“But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.” – Acts 6:4
There are few labors as rewarding as mowing the lawn. This is not to say that I enjoy mowing the lawn, although I don’t mind it, but it is rewarding. There is something about “seeing” instant change and therefore production; what once was tall grass is now: short, cut, organized grass. The instant, visual result is very rewarding. As with mowing the lawn, there can be times when the “work” in the ministry is visually focused, when in fact, it is the spiritual things that need attention.
The disciples give us some insight into this in the 6th chapter of Acts. They had a temporal issue to deal with. The widows of the church were being neglected. They were in need of daily sustenance; and is this not a noble cause? Are there not hundreds of “temporal” ministries that must be performed in the church to keep things running? To me, a “temporal” ministry is one that you can see the immediate effects of. For example, let us isolate one Sunday morning at the church I attend. Before we ever arrive, money has been paid to ensure that the lights, heating and air, and grounds are secured and running. Someone must show up to unlock the doors and turn everything on (web broadcast included). Before that, someone was there to clean the church and the church grounds. During service, we have those to greet guests, after service, food is served and tables are set, then we must clean up once more. These and many other unspoken examples are performed within the church and yield immediate fruit. They are temporal and necessary in the church, however, they are not to be our only point of emphasis.
There is a certain level of control that comes with temporal ministries. We can plan a youth retreat or a special outreach dinner and know the time and place, invite the community, and the day you have your event you will see the fruits of it (good or bad). This is not always true of prayer, and the ministry of the word. The reality is, much of our time and effort given in prayer we may never “see” the immediate fruits of it. It is a humble state of faith that is opposite of all things temporal but vital to the growth of the church. The disciples recognized the importance of “serving tables” but also realized that the growth of the new church was not depending on the temporal, but on the spiritual. Like the blood that flows through the human body, so is prayer and other spiritual endeavors to the church. Our temporal ministries might be the hand picking up a glass or the feet walking across the lawn, but without blood flow, the life behind the movement is non-existent.
Our growth as a church (by this I mean the whole of believers across the globe) is wholly depended on God. We need Him in all we do, no matter what you do. A simple impromptu song service bathed in the Spirit of God can have a lasting impact across generations. You cannot create conviction, only God can do that. As Lawrence Hicks once said “the essential for soul winning is the Holy Ghost.” We need the Holy Ghost in all we do, so, as the disciples once knew, we need to be a people of prayer; a people that attends to the temporal but commits and delights in the spiritual. A people that “gives ourselves continually unto them.”
