Do you cook? I have found that there are, predominantly, 3 types of cooks: 1. people who can’t boil water without burning it, 2. people who can cook but prefer to work, very precisely, from a recipe and 3. people who cook with “a pinch of this and a dash of that”.
I find, at this stage in my life, I am a mix of #2 and #3. More and more, I lean toward #3. If I make, for instance, ground beef stroganoff…nothing gets measured. Brown the ground beef with
a couple of diced Vidalia onions. Drain. Meanwhile, cook a package of pasta. Make sure and add oil to the water so the noodles don’t stick and salt to the water so that the flavor cooks into the pasta. Drain. Add some cream cheese, some shredded cheddar, some garlic powder, some salt, some pepper and some basil to the meat. Heat until it’s all mixed. Stir in the pasta. Heat some more. Just before serving, stir in some sour cream. Eat!
Notice that there was absolutely not ONE measurement in the whole thing. Put some in. Try it. Add more if necessary. Done. That’s the way I cook. It has come with years of experience, but that’s the way I cook. Cooking has become much less a science and much more an art.
Ministry is much the same way. I have 3 FULL years of postgraduate work that led up to and earned me my Master’s Degree. And there is a lot of nuts and bolts to be learned in seminary. Further, there are TONS of “how to’s” and “top 10’s” out there designed to help you better pastor a church. And many of those things help.
But as I get older and log more years in the ministry (I am nearing the end of my 19th year…hard to believe!), I become more and more aware of the fact that ministry is much more art than science. The “book learning” and factual data (the science) serve as a great backdrop, but ministry is ultimately lived out in the uncertain, unpredictable nature of day-to-day life- the art.
God calls us to be flexible, adaptable, bendable. We are to be willing to change and shift as the situation around us…the WORLD around us…changes. And when we CAN adapt to the times, instead of remaining rigid and unchanging, great things can happen!
Thanks for stopping by- I pray you have a blessed day! Please make sure and come back again tomorrow, and stick with Jesus!
Stick With Jesus 