Maintaining Momentum

Discouragement becomes a problem when it blurs vision for ministry.
—Myron Augsburger

D. L. Moody, the great evangelist, was said to have prayed often that the Lord would “keep me from ever losing the wonder.”

Anyone who ministers for Christ knows that wonder, as did Moody. We are filled with it when people we serve respond with joy to Christ’s love. But the same ministry that fills us with wonder sometimes makes us wonder. Enlivening the souls of others often tries our own. We can become disheartened, and ministry gets mired.

There are a number of things that can stall outreach ministry—fatigue, boredom, a change of priorities, church squabbles, to name a few. But perhaps the most significant is discouragement that accompanies the loss of purpose.

Throughout my ministry, I’ve tried to sustain not only my own momentum, but also that of people I’ve walked with, led, or pastored. Here are a few things I have learned.

What brakes momentum

Because Christians are in the business of spirituality, so to speak, we are apt to blame a slowdown of momentum on lack of devotion, some moral lapse, or, perhaps, the devil. Such things can and often do discourage us from reaching out. Naturally, in such cases, prayer and spiritual renewal go a long way toward building momentum again.

On the other hand, we’ve learned that physical factors also play a role. If I’ve been up until midnight three nights in a row and then have to get up for a six o’clock appointment, it affects my mood. I become more clipped with others, work seems an effort, and the slightest problem can demoralize me. To put it another way, ministry bogs down when I don’t lie down enough.

Aside from spiritual and physical factors, however, I’ve found people are usually discouraged from reaching out by one of four factors:

Unrealistic goals. In their yearning to be faithful to Christ, churches often set goals that are unrealistic. We think we are being faithful to the upward call, when all we are doing is making the call impossible. If we vow to eradicate poverty in our area of the city, discouragement is inevitable. Better to say, “We will help families in poverty with the means we have available.” That is hard enough, but it is something we can do.

Goals also become unrealistic when we insist on perfection: we will help every family in our area, at every opportunity, using adequately all our resources. We cannot do that. We’re going to overlook some needs. We’re going to waste some of our resources. We will have to turn away some needy people. We might as well admit it up front and save ourselves some discouragement.

Also, some goals prove inaccurate measures of the success of ministry. To aim to give a bag of groceries to every family that asks will dishearten us if we see the same people coming to us month after month for more food. We may have succeeded at giving out groceries, but we will not have succeeded at helping people feed themselves without our aid.

In short, unrealistic goals will discourage us, and that will stall our outreach.

Unmeasurable ministries. Only a few things can be measured in Christian ministry—attendance at meetings, dollars raised, dollars spent. Often the most important things cannot be measured.

Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the United States. Naturally, we would like to lower the number of murders in our area of the city, but how do we measure success? Even if the murder rate goes up, we may, nonetheless, have been instrumental in stopping another dozen murders, which would have made the rate even higher.

The same is true of other goals we might set. How do we know how many people we’ve kept from suicide? How many teenage pregnancies have we prevented? How many people have been kept off drugs because of our ministry? The list goes on. There are many aspects of ministry that cannot be measured, for which number goals cannot be set. But sometimes when people cannot measure the effect of their work, they get discouraged.

Ministry, of course, is sometimes noticeably successful. Attendance at services is one of the easily measured achievements. But frequently the success is subtle, like salt that seasons food: You can’t see it. You cannot measure with the naked eye. But it makes a difference.

Most of the friends of one teenage girl in our church either are or have been pregnant. But not her. She says her lifestyle is different; she is not going to live that way. Where did she get those convictions? Not from her neighborhood, which inadvertently conspires to undermine them. Her convictions have been molded and reinforced by her mother and the Christian community. That is success, but it can’t be put on a graph.

Inflexible temperaments. Some people claim that overwork brings discouragement in ministry. That is true to some degree, and we try to deal with that problem when it arises. But it is also true that hard work, in itself, never discouraged anybody; it’s the sense of worry, futility, isolation, or lack of appreciation accompanying hard work that will bring discouragement. The deeper issue, then, is not that people are busy, but how they handle their busyness.

I’ve found some of the most discouraged people tend to be inflexible. The people who accomplish the most and find the greatest satisfaction in it, tend to be flexible people.

Why are we told that if we want to get something done, we should ask a busy person to do it? Because they are flexible; they know how to adjust their schedules to meet new demands.

The unoccupied person, on the other hand, often is inflexible. Such people live by routine: they rise, shower, eat breakfast, read the paper, go to work, have lunch, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, and go to bed, all at appointed hours. If their routine is interrupted, they become flustered. If given an extra task, they can’t figure out how to change their schedules to accommodate it.

