Jim Barringer
Lead Pastor, Washingtonville location of Echo Grace Church
New York, USA
As I look back on nearly 30 years of full-time pastoral ministry, I keep coming back to one unmistakable truth about myself: I am not talented enough.
In one of my favorite movies, Miracle, a 2004 film about the U.S. men’s hockey team’s unexpected victory in the 1980 Olympics, one famous scene sticks out to me. In it, Coach Herb Brooks tells the team, “You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”
So let me humbly offer this to you: You’re probably not talented enough either. And that’s not bad news. In fact, it may be one of the best things you can learn early in ministry. Because if I don’t have what it takes in myself, then how do I faithfully steward the ministry God has entrusted to me?
In the film Miracle, based on the true story of the 1980 Olympics, Coach Herb Brooks takes a group of young college hockey rivals and prepares them to do what no one thought possible—win Olympic gold against the Soviet Union hockey team, who were on a 20-year Olympic winning streak. Coach Brooks first humbled those young men, then rebuilt them into a team. Together, they accomplished the impossible.
As the ministry I was leading began to grow, God surrounded me with some of the most devoted, humble, God-seeking people I’ve had the privilege to serve alongside. The apostle Paul describes the church as a body: many parts with each part connected, valuable, and given a purpose under the head—Christ.
God never designed ministry to rest on one gifted leader carrying the load by himself. He designed His church so that each member would use his or her gifts, in dependence on Christ and in partnership with one another, to accomplish His mission. The goal is to build a disciple-making culture where the body of Christ is equipped and unleashed to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Lean on, invest in, learn from, and serve alongside the believers God has placed around you. Fruitful ministry is not built by a lone leader, but by a body of believers pursuing Christ together and making disciples together.
