I grew up on an extremely hilly road. There’s a particular one-mile stretch where you drive down one hill and immediately up another, only to go right back down again. No wonder many locals called it the roller coaster road. Drive fast enough, and it literally feels like you’re on a roller coaster, stomach drops and all!
I’m sure many amusement park enthusiasts would love to spend an entire day riding coasters non-stop; but eventually, you’ve gotta get off the roller coaster. Otherwise, you’ll begin to feel dizzy, nauseated, and disoriented. Roller coasters are fun, but you’re not meant to live your life riding one.
So many things in life can feel like a roller coaster as well: parenting, friendships, your walk with Christ. One moment you’re up and everything seems to be going well, but the next minute you’re down and everything feels wrong! In my experience, ministry can also feel like a roller coaster, and I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that way.
The Ministry Identity Roller Coaster
All of us carry around a sense of self and worth. Together, these things form our sense of identity, who we are deep down. The temptation for many of us is to find our sense of self and worth both in the things we do and how well we do them. While identity formation and perception is a huge deal for students these days, it can be just as big of a deal for those of us in ministry.
When the crowds are large, the affirmation comes, or the event runs smoothly, we feel on top of the world. But when attendance is down, someone critiques our teaching, or the event is a total flop, we feel crushed by the weight of the world.
For others of us, the temptation might be slightly different. We might still feel the effects of how well or poorly things are going outside of us, but we can also ground our identity in how faithful we perceive ourselves to be doing in our own hearts.
If you’re like me, you can feel great about yourself when you cross everything off your to-do list, have an extended and earnest time of prayer, or prepare really thoroughly for that discipleship meeting. On the other hand, you can feel like a total fraud and failure when your to-do list gets smashed, you fail to pray at all, or you go into a meeting totally unprepared.
When we root our identity in how well we feel we’re doing in ministry, we’ll constantly be going up and down, like riding a roller coaster. That’s nauseating. As Tim Keller once said, “If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”
Paul’s Ministry Mindset
After a particular season of riding the roller coaster of my perceived ministry performance, God gave me a surprising insight from the apostle Paul.
During an extended time of solitude and prayer (a great practice for those of us caught up in the busyness of ministry), I came to 1 Corinthians 15. In the midst of discussing the resurrection, Paul gives a brief aside which encouraged me in the midst of my roller coaster ride:
For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
1 Corinthians 15:9-10
In these two verses, Paul talks about both “failure” and “success” in his ministry efforts. Far worse than passivity or laziness, Paul actively persecuted the early church and oversaw the execution of Christians.
In contrast, in the very next verse, Paul talks about how he worked harder than any of the other apostles to advance the gospel. He ministered with diligence, faithfulness, and arguably unmatched effectiveness.
How can Paul simultaneously refer to himself as the least of the apostles, yet also the hardest working? We see his answer repeated three times in two verses: grace.
Paul’s ministry “failure” did not crush him. Nor did his ministry “success” inflate him. God’s grace covered his failures, and God’s grace enabled his successes. Either way, God receives the credit, and Paul can rest in the grace of God that had come to him in Christ. He is totally comfortable being both the least and greatest at the same time, because neither of those things formed his sense of self and worth.
Paul refused to draw his sense of himself from his ministry results, or from how well he thought he was doing as an apostle. Instead, he drew his identity from being united to Christ by sheer grace. He refused to let ministry success go to his head or to let ministry failure go to his heart.
In other words, Paul refused to ride the roller coaster. With his feet firmly planted on the ground of an unchanging identity in Christ, he rested and rejoiced in grace, not performance.
Getting Off the Roller Coaster
So how do we get off the ministry identity roller coaster? We must make a conscious effort to daily remind ourselves of and rest in the gospel of grace.
Should we seek to minister with diligence, excellence, and effectiveness? Absolutely! Should we find our sense of self and worth in how diligent, excellent, or effective we are (or at least perceive ourselves to be)? Absolutely not!
We must remind ourselves that through faith in Christ, God has graciously given us Jesus’ perfect righteousness. Elsewhere, Paul writes:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
Philippians 3:8-9
Paul was able to consider his religious pedigree and ministry performance as rubbish, like a dirty diaper. Instead, he was now and forever resting upon Christ’s righteousness—because he finally realized that all his best qualifications were nothing compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. We must come to grasp this too if we want to be freed to go about ministry with joy, confidence, humility, and awe.
Neither our ministry efforts nor effectiveness qualifies us for God’s love. They will always be imperfect. God’s love comes to us because of the ministry effort and effectiveness of Christ, which are perfect and complete.
The Gospel for Youth Ministers and Those We Serve
As ministry leaders, we are constantly trying to help students and parents get off the roller coaster of identities of busyness, performance, success, and so on. And yet we often find ourselves riding the very same roller coaster! The gospel isn’t something that we have and they need; the gospel is something we all need. Our pleas for students to root their identity in Christ will be most compelling when it’s unmistakable that we’re already doing that.
Since I can’t improve upon the words of Milton Vincent in A Gospel Primer for Christians, I’ll close with this quote:
“The gospel also reminds me that my righteous standing with God always holds firm regardless of my performance, because my standing is based solely on the work of Jesus and not mine. On my worst days of sin and failure, the gospel encourages me with God’s unrelenting grace toward me. And on my best days of victory and usefulness, the gospel keeps me relating to God solely on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and not mine.”
On our worst and best days, let’s rest in God’s grace and the righteousness of the one perfect minister, Jesus Christ. Let’s get off the roller coaster.
If you’re looking for community, encouragement, and training for gospel-centered ministry, consider applying for Rooted’s youth or family ministry mentorship programs.