This, of course, is a caricature. But if we can model flexibility and encourage that trait in others, we will help defeat discouragement.

Inappropriate jobs. If you put a multitalented person in a job for which he has no talents, you’re looking for discouragement. Conversely, if you put a person with only one skill in the one job that will use his talents, you’ll see motivation for years to come.

One young man connected with the college where I was president taught chemistry, but he was not succeeding. He was a good chemist, but he didn’t do the one thing teachers need to do: get his students excited about learning. Naturally, his teaching meandered.

However, he was a gifted researcher, and his ability to analyze and sift through information to find the most relevant data was outstanding. So, the dean and I negotiated with him and moved him from teacher to director of institutional research. He not only worked with enthusiasm, but his work became recognized widely among small liberal arts colleges.

Community burnout spotters

Actually, discouragement is not, in itself, a problem. Anyone who engages in challenging work will become discouraged from time to time. Discouragement becomes a problem, however, when it blurs vision for ministry. That’s when it can lead to burnout. When people are so discouraged they’re ready to quit, outreach ministry will limp along.

Signs of burnout are many: Physically, people often experience more headaches and are lethargic about work. Mentally, they lack creativity, become easily impatient with coworkers, forget to do jobs or meet appointments, and find it difficult to follow through on projects.

However, although it’s easy to list signs of burnout on the printed page, it’s often difficult—in the scurrying about of weekly activities—to notice the signs in others. That’s why in our church, spotting burnout is a community affair. We use our small groups to determine when someone is on the edge.

Our elders have long met every other Wednesday morning for an hour of prayer only for the congregation. The other Wednesday we meet in the evening, mostly for business. But we begin with a devotional and then share concerns for the church.

Each week, then, elders have an opportunity to share what they have sensed and seen, and others will either confirm it or mention extenuating circumstances (perhaps the person under discussion simply has been up for two nights with sick children—not a long-term problem). If we agree that someone is under undue stress, after we’ve shared and prayed about it, we designate a couple of people to spend time with that individual. They will, in turn, offer any help that will improve the situation, such as arranging a break in the person’s church duties.

Three ways to maximize motivation

Naturally, we want to do more than respond to discouragement and burnout. We want to avoid it, or at least minimize it. Our goal is to make the most of people’s motivation, to build healthy momentum for outreach.

We have three strategies to do that: spread the load, help people help themselves, and model dependence.

1. Spread the load. If overwork or mismanaged work is causing discouragement, then spreading the work load becomes a logical way to overcome discouragement. Specifically, that means:

Diversify. As with most churches, we have a number of commissions that do the work of the church. For us, it’s five: worship, Christian nurture, fellowship, stewardship, and mission. Our very structure then, assumes that about one-fifth of our time and energy is spent on outreach.

It’s easy to understand one of the reasons most churches organized this way: Not everybody can sustain momentum in outreach year after year. Some are not yet ready to do it at all. To give members a variety of avenues of service ensures that outreach doesn’t overwhelm any individual.

Give them a break. We not only spread the work load, but also the time load. We’ll give people permission to take a break from a ministry, perhaps a year or two, to spend more time with family or to recharge spiritual batteries. The attitude we set is not “This person just couldn’t handle the job,” but “People have the right and freedom to take a sabbath rest in ministry.” That way people can exit a job without feeling they have to exit the church.

That is easier said than done, of course. About three years ago a young woman bowed out of work because of a health problem. A number of people from the congregation had to encourage her regularly afterward, reminding her that she didn’t have to feel guilty about it. If they hadn’t done that, she might have quit sharing altogether.

Then again, sometimes the process works cleanly. Recently, a young man released from a responsibility eight months earlier told me how good he felt about it. Once rested, he was anxious to get back to work.

Know when to say when. Another key to spreading the load is limiting the number of tasks members attempt. We don’t like to see an average member take on more than two significant jobs at a time. For most people, one is enough.

We have some people, for instance, who participate in our praise band. That involves a weekly practice and playing during our Sunday service. Most of these people are also members of a commission, and one or two sit on a board. If they should announce that they want to start an outreach ministry, we’d likely discourage them—unless, of course, they give up another responsibility.

2. Help people help themselves. Because a minister can’t be with people in every ministry situation, it only makes sense to help people help themselves in ministry. In this respect, we do the following:

Let members do the talking. Members need encouragement not just from their pastor, but also from their peers. We let that happen during a time called “Windows of Service.” Once a month in worship, we have individuals talk about how they are sharing Christ’s love in their workplace or neighborhood.

