Please read & if possible respond - I could use the help

Dear friends and strangely curious others,

Things have been changing for me over the past few months and I thought I’d share a little so you might know how to pray for Patti and I.

Years of tending the wild sheep has created for me it’s own unique sorts of problems and issues.  It’s tough to “be ready” and stay that way when you never know when, who or how He will bring to you to care for.  It’s tough to feel useful and questions of integrity are constantly creeping up to make you (almost) regret accepting the call.

We all know there are those to whom the institutional church either cannot of sadly will not minister.  Oh these folks are welcome but their needs and issues are just not on the agenda.  Or the “church” is just not equipped to care for them (I include myself in that category).  So, in the end, these folks push ahead with no real sense of belonging, no real sense of place, no real sense of fellowship.  It’s hard to have fellowship with a bunch of folks who are holding their breath.

I’m not taking a shot at the church here.  There are limits to what people, not to mention organizations can do.  But that means that God has to have folks out here who are willing to be available when and how they are needed.  Sometimes it’s a trickle, sometimes it’s a tsunami.  But someone has to be out here.  It’s a ministry of “being available.”  But being available get to be tougher and tougher.

Here are some issues.  We all know the economy stinks.  Since it began it’s slip downward I have lost many of my tent-making clients (actually I still help, they just can’t pay).  So Patti and I have had to, more and more, tighten the belt (like the rest of you).  But for us the belt had a lot of holes to begin with.  Now, it’s just about all holes.

Don’t get me wrong.  God is scary in how He provides.  We’ve found that if we just pay attention, His blessings – materially – are always a little more than enough.  But that does not keep us from sweating.  OK-it doesn’t keep me from sweating – Patti just troops oin trusting Him (it’s nauseating ;-}).

I’m at a place where I have two clear options.  Get a real job and just minister when and if I can or just keep trusting Him for work and maintain the ministry.

OK – I am not asking you for money.  I’m asking you to take some time to give me some input.  Some of you I have served some of you just know me via the blogs and stuff.  But God can give you words I need to hear.

So, here are some questions you can help me address.  Some may seem glib but they pop up in my head so there must be something there….

·         Is the ministry still of value, needed?

·         Maintain the “ministry of availability” or make work ($) the priority?

·         Seek a “real” ministry – ie pastoring a small church etc.?

·         Quit kidding myself and get a job?

·         Suck it up dude and let Him do His stuff?

·         Get out of “Wonderland!”

·         Join a cult.

·         Start a cult.

·         Start a church (Oh yeah, Jesus already did that ;-S)

·         Go non-prophet – get a board and raise $.

·         Go off your meds – then it won’t matter.

·         Buy a lotto ticket weekly and pray hard.

·         Just sit in the corner and whine.

I am trying to trivialize this – really – it’s too big not to.  At my time of life one really does wonder if anything that went before matters and if there’s anything ahead that matters.  I know – I tell a lot of you that it does matter even if we can’t see it.  But hey, I get to be bummed out at times too.

I guess, at the heart of it, what I am asking is, “Does what I do matter?”  and more painfully, “Does it justify the sacrifices made (especially Patti’s).

I guess too that I am at a place where I wonder if indeed all this has been God’s call upon my life of if it’s been more me than Him.  Have I focused on a small group, a unique group of believers because it’s under the radar and I like that or has He aimed me at this target.

I don’t doubt Him.  That would just be silly.  But me, I doubt.  Of course a friend comforted me by telling me that if God could use Balaam’s ass he could certainly use me.

It’s tough to believe in what you’re doing when it feels like few others do – or they do so with hesitation.

I know your insight would be valuable and your encouragement priceless but also your true counsel is needed.

Thanks – from a brother having a bad day!

M