Here’s a mind-blowing, earth-shattering revelation … we must change our “have-to” mentality into a “get-to” mentality in order to open the door for God to do bigger, better things in both us and our ministry.
This blog posting is based totally on personal experience. This isn’t a story that I heard about in someone else’s conference. While this is one of those true confession blogs that will possibly shatter your perception of me being a perfect person I’ll go ahead and share this confession anyway. Because of Trinity’s large attendance and for the convenience of its people, many years ago, our church decided to add a Saturday night service to the two Sunday morning services. Again, it is a let’s-be-honest time. I was not a happy camper. (Editor’s note … I started to write out my list of justifiable grievances but it wouldn’t do you or me any good. I’ll just suffice it to say that the list was long.) This list made my going to church on Saturday nights a major challenge. At times, I had to talk myself into going to church. Now before you judge me, you will have to admit that you have been there yourself (or, are there right now!).
What did I do to win this battle? I changed my “have-to” mentality into a “get-to” mentality. With this different mentality, I decided that I no longer had to go to church on Saturday, but instead I had the privilege to go to church. On the trip to the church, I would begin to list the benefits of ministering in this additional service. Because of this new service, I had the additional opportunity to minister to more children, children that I wouldn’t have probably seen on a Sunday morning. Because of the numbers being smaller on Saturday night (for some strange reason, the Saturday night crowd was either in their early/mid 20s or the 50+ crowd which means there weren’t many children), I had the privilege to actually know the children by name and things about them making it easier to be a pastor. Because of this new service, I had the privilege to fulfill the ultimate role of a pastor, to raise up and equip another group of individuals to do the work of the ministry. (Ephesians 4:11-12). As I would rehearse these thoughts in my mind, the “get-to” would trump the “have-to” and made Saturday nights into a reward rather than a punishment and an extra burden.
One more thought about this … this wasn’t a one-time-conquers-all remedy. These “have-to” thoughts were frequent intruders. I regularly had to remind myself that the Apostle Paul’s admonition about “renewing your mind” (Romans 12:1-2) and “let this mind be in you” (Philippians 2:5) wouldn’t accommodate “have-to” thinking.
What did this discipline accomplish? Not only did it unblock the heavenlies while we were children’s pastors at Trinity, we are still enjoying the “get-to” rewards. Though Vickie and I left Trinity some 14 months ago to pursue this new season of traveling each week to ignite Holy Ghost fires in churches across America, we still hear from Trinity’s Saturday night families wanting that same love shown while I was there as their children’s pastor. Yep, the “get-to” mentality is still reaping benefits!
This blog was probably not written for you personally, but rather the other hundreds that read this blog. You don’t have this problem, right? But, if this is your problem, change your mentality so that you can push aside a blockage that could well be preventing God for doing what He desires in you and through you!
