In my
previous post, I talked about the importance of quitting. We get to choose what
we spend our time on, and that means we get to choose what we stop doing. No
one else chooses for us. As we say no to the right things, God will open the
doors for us to say yes to more of the best things.
I wanted to take a minute to expound on that
idea because I believe in its importance that much. "This is overkill,
Kenzie," you might be thinking. But is it? Let me tell you a story about a whole lot of quitters.
In the days of the early church, things were
confusing to say the least. Imagine, you choose to follow what you believe is
right--who you believe is right, The Way (that's what Christianity used to be
called in the early days). Although you once believed you were a part of the
Jewish faith, you now realize that your friends and leaders have come to
believe you are a heretic, and you are kicked out of the Jewish faith. This is
unprecedented. No one has followed The Way before. No one knows how
"church", then understood as an ecclesia, or [simply] a gathering of
people, should look like. What should the structure for leadership be? What is
the best way to serve others? There were obviously a lot of unanswered questions,
and I would imagine there was probably a bit of a sense of tension in the air,
and by a bit, I mean probably a whole lot of tension.
The church leaders were working to accommodate
all of the people and roles that needed to be filled. Unfortunately, there were
only twelve leaders at the time, also known as the twelve disciples, and more
and more people were coming to the faith every day. As the church began to
multiply, the twelve leaders found themselves stretched to their max with
ministry obligations. In Acts 6, we see that they were so stretched, they were
having trouble adequately serving the people.
“Things were going well, and
the number of disciples was growing. But a problem arose. The Greek-speaking
believers became frustrated with the Hebrew-speaking believers. The Greeks complained
that the Greek-speaking widows were being discriminated against in the daily
distribution of food” (Acts 6:1, The Voice).
The leaders had
to figure out a solution to their ever increasing problem.
“The
twelve convened the entire community of disciples.
The
Twelve: We could solve this problem ourselves, but that wouldn’t be right.
We need to focus on proclaiming God’s message, not on distributing food. 3 So,
friends, find seven respected men from the community of faith. These men should
be full of the Holy Spirit and full of wisdom. Whomever you select we will
commission to resolve this matter 4 so
we can maintain our focus on praying and serving—not meals—but the message”
(Acts 6:2-4, The Voice).
The twelve
church leaders knew that they could not accommodate all of the people on their
own, but even more than that, they understood that they should not accommodate all of the people on their own. This is for
two reasons: 1) It was not what they had been gifted to do. Could they have
done it? Sure. They may have been able to do it well, but it wasn’t their best
yes. They were gifted with being able to preach, serve, and lead, not to
organize the distribution of food. Saying yes to this ministry would have taken
time and energy from their ministries of preaching and guiding the early
church.
This brings me
to reason number two: 2) Someone else was gifted to do it! There were plenty of
other leaders around them with skill sets that would enable them to do a great
job at distributing the food and taking care of the widows. If the twelve took
on the distribution of food to the widows, they would be essentially taking a
task away from someone else who was more than capable of doing. Sometimes we as
leaders get nervous doling out responsibilities to others, and yet the irony is
that is the only reason that we get to do what we get to do is because someone
else trusted us enough to put the responsibility in our hands.
Ultimately, the
twelve decided to hand the job over to seven other leaders. Some were Greek
speakers and were able to quell the tensions between the Greek-speaking
believers and the Hebrew-speaking believers!
It is so easy to
take on all of the responsibilities that are presented to us. We may feel
guilty for not taking them on. We may want to take on the new responsibility in
order to make ourselves feel more important. We may even be excited about the
new opportunities presented to us; however, we always have to be making sure
that we are taking on the responsibilities, the ministries, that we are gifted
for, always making room for those around us to take on new ministries and
responsibilities as well. This is how we grow ourselves and one another.
I want to put a
small disclaimer in here. This won’t work if you don’t do it the right way.
Giving away responsibility doesn’t mean that we just abandon it to someone
else. There must be wisdom in quitting, and we can learn from Acts 6 how to do
it right.
1) Acknowledge
what we should let go of. 2) Discuss this with wise council. 3) Find leaders to
take our place. 4) Prepare them in how to take on this new responsibility. 5)
Give them the opportunity to take it on by themselves (read here—without
micromanaging).
In taking the
right steps and adequately equipping others and giving away responsibilities,
we exponentially increase the width and depth of our ministry. There is so much
to be found in giving things away.
I’ve said it
once, and I’ll say it again: Go out and be a quitter! I doubt you’ll regret it!
0 comments :
Post a Comment