One of the clearest evidences of God’s creativity is the variety of ministry outlets in which His children serve. You find some ministering to the homeless in urban centers. Others are reaching out via technology tools to people engaging via the Internet. Still others turn a sporting event into an opportunity to mentor, teach and share the Gospel.
Whatever your ministry, I am sure that your involvement in Cape Town 2010 has impacted how you see the effort, your role and the outcomes. It might have been a key speaker sharing something, a conversation over coffee, a timely tweet or an idea put forward on the thousands of blog posts.
One thing is for sure . . . we tend to get focused on the daily activities of ministry and it is easy to develop Tunnel Vision—where we only see what is right in front of us. We wake up and do the thing in front of us without taking time to consider how our work integrates with the Global Church.
Normally that isn’t a bad thing. Mother Teresa said, “I serve the face in front of me.” Her words speak to the importance of focusing on the ministry moments that God puts in front of us.
But at the same time we need to understand our ministry in the larger context. That is one of the services that Cape Town 2010 offered to all of us—however we engaged with the event. However, it is only a service if we take advantage of it. Many of us jumped out of our local contexts and into the Cape Town 2010 event without much preparation. We likewise were catapulted right back into local ministry, jobs and family with little chance to think through what we learned and how it should impact our ministry.
Well, it is not too late. Let’s take some time to debrief how our ministry should be affected by what we learned from other members of the Global Church.
Here are a few key steps:
- Identify several ideas from the Cape Town 2010 events that are timely and relevant to your local ministry. Write them down so they are clear in your mind.
- Ask God to help you integrate these ideas into your local context. Ask Him to give you the creativity, vision and courage to take the steps that He brings to you through prayer.
- Identify another person that walked alongside you during your interactions with Cape Town 2010 and ask them to hold you accountable to implement what you learned.
- Using whatever communication tools you have at your disposal (the pulpit, a blog, a newspaper, the radio, a book, etc) make sure that you communicate what you learned and what you have done about it in your ministry.
- Don’t forget to thank God and praise Him as you see these new ideas bear fruit in your work.