Why participate in Ministry?
I recently made a decision to leave a church that I was happy with to be a part of a church where I would have a part-time gig as the worship leader. And before I get into why I would want to leave a church and do ministry somewhere else I thought I would ask “why participate in ministry at all?”.
And my answer to that is simple: pure selfishness.
But hopefully it's a good kind of selfishness. I don't mean selfish in “HAHA now I'm in charge and can run things the way I WANT TO!” I've been friends with too many pastors to know that is not the way it works. I mean selfishness as in ministry is fun, it helps me become the person that God wants me to be, and that it gives me a social outlet that I don't know that I would have otherwise.
The “fun” part of ministry should be self explanatory. If you are not having some fun & enjoying Christ in your ministry then why would anyone else want to? Not that things will ever be fun all the time but ministry should be fun sometimes, right? It least I think it's fun.
Almost all the growing I do in Christ and as a person comes from me participating in some form of ministry. For the last few years I have been helping out mostly in youth & music ministries. And the stuff I have learned and the ways God has changed me through those ministries has helped me become more confident, more humble, more empathetic, more disciplined, more skillful, and a better communicator. And that helps all aspects of my life and not just the ones that coincide with church.
Church gives me a social outlet that I would not have otherwise. I recently had a youth at youth group say that he was scared that he would wind up like his parents and have no friends when he got older. As I get older it is hard to look at people I grew up with and see that they have almost no friends. As people get more and more lonely Church, and particularly helping in a ministry, can be a great way to stay connected. Of course, church can also be full of mean people who want to hurt you. But that's another post for another time.
