Wholehearted Ministry Needs a Whole Minister

A minister answers the telephone after midnight, preaches in the morning, visits the bereaved, settles a conflict, raises funds, carries another family’s emergency and returns home too depleted to speak with the people who know him best. The congregation calls him available. His body calls him exhausted. His soul may no longer know which voice it is permitted to trust.

Pentecostal Christianity possesses a powerful language of surrender. We pray, fast, go, give and serve because Jesus is worthy and the Holy Spirit empowers ordinary people for extraordinary witness. Such consecration has carried the gospel across African villages, cities, borders and generations.

Yet a theology of sacrifice can be misused when every limit is treated as disobedience, every need is routed to one leader and every sign of distress is answered only with a demand for more faith. Wholehearted ministry then becomes institutional dependence upon an increasingly fragmented person.

To give oneself wholly to God is not to make one minister endlessly available. Wholehearted Pentecostal ministry needs whole ministers, and whole ministers need a whole body that shares the work, tells the truth, honours family, provides competent care and governs ministry responsibly.

The Give Thyself Wholly Conference opened at the Anagkazo Campus in Ghana on 4 August and runs through 7 August. Its official site describes a global gathering of pastors, ministers and church workers…