On my days off, I often find myself working at one project or another around the house or yard. I like these projects, because they are things I can finish. This summer, I started and finished a chicken coop. Last week I installed tile in my front porch. There is something about bringing a project to completion that is satisfying—which is why, sometimes, ministry is so hard.
There is very little about what we do in ministry that we have opportunity to see through to completion. Sure, there are the projects around the church building, the events we plan and execute, and those 40-days-of-whatever. They are all diversions from the reality that the work we do with people is never done. They distract us from the truth that the Kingdom of God is not something we will ever finish building.
In 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” I hope someday to say the same thing. But I also hope I never forget this one truth: Though I may someday finish my role in it, the race isn’t over.
Paul was about to cross the finish line, but his point here, was an encouragement to Timothy, to Priscilla and Aquila, and to the others he mentions later in the chapter, is to keep on running. And it’s true for us too.
Our work isn’t finished. Friday I stood back stage as Jeffrey Dean, the speaker for our weekend retreat, invited students to commit their lives to Christ for the first time. From the vantage point I had, I could see into the eyes of youth pastors during a critical moment for them. My gut said that some of them believed they had run a good race, and the students sitting around them would not stand. That they wouldn’t need to. But they did.
Students across the room, from churches across the region, stood as a testament to this truth: that our work is not done. There are students, children, neighbors, colleagues, friends, who desperately long for someone, for you, to invite them into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
And that’s why I do what I do. I help create that space, where the barriers are removed, and the question can be asked, and people can stand and receive Jesus Christ into their lives.