It's supposed to be about Jesus, right?

I've been in or around vocational ministry my entire life. I made a conscious decision early in college to pursue and education in Christian Ministry instead of music. I've been blessed to serve on church staffs around the country in various forms, usually worship ministry. I've served in churches ranging in size from 4000 to 75. I've led worship for events ranging in size from 3 (literally three) to a few thousand. I'm not claiming to be an expert on anything (except maybe preschool music), but it's supposed to be about Jesus right?

I started doing an informal study of sorts just after college. I would wonder why certain ministries would thrive and others would fail for no apparent reason. I went to some conferences and visited a lot of the larger churches in the country and came up with something...you ready? You might want to write this down.

Churches grow because of Jesus.

Revolutionary! Paradigm Shifting! Astonishing Concept! (sarcasm is not typed well)

The longer I am a part of the church universal, the more I recognize the sovereignty of God. God puts people where He wants, when He wants. He gives us what we need when we need it. He keeps some churches at 20 people because they need to be at 20 people. He grows some churches to 20,000 because those churches need to be 20,000. He makes some people's records go platinum and some go....well whatever selling 4 CDs is...that's what one of mine is...paper? aluminum? Beryllium?

For too long, I and countless others have bought in to the LIE in ministry. we exchanged the truth of God (it's all about HIM) for the LIE (it's all about me) We begin to hang our identity on the measurable things like numbers, involvement, and bible drill medals rather than hang our Identity on the Cross, trusting our Head for the life of the Body. In church ministry, believing the lie is so often rewarded it seems. We pay people more because they'll grow our church extra gooder...or goodly...or goodest. Then if the people don't "deliver" they are fired for intangible reasons...or worse yet, fired for tangible reasons that are lies. Or they commit some sort of wicked sinful act and we replace our fallen god with a new one who's wife is better looking and who's kids aren't in jail or something.

The scriptures are ALL about Jesus. Everything was created by Him, for Him, and everything holds together in Him. For me to then place my education, experience, and talent at the center of church ministry is Idolatry and something I'm really striving to repent of, by the way. My experience, talent, passions, education, and anything else I think is worth two cents in my brain cannot save anyone. They cannot cause anyone to follow Christ in a deeper way. Jesus does that. My responsibility is to seek Him first (Mt 6:33), trust Him completely, sacrifice my life for His cause (Romans 12:1), then trust HIM with the results, both good and bad.

I get tired just thinking about churches who think Jesus is either too easy of an answer, or don't consider Him at all. I'd much rather do ministry trusting Jesus for all the results rather than hang my entire identity on whether or not some 13 year old raised his hands or not. But I'm still working on that. I'm not quite there...but I'm getting there. I think if I ever get the hang of everything being about Jesus, He just might use me for something cool...maybe. Either way I get Jesus, right?