An Example of Ministering to People without an Official Position

Mr. Clark,

I found your blog through another blog one man revival. I really like some of your viewpoints on things. I like the "Have you been Jesus lately?" Jesus does amazing works through us. I think it is incredibly realistic than you can be Jesus to someone.

Perhaps what I found most interesting was your interpretation of Matthew 25:14-36.

A little about myself...
I was raised in a Lutheran church in PA where we hardly ever missed a Sunday. Sometime around my senior year of high school our church approved to spend $300,000 on church renovation instead of sharing a youth pastor with another Lutheran church and paying half his salary of around $18,000. I wondered why would God do this? Why would good people of the church do this? It turned me off to not only my church, but to organized religion in general. I still believed in God, but I didn't believe in anything else.

Unfortunately the renovation project took place throughout my freshman year in college... at #1 party school Penn State no less. It was a poor time in a man's life for him to lose his direction, but I did. The next four years was filled with a lot of drinking and time wasting. I graduated 3rd in my major, but you could hardly ever find me at class. (I graduated high school first in my class and am sure I could have gotten at least a 3.9 if I had applied myself instead of my 3.63) If there was a bad habit, I picked it up... idleness, drunkeness, tobacco use. A lot of my friends and teachers saw I had a natural gift of smarts and figured I should achieve great things. Most of my finance buddies defined 'great things' as an accumulation of stuff and for the first time in my life I measured self worth by net worth. (I was raised on a dairy farm where people/family were more important than family.) I was on a course to kill myself either physically by my lifestyle or spiritually the way I was distancing myself from God. (Emotionally I was already dead to the pains of the physical world. My compassion for others was gone.) During this time I was approached by a lot of people that wanted to "push" me towards their religion or beliefs. This only turned me off even more. I wanted a relationship with God, not a theological principle or building. Things were bad and then God intervened...

I had a lot of great jobs lined up; despite my lack of effort and poor attitude employers could see that I had potential and were willing to pay a lot of money for it. Then my uncle's hired help quit and I chose to return to the farm where I would be making $18,000 a year, roughly about 1/3 of my best offer. Despite the fact that I thought I was dead to feeling, God showed me that a piece of me was still willing to put family first. I came home a started to make small changes: my low salary prevented matieral things so I found the joy in God's day, a new calf, sunshine. Being on a farm makes you work hard and when you are dealing with animals you have to be responsible. The idleness stopped. I still couldn't find the nerve to go back to church. I didn't think I was worthy to go. It was weird. I felt like I could never go because of where I had been in college. Reluctantly I went back and it is good. I haven't cared about denomination, or offering, or church council.... I focused on being there when God needed me.

Anyways, I realize God has forgiven me for my sins and to be honest that isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is how I wasted his gifts I was entrusted with. He gave me so much and I just wasted it. It was hard for me to shake, then roughly 2 years after college I had an interesting "revelation." All of this was in preparation to serve God. During all of that idleness, I learned to play guitar and have become a good guitar player and can worship him through music. I struggle with tobacco addiction, but I realized if I could quit that, I could quit anything. I saw the struggles that some people had with booze first hand. (Before college I had always been judgemental.) Then I learned that there was no right/ wrong church or way. A relationship with Jesus Christ and God is right; anything else is just distraction.

Finally, I made the decision to learn more about God. I plan on going to seminary. I don't want to be a preacher. Jesus wasn't a preacher. He was a teacher. He lived His life teaching people how to live...and He lived it out. I'm not doing this so I can stand up in front of the church on Sundays. I am doing this so I can be the church on the everyday. God has given me great gifts, and I don't plan on playing it safe anymore as in your interpretation of Matthew 25. With a finance focus, we were always focusing on return on investment. Is there any greater return on investment than with God? If you just do a little bit everything multiplies. His love and power are awesome.

I like your blog and love your description. I wish you the best as you continue on your journey to serve Christ.

Sincerely,

Steven
I believe that each of you have a gift to share with others and I pray that you will discover your outlet for doing so. It could be at work, in a coffee shop, or at your local food bank.