The Courage to Be Ordinary

A friend of mine once confessed his secret ministry fantasy to me: Grow his church to
place where it no longer required faith to lead it.

I knew exactly what he meant. Ive struggled with the same fantasy. Get enough money,
people, recognition, staff, volunteers, lay leaders, salary, book deals, and speaking gigs
that we dont need to depend on God for anything anymore. But in serving as a pastor
and working with fellow pastors for many years, Ive found two characteristics essential
to do ministry in a way that depends on God: courage to be ordinary and comfort with
obscurity.

Courage to Be Ordinary
One of my mentors often tells me, It takes extraordinary courage to be ordinary. For
the longest time, I would nod in agreement but not believe him.

I needed to be extraordinary. When I replanted a church, I often over-functioned in my

role as a pastor. I carried the entire weight of the church on my shoulders. I had my
own scorecard full of the metrics that mattered to me. And one was becoming a self-
supporting church.

Pastor, you dont have all the gifts the church needs. You
need help.
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I prided myself on how quickly we achieved it, all the while hiding the fact that we
became self-supporting because I was secretly functioning as the financial savior. I
carried way too much of the financial burden. I was rarely honest about our monetary
needs. I didnt take the full benefits package the church offered me. I rarely turned in
my reimbursements. And I did it for respect.
As pastors, we can often trade love for respect. We are afraid people wont love our true
selves, so we keep going, wearing ourselves out doing more than we are made to do to
sustain the image of a successful pastor. We quietly say to ourselves, I cant stop or the
whole thing will fall apart.

It is exhausting and lonely to keep up that image. Jesus is the one to build his church,
rest in being just one piece of his work in the world.

How to Be More Ordinary

Three things help us find the courage to be ordinary: vulnerability, suffering, and
prayer.

Vulnerability is necessary to be ordinary because it embraces the limits of being human.

You will not meet everyones expectation. You dont have all the gifts the church needs.
You need help.

For me, it meant letting my elders know that the church wasnt really self-supporting,
and we couldnt afford all the ministry we were doing. I know admitting that kind of
need sounds simple and silly; for me, it was nearly impossible. I felt exposed and
ashamed. I admitted a competency failure, which can be harder to admit than a
character failure.

Jesus is the one to build his church, rest in being just one
piece of his work in the world.
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In terms of suffering, it means whatever gain you have, you count as loss for the sake of
Christ. You suffer the loss of all things in order to gain Jesus. You admit your
limitations and put your resume and reputation at risk.
And finally, as you embrace your limitations, you will cry out to God in Jesus only
prayers. My pastor, Geoff Bradford, introduced me to the idea of Jesus only prayers. A
couple of years ago, he started making a list of things he longed to happen that only
Jesus could make happen. And he started to pray for those things every day. I hear the
massive problems and start looking for quick fixes. He keeps praying Jesus only
prayers, and therefore often getting Jesus only answers.

Comfort with Obscurity

A number of years ago, I was at a conference where a friend was speaking. I spent a lot
of time with him during a tough season in his ministry. Hes told me he wouldnt still be
pastoring without my help. But nobody knows that. As he started his talk with a litany
of thanksgiving I thought, It would be nice if he thanked me, too. But he didnt. I
didnt even get a head nod. I was surprised at how much it bothered me. I had done
valuable ministry and I wanted others to know about it.

I remembered a question my friend Paul Miller encouraged me to ask in the midst of

struggle and suffering: How is Jesus inviting you to share in his story? My mind went
to last verse in John: Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every
one of them to be written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that
would be written. Jesus did a lot of ministry in obscurity. If everything he did got
tweeted, it would break Twitter.

Most good ministry is rightly done in obscurity.

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Most ministry is rightly done in obscurity. My best stories are those that few will ever
know. As hard as that is, I think thats very appropriate. For in those cases, my Father
sees, understands, appreciates, and affirms. And thats enough. One day God will say to
me, Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21), and give me the unfading
crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4). Sometimes he gives me a foretaste of that through the
affirmation and praise from others, but most of my ministry will be in obscurity.
The cannon is closed. Scripture is sufficient. Our stories dont need to be recorded for
eternity. Maybe a future church historian will use our ministry as a topic for his
dissertation. Most of us will to borrow a phrase preach the gospel, die, and be
forgotten.

How to Be Obscure in the Right Way

Jesus increases; we decrease. His work is seen; ours is obscured. We need to fight to be
comfortable with that. Again, vulnerability, suffering, and prayer can help.

Vulnerability will come as you lose public reputation in order to gain personal integrity.
You will preach ordinary sermons. There will be good ministry you do that you cant
talk about or that wont make a fundraising pitch. You are working with people; their
stories of deliverance are theirs to share, not yours to glory in.

Suffering often comes in the form of contempt you feel from those who seem to get
what you want the church, the family, the lifestyle, the recognition but do it in a
way that seems to have little regard for God and his laws. Maybe they are other pastors.
Maybe they are your pagan neighbors. Their lives seem better compared to yours.

I think thats why Paul encouraged Timothy to do ministry a different way, even if it
seemed like he wasnt as successful as others in Ephesus who experienced success in
ministry without a care for God or his word (see1 Timothy 6:311). As we labor in
relative obscurity, we pray that God would be pleased with our work and cause much
eternal fruit to grow.

The Quiet Man of God

The courage to be ordinary and obscure can leave you in a place of quietness and peace.
Thats important because we need to steward our soul long before we try to steward our
ministry or influence. As Francis Schaeffer wrote, The Christian leader should be a
quiet man of God who is extruded by Gods grace into some place of leadership.

Extruded is a good word. It means to be forced, like kids push Play-Doh through a die
to get it into the shape they desire. This extrusion is, like all good things in our life, a
gift of grace. Calm and quite your soul (Psalm 131:2). Let God force you into the ministry
he knows you can sustain.