OCTOBER 25 "THE UGLY SIDE OF MINISTRY"

  I would much prefer not to talk about this, I would much rather not have to deal with this, this is messy stuff. If I wanted to be involved in politics and messy stuff, then I would get involved in that. I stay clear of politics, I stay clear of conflict, I just want to be a Christian, go to church and be happy. Paul today is writing about rebuking people, setting them straight, confronting supposed Christians, challenging people who are teaching false doctrine, people rejecting the truth and coming up with lies, I just want to ask Paul, "are you trying to discourage me from The Church or encourage me?". Reading about this discourages me, reading about this reminds me of when people say, 'the reason I don't go to church is because of all the problems in the church". There really is an ugly side of ministry, isn't there?! It's been like this since the beginning of the church, apparently. So what do we do then? What we do is keep going to church, keep serving in ministry and try to make it as beautiful as you can, just like you would with anything else that can look ugly. Everything that is beautiful has an ugly side. Family can be quite ugly at times, but we forge through, and more often than not, especially during Holidays, we are glad for them, and if not then, then for sure when we are older. Studies show that in most situations where a Pastor was driven from a Church, it was not a majority of the church that was involved in that, studies found in most instances it was less than 6 members of a church, that caused them to quite or drove them away. That's quite surprising statistic to most people, but I would have to conquer, that in my experience, I would have to agree with those findings and so does God's Word. In Proverbs we read, that a little fly spoils all the wonderful smell of the ointment and Solomon writes, "it's the little foxes that ruin the vine". How true that is, who knows who Paul is talking about in our Epistle today, my guess is, it's not a vast majority, but according to research and according to The Word of God, it's just a small handful of people, ruining it for everyone. If ministry has an ugly side to it, it's simply because of the people that are involved in it. And the problem is, the good people go, the good people get fed up and leave and that only makes matters worse. If ministry has an ugly side to it, then it is our duty, we that are not contributing to its ugliness, to remain and change the landscape of that ministry, change the environment to be a more uplifting one, more joyful, more pleasant to be part of. If there's an ugly side to ministry, the question to ask ourselves, "is what side are we on?"