About a year ago, the learning center lacked sufficient volunteers. But after a member of the congregation mentioned this during Windows of Service, things turned around. Since then, the learning center has been owned increasingly by the congregation.

Enable laity to minister. One of my former associates has been impressed continually at how people stay motivated in our church. I once asked him, “What would you say has been the key to maintaining momentum?”

“More than anything else,” he said, “the leadership has been committed to enabling others rather than controlling them.” Enabling has, of course, become a buzzword in church circles in the past two decades. Let me clarify what I mean.

First, it means encouraging others to reach out and evangelize instead of doing it all myself. Not only does this get more ministry done, it also lets members enjoy the wonder of ministry.

Second, enabling means teaming people in the congregation. Experienced people work with those less experienced, but no one is sent out as a lone ranger. Our pastoral team of three is committed to modeling this pattern.

Third, enabling means training people. For example, we run seminars for people who want to help lead worship services. We teach them our theology of worship and how to use language and mannerisms appropriately. We also hold seminars on discipleship in daily life. The point is we try to offer training in areas where people want and need training to do effective ministry both in and outside the church.

Support small support groups. Every person needs a sense of achievement, worth, and fulfillment. When people in ministry become independent and cut themselves off from close relationships, they become susceptible to discouragement. They don’t have people who can regularly give them encouragement and guidance.

Esther and I belong to a covenant group of thirteen that meets every Thursday evening. Over a six-month period, we take turns sharing with the group our schedules and priorities for the coming months. For instance, when it’s my turn, the group discusses how I’m using my time and energy, and how that accords with my gifts. In some areas they encourage me to move ahead; in others they prompt me to slow down. This group counsel has helped me sort my priorities and it has given me a tremendous sense of freedom to say no to people: “My friends tell me that I’m doing too much and should cut back.”

Furthermore, we encourage people to get support from others who participate in similar ministries. For a number of years I have attended three prayer meetings: one with people who minister in the inner city, one with my denominational brothers and sisters, and one that consists mostly of suburban pastors. Naturally, there is an altogether different feel and perspective in each group. It’s not surprising that the innercity prayer meeting nourishes me most.

3. Model dependence on God and others. We can prevent discouragement from becoming burnout, but, as I mentioned, we cannot eliminate discouragement. It comes with the territory of a challenging ministry. But we can help people maintain momentum in ministry in the midst of discouragement if we, ourselves, model for them how it is handled. I do that in two settings.

In small groups. There are some things that pastors need to talk about freely without feeling it’s going to be misread or misused in the church. These I don’t mention in settings where members are present. Yet I still can talk about a number of things in small-group settings that show people I’m struggling and need their encouragement and prayers.

Esther and I felt torn inside when one of our children went through a divorce. During that time, as I sat on the front pew in worship, tears often would run down my cheeks as I asked God for strength to stand up and preach. Of course, our congregation knew what we were going through.

One evening, three people from our congregation came to us and said, “We want to pray with you.” We went into my study at the church and prayed. Then they said, “You are carrying all this burden by yourself. We would like you to disengage emotionally for a while. We don’t want you even to talk, think, or pray about it for several weeks. We promise you we will do the praying in your place. While we pray daily about this, you unhook.”

Their love helped us through our crisis. It also helped the congregation to know I was willing to accept their help. If we can practice that type of openness and trust with each other, ministry momentum will be maintained.

From the pulpit. I think it’s wrong for a pastor to say, “Pardon a personal illustration.” That’s the only kind he really knows. (Actually, it would be more proper to say, “Pardon my borrowing this illustration.”)

Although we should remain cautious about using ourselves as illustrations of success, I have fewer qualms about showing people my struggles and God’s faithfulness. It is another way of showing that it’s normal for people active in ministry to get discouraged, and that we need to depend on God’s strength for our momentum.

Staying motivated

Before ordination, I volunteered to go to China as soon as I finished college in order to do relief work. That was in the late 1940s, and I didn’t know the Communists were about to take over and close the doors to missionaries. I received a letter from the secretary of missions for my denomination, who knew the situation, telling me I couldn’t go, and that surely the Lord would have something for me later in life.

He enclosed in his letter an article by Dick Hillis, “I Was Never Called to China.” But Dick had, in fact, been in China for eighteen years. Curious, I read it. He believed he was called to a certain kind of ministry; the location of that ministry, however, was open. If the door closed in one place, he would practice his ministry elsewhere. His ministry wouldn’t change, only the locale.

From that day, I’ve practiced that philosophy. By remembering the purpose of my ministry is to glorify Christ and enhance his kingdom, I stay motivated whatever the place, program, or position. Through disappointments and discouragements, I have yet to lose the wonder.