Friends,
We are excited to get started on our summer plans of ministry, golfing and of course some traveling. We pray that your spring has been full of life, and that you are approaching summer with the same enthusiasm we are! Keep following us on Facebook and Instagram to stay in touch with what is happening in our world!
Ministry Appointments
Due to our full schedule, we will not be taking any new ministry appointments until the middle of June. You are welcome to fill out this form to get on the waiting list. Learn more about Personal Ministry Appointments here. We look forward to meeting with you.
Blessings,
Jim and Pat Banks
The Trauma of “What could Have Been”
By Jim Banks
We have all experienced the disappointment of a promise unfulfilled or an obligation not met. It is an inevitable part of life. People will let us down, even the most honorable and well intentioned of them.
I have spent the last 20 years helping people recover their lives from the ravages of all sorts of trauma. I have found one of the most difficult issues to resolve is the trauma from hopes that are cruelly crushed when a ministry falls apart or gets destroyed. Especially when the destruction comes from its founders, leaders or board.
There are so many complex elements to the trauma of a destroyed ministry. For example, there is the lost comradery of those you’ve ministered with. Relationship is naturally formed in the fight to establish and build God’s Kingdom. It is real loss when those relationships change. In the ruins we also find broken trust from those we gave our hearts to. Finally, there is the loss of all that could have been. Especially, if you surrendered your dream to serve someone else.
The trauma is intensified by questions that have no answers.
This trauma is not limited to staff members but impacts dedicated volunteers who are left holding a bag of unfulfilled expectations. In some cases, the loss is so personally devastating that individuals lose their faith in God as well. Faith that cannot survive a severe test is not actually faith, but a false confidence based in presumption.
The problem is that we see through a glass darkly. We don’t have all the facts nor are we privy the motivations of all the other important players. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. (Corinthians 13:12, 1 Samuel 16:7)
I have written before on the ministry of disappointment and for a number of people “what could have been” seems to be the devastating pinnacle of it all. When individuals lack of personal value and instead satisfy it by being part of a goal that is bigger than themselves, disappointment is crushing. He or she who falls victim to this level of disappointment is usually serving the vision of another.
The orphan mentality actually postures a person for this soul crushing loss. Ensuring that disappointment will not only wound the soul, but the human spirit as well. The vision we gave ourselves when we got involved may have been given only in part by God. If we don’t know what our piece is, or how it fits into the whole vision, we are tempted to believe that it’s the whole picture. That is when tunnel vision is adopted, and we presume that what we see is a crucial part in God’s Kingdom plans for us. While certainly motivating, it is not the whole picture.
The teachings of the enemy himself would desire us to live life out of our heads alone, abandoning our heart. When we believe this, we believe we have to figure everything out on our own. The enemy’s strategy in this thinking is to cause us to become our own god. We get to decide what’s good for us and what isn’t. We get to decide what we’ll give ourselves to and what we’ll will bypass. In our control we can still participate in church, and even help build it. However, it also allows us to set up our own value system totally apart from Biblical teaching and allows dualism into our lives.
The promise of God to each of us is that He knows the plans He has for us; plans for good, not for evil, to give us a future and a hope. What is this plan? To conform us to the image of Christ regardless of the circumstances we encounter or the agendas we have. Ephesians 4:13 says, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
How do we protect ourselves from this particular form of trauma? We can’t.
Fact #1, Don Potter put it aptly, “So you got hurt in church. Do you know what that says? It says, you went to church.” So long as humans are involved, we’ll get hurt.
Fact # 2, if you are serving in a church, you are serving someone else’s vision, the execution of which is subject to change on a whim.
Fact # 3, one can never be certain that the vision the leader declares is directly from God and is all at God’s direction. It is always processed through the leader’s personal filter(s) and many times they are simply trying to replicate something that worked well somewhere else.
Fact # 4, the primary method God uses to mature us and teach us more of who He is and what He’s capable of is in the midst of situations that suddenly explode and fall to pieces.
We will all experience disasters in ministry. The best way to not become a casualty is to know your own purpose and to keep it before you at all times. When we join ourselves with a ministry, we have to be sure that we are fulfilling our purpose even in the context of serving another person’s vision. It is true that God will not give you your ministry if you cannot submit yourself to another’s ministry. Many have run off to start their own ministry because they didn’t get to do what they wanted to where they were. You can fulfill your purpose anywhere and under anyone, if you know exactly what it is. The key is knowing what season you are in in its attainment and fulfillment. The vast majority of those who were devastated in ministry weren’t operating in their purpose.
My wife and I were in the golf business in the late 90’s and we joke that we prayed for more people in the golf business by accident that we do now on purpose. I’m not sure that’s factual, but the point is, healing is our purpose. We will do it in the midst of however we choose to make a living. It is who we are and we’ll probably be found do it from our death beds.
The only way to know who you are and the purpose for which you were created is in the presence of the One who created you. Get there and don’t leave until it’s clear. He is the only one who knows the plans He has for you “that will give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
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