Ray Family Update from June 2024

Dear Praying Friends,

The first of June feels like it was a year ago. It started with knee pain and illness, all just prior to the start of our conference. Some of the medicine I had to take for the knee pain made me quite melancholy at a time when I needed to be of the soundest possible mind. In spite of all that, we had, in my estimation, the best conference we have ever had. When I first prayed about what this year’s conference theme should be, I felt pretty strongly about stewardship; but I honestly had no idea how much of the Bible, and life itself, involves an understanding and fulfillment of stewardship. It was certainly one of the most thought provoking and convicting topics we have considered at a Bible conference in my twenty-plus years at Antioch.

Personally, one of the things that came from the conference was a desire to evaluate my performance and prioritization of all the various tasks that fall under the umbrella of my stewardship as the pastor at Antioch. I tend to think that most people who have joined themselves to a New Testament church want to see it succeed but might lack a complete understanding of the amount of time, ability, prayer, sacrifice, effort, and money that it takes to tackle all the work of ministering to the Lord, to the saints, and to the lost. As a result, especially in smaller churches, much of this falls to the pastor(s) and a few willing souls willing to burn themselves out between the demands of their job, their family, and the ministry. In this line of thinking, I recently sat down and listed all the things which tend to fall to me on a weekly basis. As I thought on the time necessary to tackle these tasks, I calculated that it would require a little more than ninety-five hours per week. Obviously, this does not include the responsibilities of family and general life duties. To illustrate what this looks like, it is akin to a juggler, who can skillfully juggle ten balls, attempting to keep twenty balls in the rotation.

In the case of my pastorate, the impossibility of keeping up with all the tasks results in the outright failure in some areas of responsibility and the inadequate accomplishment in other areas of responsibility. I am certain that watchful and attentive onlookers can see this firsthand. One week, some phone calls get missed, some text messages go unanswered, some ministries are left undone, some sermons have less study time, etc. The next week, a completely different set of tasks go unfulfilled. Most weeks, a day off or family time gets sacrificed. The answer to this could be tackled via various paths, but they could likely be summed up in two approaches: (1) scale back on the work to be accomplished or (2) gain hours and ability from other believers in the church. In reality, all of us can sit back and criticize the church’s efforts to reach the lost; send forth or take on missionaries; have a high-quality and up-to-date online presence; minister to the youth, to seniors, to couples, to singles, to widows, or to families; teach or disciple the saints; have a clean and well-maintained property and building, etc. But you are THE CHURCH and the criticism falls just as much at your feet as it does anybody else’s.

In conclusion, we ought to consider under which category our tasks fall. First, there are no doubt things each church does that God has not orchestrated, nor demanded. We should find out what those things are and cease from doing them. Second, there are things God certainly wants us to do and we need to call upon God’s people within our local body to sacrifice their time, ability, and money to faithfully and skillfully accomplish those tasks for and to the glory of God!