The Invisible Minister

Pastor John Gibson

• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781638146452
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

The Invisible Minister shows how to handle the different issues that come with being an assistant/associate pastor. The best assistant/associate ministers are the ones who are actively serving the Lord, making sure that the only person others see is Jesus. In other words, they need to be invisible.

Chapter 7

Let Every Experience Help You to Grow

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in our old age; they shall be fat and flourishing.

—Psalm 92:12–14

It is amazing, as I look at my ministry, to think of all the different environments and experiences that I have had along the way. When you balance that or add that to life experiences in general, there are many things that we can use in our ministry. Probably one of the most important things is to use it as a way to grow. I mean, every experience can have an impact on our lives and the things that God will call us to do down the road. It does not always have to be good experiences or times when things worked out toward our favor, and we made many right calls, which lead to great outcomes. We can even use those times when we are the biggest knucklehead in the room, or we made the dumbest mistake that we never thought we would be able to recover. At one point or another, everything that you have gone through can be used by God later on in your ministry, so you must be observant.

The psalmist reminds us in Psalm 37:23: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.” Through this verse, we can see that our steps have been established by the Lord so that we have the confidence that he keeps us on sure footing as long as we stay in the right path. The meaning for this part of our chapter is for us to concentrate on the fact that the Lord must see our steps in order for them to be established. In other words, God is very vigilant and observant of our lives, whether they are good or bad. Therefore every activity of our life can be used by God in all facets of our ministry.

If we are going to look at the way we grow as children, we notice that a good majority of our learning comes from the different experiences that we have gone through. An infant can recognize that if he cries long and loud enough, it will either get the nourishment it is wanting or the changing it is needing. It is quite a natural thing. But the child still would have naturally put forth the first cry and learn what the result of that is for them. And the more the response remains the same, they learn to continue with that action until other experiences begin changing those actions.

In 1 Peter chapter 2, we are called to desire the sincere milk of the Word so we can grow. When we look at the Word, one of the things that is impossible to miss is that it is full of people who had experienced different things in their life. As ministers of the Word, we are supposed to be able to help people to draw the spiritual conclusions that come from those experiences and relate them to their lives. Conversely, all those in the Word had to learn from those experiences or the stories of the experiences of others and see what God was showing them through those experiences.

I recognize that people learn a variety of ways and that not all ways are the same. Yet every way that a person learns has all had to be experienced so that you can learn. If I can simply be told something and learn that way, then I would have had to have someone teach me by talking. I would have had to experience that. And by experiencing that, it would show me that I learn this way instead of another way.

I can also relate to the fact that it is hard to listen to a message of a person who simply use all of their experiences more than sharing concrete biblical references. I would not enjoy having a person hold up a newspaper, and then that is the motivation for their next message as they tell me what the current event is and what I should feel about that event. I have no problem adding that as a flavor to the meal that I am serving, but I do not want it as a replacement. In my opinion, it is like making tofu your main dish without adding anything to it. Even the most ardent healthy-eating person that I have seen will not have tofu by itself. It is always mixed with something else especially since it is bland and has no flavor by itself.

Now let’s go back to infants and their learning ways. After a while, the child learns that if they touch something that is hot that it will be warm to the touch and can even cause pain. This would cause the child to keep their hands away the next time they see the thing they touched that was hot. Sometimes a child will not listen to the word “no” and have to find out how important the word “no” is and how it can help them avoid pain. If you have ever walked around in the dark and stepped on something, you either learn to turn on a light, or you do not walk as heavy as you did before. I can guarantee that if you use this illustration, you will find at least one person who can identify with a similar experience and fully understand what you are trying to say.

These next words will be very controversial. I can guess that you have done something wrong before in your life and have gotten away with it. I know that is truly sticking my neck out (as the expression goes) by saying that, but it is true. I know the self-righteous right now are saying that God sees everything, therefore no one has ever gotten away with something they have done wrong. Eventually we do pay the consequence. But the point is that some have gotten away with something so far like you have at some point in your life. You can use that experience to show people that it does not always work out that way, and eventually there is a consequence, either positive or negative. Maybe the getting away with something was the way that God demonstrated his grace, or it led to you being convicted in the spirit and confessed before you were caught. I have known a child that would deny till they were blue in the face of doing something wrong and later on be so convicted by the Lord that they would confess the same day and accept the responsibility. One time I was told by my parent to stay out of the cookie jar, and I decided I wanted a cookie and got one. When my parent got home, I still had cookie on my face but said I did not do it. Later on, I was so convicted that I told her, and this was before I even knew there was a God.

Sometimes it seems we feel that we have to have a great experience, something that is so big that it will last for all time, an event that you have to overcome so that you can help others overcome the same thing. This is a fallacy. Any event in your life can teach you something even if the only lesson you get out of it is to stay consistent. Can you find someone in your life that you know has remained faithful to the Lord for a long time and show that it is possible for this to happen to a person. So often it seems that these types of examples are becoming less and less as the closeness of the Lord is nearer today than it was yesterday.

One of the lessons that children learn when they get older is exactly what they can get away with and what they cannot get away with. I remember my stepfather would let me get away with pretty much anything except for lying. It was always put as a level of trust. In his words, “If I cannot trust your word, then you are not much of a person and will never be the man you are supposed to be in your life.” I did do a lot of wrong things when I was younger and am surprised I am still alive, yet I never lied to my dad. It is one thing that I use with my own children, except I am a lot stricter, or at least my wife is stricter.

