What motivates ministry?

The ministry today can be motivated either by a burning sense of wrong or by a grateful sense of high privilege. It is possible to build a church with the energy of a burning sense of wrong. There are angry Christians who don’t like the way things are going and will rally around someone who validates their anger. But is that the gospel at work?The apostles did not fuss and wring their hands and moan, “What’s the world coming to?” They gladly announced, “Look what’s come to the world!” Like Christ, they had a grateful sense of high privilege. And the impact was an explosion of joy that has been setting people free for 2000 years — and is showing no signs of fatigue. Ray Ortlund, Jr.

On fire for Christ

The idea of being on fire for Christ will strike some people as dangerous emotionalism. ‘Surely,’ they will say, ‘we are not meant to go to extremes? You are not asking us to become hot-gospel fanatics?’ Well, wait a minute. It depends what you mean.

If by ‘fanaticism’ you really mean ‘wholeheartedness’ then Christianity is a fanatical religion and every Christian should be a fanatic. But fanaticism is not wholeheartedness, nor is wholeheartedness fanaticism. Fanaticism is an unreasoning and unintelligent wholeheartedness. It is the running away of the heart with the head.

At the end of a statement prepared for a conference on science, philosophy and religion at Princeton University in 1940 came these words: ‘Commitment without reflection is fanaticism in action; but reflection without commitment is the paralysis of all action.’

What Jesus Christ desires and deserves is the reflection which leads to commitment and the commitment which is born of reflection. This is the meaning of wholeheartedness, of being aflame for God.”
John Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church

“A graceless pastor is….”

“A graceless pastor is a blind man elected to a professorship of optics, philosophising upon light and vision, discoursing upon and distinguishing to others the nice shades and delicate blendings of the prismatic colours, while he himself is absolutely in the dark!” C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students