The Most Important Ministry Lesson I’ve Ever Learned
Beth Moore taught me the most important ministry lesson I’ve ever learned.
She taught one of my final grad school classes at Wheaton College in 2021 with the Propel Women Cohort. She came onto the stage in front of 100 and some women and kneeled to pray before she taught – something I saw her do many times before each time she speaks anywhere, no matter her outfit, her speaking engagement or the location she is that day. It’s always stuck with me when I’ve seen her do it, this simple gesture of humility, but this particular summer day in 2021 in the Billy Graham Center auditorium in Wheaton, IL she put a lesson to the gesture that confirmed what I already knew about her life and ministry – she is fully, and utterly dependent on God.
Most ministry leaders want to give you quick strategies for success in ministry, tools to grow your church or your reach for that book you authored, data that backs up why you should be doing this or that – all good things, but they are missing a key ingredient. They are self-reliant ways of doing ministry, and self-reliance is not a sustainable way to do work in the Kingdom of God.
Beth Moore is a masterful Bible teacher, so she gave us incredible context for the story of King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26, and extracted key lessons about how Uzziah became a successful King: “As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success. (2 Chronicles 26:5b)” and “His fame spread far and wide, for he was greatly helped until he became powerful. (2 Chronicles 26:15b).”
His success in leadership didn’t come from his own skillsets, giftings or ways of doing things – it came from being helped by God.
“There is nothing in this world like being marvelously helped by the Lord.” - Beth Moore
The only way in ministry and life to be helped God, though, is to be in need. We want to pray away our need and find man-made solutions to what God wants to help us with. Like Beth Moore put it, we pray ourselves out of need in order to be self sufficient, but our need is God’s stage.
Your calling from God should be more than you can handle. It should be beyond anything you can do within and of yourself, because that’s when Holy Spirit gets to work in and through you to accomplish His purposes. This is when and how only God gets the glory for your work.
Let’s be Kingdom workers who hit our knees in need each and every day, dependent on God for the words, the strategies, the relationships that He puts in front of us to steward. If we want to walk in a God-sized calling, our dependence on God has to equal the size of that calling. Thank you, Beth, for this life-sustaining and carrying lesson about ministry you have taught me for years through your example and on that day at Wheaton College – I’m forever grateful for the ways you’ve paved the way in ministry.