuse me, and she gets up and she removes what Lauren is banging on the coffee table which happened to be a loaded handgun.

How we missed that little detail I don't know either, but I shudder at the thought.

And then there was a time I was attempting to connect with a fringe member.

They were kind of disenfranchised with the church.

It was a husband of a gal who was pretty irregular.

So I decided to try and connect with this guy, and he was a big outdoorsman.

I think I can call him a redneck because I consider myself 1 of those as well.

I haven't washed my truck in years except for when it rains.

Anyway, so we are, he decides, let's go on this four-wheeler ride.

I'm thinking this is probably not the best judgment because I'm gonna be on the back with him.

No, I really would feel more comfortable with a helmet, so I get the helmet on, and we're charging up this hill, super steep, and we hit a log, and with his weight, he's a big guy, and then my weight hanging on for dear life, the whole four-wheeler just continues to come back when we hit this log.

And so we roll over completely backwards with the four-wheeler on top, with him on top of me, and I remember my whole neck coming forward, and I remember hearing, and I thought, that's the last time I'm gonna walk.

Thankfully, I did get up, I did walk, and after a few thousand dollars of PT later, I was okay.

They said I had, I don't remember if it was second or third degree whiplash, or is there degrees for that?

I don't know, but it was relatively severe.

The hateful emails, the rumors, and the backbiting.

And since I've always looked young, back at my first wedding, fresh out of college, was with a couple.

I just baptized him and she was already Adventist, so he had a bunch of non-Aventist family members who had never seen me before.

They said, who's that preacher man up there?

So since I always look young, a lot of times when there is bad behavior, bad attitudes, whatever it is, they just justify themselves by saying, well, you're just young and inexperienced.

There are times I'm sure I'm inexperienced.

And in some parts of life, that's a good thing.

Just the other week, I had somebody tell me that exact same thing, while he also decorated his language with some very choice words.

Sometimes they don't even want to tell you.

And so you're left unknowing what they're going to present to you and it could be anything and it seems like it's just about been everything.

It can be exhausting, there can be periods of discouragement or frustration, certainly criticism.

I didn't list that as the gifts, but some in the church feel like that's their spiritual gift, is to simply criticize everyone else, but they call themselves the watchman on the wall.

We need watchmen on the wall, but we can take that too far too, and it just turns into criticism.

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Series

Life of the Apostle Paul

Distinguishing Marks of an Authentic Ministry - Part 8

Transcript

Parent Series

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