For my last teaching assignment this term at Multnomah (I love to teach, but I’m glad this is the last one–it wears me out!), my mentor asked me to share some on what I taught at the last women’s retreat–the God of Disappointment–specifically as it relates to ministry. As I’ve been thinking and praying through what “Expectancy without Expectation” means in the ministry realm, the thing that comes back to me over and over is that we are constantly in danger of engaging in Results-Driven Ministry.
Results-Driven Ministry, very obviously, occurs what we do is determined by the results that are achieved … a subtle form of pragmatism. We do “what works”, and we determine success based on a set of goals or checklist that we formulate in our minds. If we see something that “God is blessing” in another church or ministry, we adopt a similar method.
And this relates to the idea of living in Expectancy without Expectation in relation to our ministry involvement. Expectancy is believing God for great things. Expectation is telling God what those things are. So as I think back through the study on understanding Disappointment, I think of how often my disappointments are nothing more than faulty expectations, doing ministry for the sake of results, rather than for sake of obedience, leaving the results to God.
Lastly, Jeff got me thinking about faithfulness and fruitfulness. We know that we are rewarded according to our faithfulness not according to our fruitfulness because fruitfulness is determined by God alone. However, he brought up a good point, that our fruitfulness will ALWAYS exceed what it “should” in relation to our faithfulness. Meaning, we will never be faithful enough to deserve how fruitful God makes us. Oh boy this is true! I think of some amazingly fruitful ministry experiences–the women’s retreat, teaching, discipleship. How little I was faithful! Really, if only you know how little I pray, how little I am disciplined and consistent, how little I am faithful…and yet how gracious God is to make us fruitful. We have our perspective WAY skewed if we actually think that our teeny acts of faithfulness actually are proportionate to how fruitful God allows us to be. We are “adoring spectators” in God’s work rather than instruments. It’s all His work
So, just preliminary thoughts. I want do dive into this a little more. Just starting to connect the dots. Food for thought.