Ministry and time

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In the post, Economics of human lives, I talked about how we implicitly and subconsciously place a value on human lives when we make certain choices on how to utilise our time. Certain things happened over the past few days, which prompted me to write this follow-up post to rethink and reflect about serving God in a local church ministry and how we use our time.

I think let's start off from the basic. When Jesus started His ministry, His main message has always been 'repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near'. Essentially, the message has two elements: repentance from our sin, and the Kingdom of God. Most of His parables deal with what the Kingdom of God is like. The core purpose of the cross eventually serves as the basis for our repentance. Before He ascended to heaven, He left behind these words, 'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations...' All these lead me to one conclusion about how we live our lives and use our time. As a Christ follower, as I said in my last post, we ought to use our time wisely with the purpose of extending the Kingdom of God in mind, to make the most of the opportunities that we have. So when we rest, it is to recharge so that we can live another day for God. So when we go to work, it is to bring Christ into the workplace, and at the same time, ensuring we earn our own keep to be able to feed ourselves to live another day for God.

And as I reflect, there is one continual thread that emerges for me. We use our time for God, so God essentially is our starting and ending point (that's why He is the Alpha and Omega). The first two commandment sums it up in a rather packed manner: 'I am the LORD your God' and 'You shall have no other gods before me'. At the very core, it just means that there should only be God in whatever you do. This led me to say one thing about my own life, 'I am a 24 hours full-time minister for Christ, but only a 8 hours part time civil servant in MOH'. Such an understanding is enough to lead me to be assured that any sacrifice of my time in my schedule is worth it, if I am able to use the time to maximise my impact in the outreaching and discipleship of people. Therefore, I am not ruled by my schedule, rather I am ruled by God's call for people to disciple His people.

And that is why I choose to spend a substantial amount of time prioritising my own local church ministry in my life. It is something which few will understand, and that's why I say leadership in Christ is a lonely business.

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