My Role in Ministry

This afternoon, the 12 Fischer Resident Assistants (RAs) arrive! I've eagerly anticipated their arrival all week as we've prepared the building, created welcome posters, and finalized training schedules.

As I've prayed into this year, the verse that I am praying for myself is Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
² to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.

While these verses are packed with active verbs, it is crucial to make a distinction between my role and God's. It is my role to declare, in faith, God's goodness. God takes action. God is the Good News. God binds the broken hearts. God releases the captives, setting them free.

I am learning that my role in ministry is to identify with others' pain, not relieve it. Only as I embrace my own brokenness can I enter into others' pain. Ministry is therefore, sharing, not dominating; understanding, not theologizing; caring, not fixing.

My prayer is that as each of us respond to the urgent crisis' of others, that we do not neglect the essential- God is the Good News. He binds the brokenhearted. He releases the captives into Freedom. We are called to enter in, identify with, and proclaim the goodness of God as Healer, Redeemer, and Prince of Peace!