Last week I went to a meeting of leaders in our denomination from churches scattered from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. We started with lunch on Wednesday, met all afternoon and into the evening, and then continued our meeting Thursday morning before we all headed back home at noon.
After the Wednesday evening session several of us gathered to just talk about whatever. Four of us were pastors and we had all met each other at least once before and as the time together progressed we all got to know each other better. It turned out that all four of us had gone to the same seminary, two graduating in 2008, myself in 2011 and the other man in 2020. As a required part of our education we had all taken part in a cultural immersion trip and three of us, myself included, and done our trip with the same ministry agency.
As we talked about our experiences on the immersion trip I let on that I was less-than-crazy for the trip I had taken, and in particular, the mission agency hosting us. When pressed for more information about my opinion I hemmed and hawed a bit, eventually saying, “They had an agenda, and I wasn’t really on board with it.” We decided to change the subject of our conversation.
Afterwards I though things over a bit. Agendas aren’t necessarily bad, and in fact they are quite useful. The picture is from my laptop as I was working on the agenda for a meeting I am leading this week. They can help us understand what our goals are and keep our group, whatever it may be, on track as those goals are pursued.
But agendas aren’t merely for groups, for as I thought about things it didn’t take me long to arrive at the fact that in my ministry I operate very much with an agenda, one that, for better or worse, shapes what I invest my time and effort into and what I push off to the side as being of lesser importance.
And that agenda is to build the Kingdom of God. There are two points of emphasis, one being to share the good news of Jesus in such a way that people come to trust Him as their Savior. The other is to nurture and guide people with faith in Jesus to live in ways that, more and more, show His Lordship. The primary tools for these tasks are the Bible and prayer. The power source, without which nothing will happen, is the Holy Spirit.
It's a pretty good agenda, in my opinion at least, and it applies not just to the ministry itself, but also as I serve the Lord in my family and seek for Christ to shape me as a person.
May the agenda of my life,
of this ministry, and of your life too, be one that, at the end of the day, is
pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
