Every pastor encounters challenges—gaps between God’s design and his own ministry reality. Our programs and discipleship efforts produce less fruit than we want (ministry gaps). Our people struggle to love and care for one another as they ought (community gaps). We struggle to find and equip the people necessary to do the work of the ministry (leadership gaps). I believe these gaps—these differences between how God created us to live and how we actually live—are discipleship issues that ultimately result from different gaps in our faith.
I’ve known many men in ministry who struggled with these issues. Consider a pastor whom I’ll call Brendon. Brendon often reflects on his call as a pastor. He wrestles with why preaching the gospel and winning the lost feel so life-giving while shepherding his flock through life’s hardships and heartaches is so draining. Brendon spends hours strategizing and casting vision for his church’s ministry programs, discussing pastoral issues with fellow elders, and raising up leaders to deal with the relentless ministry demands. Sometimes, the challenges seem endless and insurmountable.
If the challenges churches face arise from the faith gaps found within its people and its pastors (like Brendon and us), then the state of our souls affects our ministries. So what are the faith gaps—the personal discipleship gaps—affecting you and your congregation? Here are four possibilities.
1. Story Gap
Our stories include the events, relationships, and experiences that shape us from birth to death. But when we only look at our circumstances, we can fail to see how our individual stories are embedded in God’s bigger story. As a result, we struggle to live in accordance with God’s design and to love others as he commands.
Every pastor encounters challenges—gaps between God’s design and his own ministry reality.
No detail or dimension of our lives—past, present, or future—surprises God (Ps. 139:16). Knowing all the ways evil would affect us, he devised a plan to counteract the fall’s effects when he chose to save us before creation (Eph. 1:4). When the Father sent his Son from heaven, he did so not only to bring us back into a right relationship with him but so that Jesus, our Good Shepherd, would restore our broken and sinful souls.
We see this in the life of Brendon. He loves teaching the Bible’s grand metanarrative, but he’d never considered how God’s story intersected with his own story of loneliness and shame. He hadn’t reflected on how his parents’ divorce or being bullied at school fueled his sense of being alone and different, and he hadn’t connected this relational pain to the fall. As a result, Brendon seldom explores the stories of those he shepherds but mainly focuses on their presenting problems. He assumes only professional counselors are equipped to handle story-work.
But as Brendon reflects on God’s creation story, the Spirit reminds him he was made for love and communion with God and others. He realizes how the brokenness caused by evil and experienced by everyone leads to the common struggle of shame. As Brendon understands that Jesus came to restore his soul (Ps. 23:3), God’s comfort and love begin to erode the shame he has struggled with for years. He feels relief as he embraces God’s promise never to leave him. Because knowing God’s story has affected Brendon’s story in personal and relevant ways, his preaching begins to change. He now shows the congregation how Jesus makes a difference for the lonely and ashamed. He’s determined to train his elders and small group leaders in how a person’s story affects how he or she lives and loves as well as in how Jesus closes the story gap.
2. Heart Gap
Life’s difficulties can distract us from God and, even worse, lead us to doubt his love. We can struggle with discontentment as we seek to satisfy our souls’ cravings for love through relationships or achievements. The feeling we’re unloved can tempt us to escape reality by pursuing pleasure—or even pain.
Knowing our hearts, Jesus made us so his love compels and empowers us to live for him, not ourselves (2 Cor. 5:14–15). Out of love, Jesus rescued us through his cross-work, and now he gives us new hearts to love him and others. He pours his love into our hearts through his Spirit (Ezek. 36:26–27; Rom. 5:5). His love restores us, and he commands us to abide in his love through a life of trust and obedience so his joy becomes our joy (John 15:9–11). Jesus closes our heart gap when we experience his love.
