Here’s a mystery: Why do people called to serve others by sacrificially relying on the power of God get so puffed up?  One might think that a person who is called to ministry would be characterized by humility and grace, but it seems that there is a real danger for ministers when it comes to pride.  The temptation for pride can be found in any job where you lead people, particularly when you are out in front.

So how can you protect yourself from this pitfall?  First, remember that you are completely dependent upon God.  If you can consider the fact that anything you do is solely enabled by God and not feel humbled by this, then you have a problem.  Second, stop worrying about whether your shirt is cool enough or if anything you do is cool enough.  I have seen so much posturing at conferences and minister gatherings that you would think it was a group of competing rock stars not a group of ministers who have each been called to proclaim the Gospel.  Other ministers or churches are not your enemy nor are they your competition.  Trust me, when it comes to discipling people, you already have enough competition.  You don’t need more.

Here’s the thing, you will be frustrated in ministry.  You will be frustrated in any job, but ministry frustration may hurt you more because our frustration often deals with the eternal and the spiritual.  You need to know that you will always have frustration.  You are dealing with people, not a project.  Completing projects have a process that takes you from beginning and building to a final completion.  It’s done and it will stay done.  Discipling people is like trying to build a sandcastle.  You give it a shape and some detail, but every now and then it collapses, waves overtake it, or somebody just straight knocks it down.  Then you start building up again.  You are never finished because there will always be more work to do or more waves coming.

Ministry frustration comes in many forms.  It could be from weird complaints, issues with other staff members, or budget issues.  More often for me frustration comes from watching students who seem to have missed the 200 times that I told them that their lives need to match their faith in Christ.

If you are destined to feel frustrated throughout your career, it would make sense to be prepared.  When I have one of those big frustrating experiences, I try to quickly find an opposite experience that will offset my pain with joy.  Here’s an example: If my weeknight program just bombs on a particular night, rather than quickly escape to my house, I make it a priority to have an important conversation that night with a student that speaks into his or her life.  That way, when I do the math for the day, I may have had a tough hour, but I also helped shape a student’s life and built an important relationship.

It is not hard to call to mind a dozen people who I know have already succumbed to frustration in their jobs.  These people are defeated and hate going to work.  They are critical and find no joy in what they are doing, even if it is significant.  In a career such as ministry, where personal motivation and initiative play a huge role, frustration can completely undermine effectiveness.  Motivated workers significantly outperform unmotivated workers.  If you have come to a place where frustration has broken you down, the sirens need to be going off telling you to rediscover your passion or get to a place where you can work through the frustration.  If an accountant was frustrated and stopped being efficient and careful with her clients’ accounts, she would be fired for failing to take care of her clients.  How much more should we in ministry approach our eternally significant tasks with a holy urgency to accomplish all that we can regardless of our circumstances?

We all want to be the best ministers that we can be. We all want to do big things and have a big impact. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, we should all want to excel in the ministry that God has called us to. However, what we sometimes think of as healthy ambition is actually a destructive desire for our own glory. Let’s look at a couple of ways that ambition can hurt our ministry and our careers.

The Need for Fame
It only took a few weeks in student ministry to realize that there are certain big names in student ministry. These people write books, have websites, or lead ministries. Other big name folks are those who serve at big name churches. It was really easy to fall into the trap thinking that the goal for me as a minister was to become one of these people. Once I had a website and a few books under my belt, I will have really “made it.”

The problem with this need for fame is that it makes ministry a means to an end–and an extremely selfish end at that. If any part of your ministry is meant to do anything other than to help people grow closer to God, you might need to rethink your motivations. There is nothing wrong with becoming a big name in student ministry or any other field, but there is a danger if making yourself known is more of a focus than making God known.

Playing Your Position
Ambition can also be a problem when it comes to career plans. One of the realities of student ministry is that there are those in student ministry who are working toward a senior pastor role. They need to start out somewhere, and student ministry is a great place to get some church staff experience. To be honest, I don’t see this as a bad thing at all. It becomes a problem, however, when a student minister fails to understand the importance of ministering where they are, rather than look forward to the next church or position. Student ministry is not the B-league of ministry. In fact, student ministry can be extremely difficult and is an intricate part of any church. It is obvious when a minister is simply “putting in their time” with students. It is important to be present in the ministry that God has led you to.

