On weekdays between 11:00 AM and Noon, it was useless to phone my Dad or his sister. Both were glued to the TV for The Price Is Right watching people guess prices and spin the big wheel. Some contestants could hardly make it spin around the required one revolution. Others made it spin so fast you wondered if it would stop before the program ended. I rarely watched it except when I visited Dad. Yet, the Holy Spirit used that spinning wheel to teach me an important lesson about ministry. I entered the ministry with the mentality people’s lives were like a big wheel with lots of cogs around it and my teaching and preaching would whirl them around and completely change their lives in an instant. Most young men and women enter the ministry with enthusiasm believing they are going to transform the entire world. It often takes a few years of disappointments before they reevaluate ministry and bring their expectations back to reality.
I have learned since those early years that we change people’s lives by moving their wheel one click at the time. Then someone else comes along and moves it another click. This past week I lost a former student and dear friend. He was 67 years old. After he retired from his secular career, he enrolled at the Bible College where I taught. After receiving his Bachelor Degree, he entered a graduate program and was near the completion of his M.Div. Those who knew him saw a faithful servant with great ministry potential. However, the Lord called him home. Someone sent me an email and shared it seems like such a waste for him to do all the work he did for his education and then die. This was my response. “It all may seem like a waste of time, but in doing what he did, it brought glory to God. Plus, we don’t know if something he learned in Bible College and Seminary and then shared or preached helped an individual in their spiritual journey or even lead them to receive Jesus. One soul in heaven would be worth all his hard work in school.”
The annals of Church history won’t remember him for changing the world. Yet, God views such believers as faithful servants for turning the wheels of life in others even one click. Christian’s today are bombarded with the so-called ‘super-ministers’ and ‘mega-churches’ who draw multitudes of people into churches and stadiums around the world. Thank the Lord for their ministry. However, the reality, no matter how large the gathering and how many individuals are affected, an evangelist, or teacher still only turns their wheel one click. After they pack up and move on to another crusade, those who committed or recommitted their life to Christ need someone who will turn their wheel another click.
God does not measure the success of ministry by large numbers of converts, huge congregations, or multi-million dollar budgets. Paul says we are the sweet aroma of Christ, i.e. witness, to both the one’s being saved and to the one’s perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life (2 Corin 2:16). In either case, we are witnessing the knowledge of Christ. No one keeps a record of those who refuse the message and perish. Yet, it is easy to view these rejections as a failure on our part. In the grant scheme of the Lord, He sees us as faithful servants because we fulfilled our mission by witnessing Christ. I know several missionaries who spent decades in new fields of ministry with only a handful of converts and countless rejections of the Gospel. However, the few who believed became the seed for a productive harvest in the next generation.
A noted early Church Father, Justin Martyr, raised by pagan parents sought to find life’s meaning in philosophy. At age 30, by chance he met an old man walking along the beach who questioned him about his beliefs. Their discussion led to Justin Martyr’s conversion to Christ. He later wrote this conversation transformed his life, and “A fire was suddenly kindled in my soul.” He served Lord for another 35 years, until the Romans arrested him and his disciples for their faith and beheaded them. His works still affects us today. Note it all began with a nameless old man who turned his wheel just one click.
The multitudes followed Jesus, but only eleven apostles remained at His resurrection and just 120 gathered on the Day of Pentecost. Today those few have multiplied into over two billion believers around the world. Jesus did this in His short life of thirty-three years with only 3½ years of ministry. Christians can become discouraged and feel useless believing they are too small or insignificant to make a difference.God does not require that we whirl the wheel of someone’s life round and round. He may want us to turn it one click and then someone else will move it another click.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Your ministry for God is important. Be like that ‘old man’ walking on the beach this week. Only God knows what will result when you advance someone’s journey with God just one click.