Brendon, for instance, felt spiritually dry. He felt unworthy and like a failure, even during his quiet times with the Lord. In his numbness, Brendon began to doubt God’s love for him. Drawing near to God seemed futile. A mentor encouraged Brendon to offer his brokenness to God in ways that reflected the lament psalms. He held out his broken reality before God as he read Scripture. He noticed how God’s truths spoke directly to his struggles and stirred his heart, freeing him to experience Jesus’s presence, comfort, and love.
Knowing that church members battle spiritual numbness as well, Brendon began to equip his leaders to be aware of the doubts, discouragement, shame, and fears in their hearts; to bring these before God in prayer before opening the Scriptures; and to look at how Jesus speaks directly to these struggles through his promises and commands. He encouraged the leaders to let the truths discovered in each passage stir their affections and to listen for God’s invitation to live differently.
3. Care Gap
When we face sin and pain, we want comfort, peace, change, and answers. But what we want, or think we need, may not align with what God has promised us. We’re tempted to control our relationships and circumstances in a quest for relief. We may even seek help from anyone and everyone we think can help us find answers. Our search for the care we want can rob us of the care God offers freely and fully.
When we only look at our circumstances, we can fail to see how our individual stories are embedded in God’s bigger story.
Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted, to set the prisoners free, to comfort all who mourn, and to bring beauty from ashes (Isa. 61:1–4; cf. Luke 4:16–21). Our Good Shepherd restores souls traumatized by evil (Ps. 23:3; John 10:11). The Light of the World pierces our darkness as the stars pierce the night sky (John 8:12; Gen. 1:14–18). The Prince of Peace settles our souls as he calmed the stormy sea (Isa. 9:6; Luke 8:22–25). The God of all comfort soothes our hearts like salve on a wound (2 Cor. 1:3–4). Jesus covers our shame and casts out fears with his perfect and infinite love (Isa. 61:10; 1 John 4:18). He intercedes for us, and he shares his joy with those who seek refuge in him (Rom. 8:34; John 15:11). Through our union with Christ, he offers the care we need as we abide in his presence, promises, and power.
In his weariness, Brendon sought relief from the relentless pressures of life and ministry by dreaming of another church with fewer problems, by restructuring the elders to cover the pastoral demands so he could escape to his study, and even by thinking about leaving ministry for a less taxing vocation. As Brendon clung to the promises and assurances in God’s Word, Jesus began to close the gaps in his story and heart. He became convinced that Jesus offered the care he needed as he took more comfort in what God said was true and stopped fantasizing about better circumstances.
4. Love Gap
If God’s story of love doesn’t reframe our broken story, if our souls aren’t restored as we experience Christ’s love, and if our hurting hearts aren’t soothed by our Good Shepherd’s comfort and care, we’ll doubt God’s presence, goodness, and love. We’ll be consumed with our own troubles and we won’t love God and others wholeheartedly.
When we don’t love as God created us to love, we experience disorder and anxiety. We also lack confidence in the ways Jesus makes a difference in our life struggles. As a result, our ministry efforts can depend more on programming and information than on Christ. Small groups may promote good fellowship, but without dependence on Christ through his Word and Spirit, they’ll lack life-giving hope and healing. Instead of helping leaders experience Christ’s love amid life’s difficulties, which is at the heart of shepherding, leadership development will focus on equipping with mere principles and competencies. In short, the love gap leads to unfruitful ministry, ineffective community, and deficient leadership.
As leaders, we must first experience how Jesus closes the gaps in our own faith and discipleship before we develop ministry philosophies and programs (2 Cor. 1:3–4). But as Jesus closes the gaps in our lives, we’ll grow confident and see how abiding in Christ’s love fuels life and forms ministry.
While away on vacation, Brendon experienced God’s love in fresh and restorative ways through his time abiding in God’s Word. He sensed a growing passion to focus his preaching and pastoring on abiding in Christ. As Brendon reimagined life with Jesus, he began to reimagine ministry. Even though ministry was still challenging, he experienced more freedom and joy as he joined Jesus in shepherding God’s people (Ps. 18:19; 23:3). To his surprise, Brendon breathed easier as he envisioned the next season of ministry.