Another element of this is that many student ministers begin to think that they could do a better job running the church than the people currently running the church. I have seen young ministers go to churches and instantly think that they can preach better than the pastor, administrate better than the administrator, and lead worship better than the worship leader. It must be hard to be so gifted. If you feel this way, it will also be really hard for you to be a part of the team. It will also be hard for you to contribute to the health of the church.

Bigger May Not Be Better
One more way that ambition can get the best of us is in our programming and events. Yes, it would be cool if you had 500 students at your midweek program. It would be great if your students performed 52 service projects in one year. Here’s the problem: many of these things are just unrealistic. It is not bad to dream, but if you continue to set unreasonable goals, you will become very disillusioned when your plans fail. When I started here at Bluegrass I wanted to make my first full year a year of service with our students completing something like 30 service projects that year. I also threw in a special two week program and set a huge goal for our Disciple Now weekend. The problem was that I had no real foundation for these programs, and I really did not fully understand what our group was or what our group needed.

We have a tendency to think that if we had more students, things would be great. Sometimes we think that a new program or a better curriculum with be the answer to all of the problems in our ministries. The truth is that in our ambition we sometimes think of ministry as a sprint rather than a marathon. Having a five month plan is a lot more motivational than a five year plan, but the reality is ministry is usually about relationships and relationships take time. It took me nearly a year to get our group back on solid ground with students and parents having positive attitudes about our program. It took that same year for me to get to know some of our students. I would have loved to have come in and righted the ship in two weeks and three weeks later be able to have deep spiritual conversations with our fringe students. We need to be realistic about how ministry is done.

Healthy Ambition
Being ambitious is not a bad thing. We need to have a vision for our program. We need to have a desire to become a better minister with a bigger impact. There are plenty examples of student ministers who lack ambition and simply oversee a status quo program. However, going to the other extreme can be just as problematic. In the end, we need to rely on God to direct the paths of our careers and give direction of our ministries. When we do that, our impact will be greater than we could have ever imagined.

Doing ministry requires thick, elephant like skin. It’s true. It takes about two weeks in ministry to learn about this requirement. Without thick skin, you probably are not going to make it in ministry. Seriously. If a snide comment or offhand remark can destroy your day, perhaps God called you to a ministry where you don’t interact with hurting and growing people every day of your life.

Thick skin is especially important if you are in student ministry. This is true because it is easy to forget that students are still maturing and who knows what might come out of their mouth at any moment. Even in my short time in ministry I have heard things that could have ripped my heart out if not kept in context. I had a student ask why we never do anything fun in our ministry. Context: we had fun events but the student had chosen not to sign up for any. I recently had a student tell a group of people in the church that our programming was lame. Context: it was not lame until the girl that he hung out with moved out of town. I had a student who asked why we don’t do anything deep. Context: this student becomes ridiculously distracting if forced to sit quiet and still for more than three minutes at a time.

Each one of these comments could have sent me into a tailspin. Each one could have sent our program back to the drawing board trying to make things fun or serious or not lame. We could have changed everything to make this person or that person happy. We didn’t do that. We remembered that these students are still figuring things out. They have a narrow view of the world because they are still learning how to see the world. Because I have spent significant time praying and working towards a vision for the program, I feel secure in what we are doing.

There are other reasons that you need to have thick skin. Inevitably, you will encounter the student who leaves because they like something else better. Maybe they like the band somewhere else. Maybe they have more friends somewhere else. Maybe there are more single girls somewhere else. Are these good reasons to leave your church community? Probably not. Would you have done the same thing as a teenager? Probably.

One other reason to have thick skin is that in ministry you are helping people become mature in Christ. This means that the people that you are working with are learning and growing, but they are not holy simply because they come into your building or to your programs. The people who you minister to are not supposed to treat you like a friend and you are not supposed to treat them like your friend. The relationship is bigger than that. As a minister you are their guide, their prophet, and their shepherd. These roles do not allow you to leave them behind because they don’t follow or because they disagree the words that you speak into their life.

How do you grow thick skin? You find security in who you are and in what God has called you to. You need to be confident in who you are. If you are intimidated by students or your church members, you have already minimized the impact that you can make. Be confident in who you are, your gifts and talents. Also, be confident in your calling. God selected you over all kinds of other people to share His story with these students and parishioners. If God called you to the task, he has prepared you as well. So stop being lame and toughen up.