One example that I love in the Bible is the forty years that Moses lived in the wilderness after he ran out of Egypt. I love how it is easy to see how the Lord will use a present experience of our life and use it for another purpose. He probably never thought that it was this time that God was going to use to help him to take the children of Israel through the wilderness for forty years.

How often have you gone through something in your life just to find out that the Lord was going to use that experience to help another person. As an assistant/associate pastor, I never thought all the things that I went through during that period was going to weigh so heavy on my heart that I would write this book. The funny thing is that I started a different book first even though this was the one I had planned to write first. It took me opening an email that ended up having a person take my documents and expected me to pay some type of internet currency to make me go back and do this book first.

Is this a good illustration of making sure that you do what the Lord is leading you first instead of letting other things to get in the way. Just like my documents, a person may be caught up by the enemy and needing a ransom to be freed from the new reality of your life. One could even say that you should test things out before you open the wrong thing and bring misery to your life, like me opening the email about a package routing number and getting the virus. Now do I wish I had not gone through that? Absolutely. Could I go through some type of counseling to try and take that memory completely out of my mind so I will not feel so uneducated? Absolutely. Yet I know God will allow that to be used later or as a good illustration only for this book.

One experience that I had as an assistant pastor is that sometimes your pastor is going to be threatened by your success. I remember that I would talk to my pastor about some of the people that I would visit, and it seemed, every time, the pastor would go and visit the same person. It gave the impression that the pastor either felt threatened by my visiting people of the church or felt the need to do damage control. Not that I thought I needed damage control, but it would happen every time. It was difficult since I was doing this to help him with the load of the ministry.

Remember the ministry of David during the reign of Saul. Saul was not happy by all the praise that David was getting in contrast to that of King Saul. It was what the devil was able to use to make Saul work to kill David. Now not one time was my life in jeopardy, but it did feel the same way. I can imagine David being so surprised that a person who he respected who had fathered a son that he genuinely loved was throwing a javelin at him. So sometimes even when you are trying to do things behind the scenes as the invisible minister, it can turn out differently than you intended.

Now it can easily lead a person to think twice about being an assistant/associate pastor, but that was not what the experience taught myself. First, it taught me that you need to make sure you follow through and do what God is calling you to do even if it would make you feel uncomfortable. The people that we were visiting were people who were not getting visited. So it was important to do the work in this area. I can understand how hard it is to get to everyone in this fast-paced life. One thing to understand is that every pastor is not being paid to pastor. Some have to have another job to meet the bills. If that is true of pastors, then you can bet it is also true of assistant/associate pastors.

Another thing that this experience showed me, which helped with my growth, is to avoid worshipping your pastor. They are not perfect and do not always make the right choices. There is nothing worse than to be disillusioned with your pastor. It will cause you to doubt your own ministry and even make you flinch when thinking about helping the minister. The same grace and mercy that the pastor has, probably at least one had to do, used for you should be reciprocated back at him.

Consequently, this experience also taught me that criticism can come in a variety of ways. There may not be people telling you things that are critical, but their actions may show that they are critical. One way or another, the pastor would feel the need to visit the same people. And if that was his form of criticism, then at least it caused a good result for the member of the congregation. If you find a person who used to fellowship with you and went out of their way to talk to you and then all of sudden they seem to avoid you, there may be a problem. It may be important to try and see if you have done anything that has offended them.

A good lesson from this is that criticism can also be a way to grow. It is so easy to get mad and upset when someone is critical toward you. I know that we are in this easily offended time in our society, so criticism can feel like the worst kind of sin that you can experience. It is easy to become defensive when you are experiencing it. I will let you know that if you are doing anything worth doing, you are going to have to learn how to deal with criticism, because you will be criticized. Now there two types of criticism, and they are constructive and destructive. Constructive is the one that is honest and is designed to help you to grow with your best interests at heart. Destructive is the one that is usually not true and is designed to discourage or meddle with your life. This can come from a person who is using their own biases as the cause for their criticism of you, or they are being convicted through your ministry, and they are trying to find a way to get it to stop.

Here are a couple ways that you can learn and grow through both types of criticism. Let’s first look at the constructive criticism. Honestly, you should want to know when you are in error or need to make something that you are doing so it will be effective. Psalm 139:23–24 says, “Search me, O, God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” If you only are willing to take the positive reinforcement even if you are wrong, then you should get out of the ministry right now. Most Christians will only give this verse lip service, and that is not a real openness to the Lord’s revelation of your present standing. First, you should humbly receive it and allow the Lord to show you how to make the necessary changes. Second, you should joyfully thank those who loved you enough to share what you needed to hear. I always remind my congregation that we are all here to keep each other accountable. Finally, check with the Scriptures to make sure it is a biblical issue to fully discern if it is from the Lord or not.

Here are a couple ways to handle negative or destructive criticism. Just like above, check the Scripture and make sure that the criticism is from the Lord instead of a person’s personal preferences. People are incredibly good at blaming God by claiming it is God who is telling them their personal preference that you are not doing what needs to be done. Therefore they feel they are completely righteous with their criticism.

I remember when there was a church member that was caught in a sin, and the person came forward to the altar to pray. And then I got a call from an angry churc...

Table of contents

• Everyone’s Call to the Ministry Is Different
• Avoid the Gossip Trap
• Servanthood Is Not Always Satisfying
• The Joys of Being the Hero and the Zero
• How to Survive Mistakes
• It Is Not Always about Bible College
• Let Every Experience Help You to Grow
• Being Under Poor Mentorship
• Do Not Be Afraid to Love People
• Helping the Family Survive Your Call