We mentioned how my congregation surprised me with a tenth anniversary recognition about two weeks ago. Words cannot express my gratitude for this unexpected moment. You may pick up on occasion that just reaching ten years is a serious accomplishment. I know it is something that seemed impossible at times over the past years. This is still the longest time God allowed me to remain in one place. Most of my career is broken up into four year cycles. Having shorter tenures is not always a positive. But the nature of my ministry in those settings may mean that it was the best scenario at the time.

My usual time of ministry was one of doing whatever possible to bring stability to a situation. Some of the congregations faced serious issues both in the present as well as the future. I will have to thank God for any success that took place. Do not think of me as some brave person who enters the scene to do miracles. God just seemed to bless the efforts made under His direction. Not every church followed through on the possibilities after my departure. Some did continue to develop into even stronger churches. This is a sign of a successful ministry. It always seemed to me that you should leave a ministry in a better position than when you began. Mark this as one of my core principles for the work. A job like this one is not for those who need their ego stroked on a regular basis. There is a reason Jesus spoke of service as a key element of ministry. Time has not lessened that role no matter how some ministers may behave.

One of my major goals was to lead a church to fend for itself. We may be referred to as shepherds but it does not allow for dysfunctional relationships in church life. Some pastors seem to want their congregation to be solely dependent on them for everything. You can find some who want to be in charge of every committee or decision in the church. You can find some who are afraid of anyone learning to think for their own benefit. You may find some who honestly need to be needed rather than wanting to help others mature. This is true of my own tribe of Southern Baptists. My guess is that it is true of other denominations. We end up with congregations that become rigid in management issues rather than being sensitive to God's direction. I followed more than a few ministers who did just that. My greatest obstacle became finding and developing people to carry out the work of the ministry. This always seemed strange to me. We as Baptists claim to cherish scripture but do not follow through on one of Paul's ideas for being the church. Just my opinion but we seem to be reaping what we practiced over the years.

Here is what got me to thinking about this topic. It's been ten years since my arrival to begin a work here. Without boring you let me just say that it's been ten very long years in some respects. All is going very well now but there are more than a few moments in this last decade where it did not look so good. Again, some of the blame can and should be laid at my feet. But some of the struggle lies with others who had different agendas than mine. You will not hear me complain or point fingers at anyone. To be honest, most of my emotion on this is disappointment or sadness rather than anger. Back to my original point now. We are just now ready to learn how to do church without training wheels. My intention is to take those wheels off and leave them off. Now is the time for us to share all of the work of ministry.

You will find very few things in life will give the sense of accomplishment as knowing you are doing God's work. This holds true for the professional as well as the church member. You absolutely must trust others in order for this to happen. A sense of shared purpose is critical for every group in a church to aim toward the same goal. People must model the biblical attitudes such as grace or patience for real life to occur. Maybe only when a church can grow on their own can it really begin to share the work with a pastor. This is one of my aims as I move beyond a disease. Now we will see if we are ready to be the church God truly wants us to be.

Bro. Trey