One of the marks of Christian maturity and Christian fellowship is the great work of the Spirit of God which I call gospel generosity.

Gospel generosity is the willingness to give up people and resources to help other ministries, at cost to yourself and your ministry.

Why we are not gospel generous

Since gospel generosity is a fruit of the work of God’s grace it would be easy to say that people who are not gospel generous are just being sinful. But it is not that simple.

Christians are rightly committed to growing the Kingdom of God where they are. This requires resources. If we keep sending people and other resources out from us there is every chance that we will hinder the growth in our midst. As a friend of mine says “if I give up the leaders raised up in our ministry I am in danger of killing the goose that laid the golden egg”.

A slightly different form of this also regularly confronts us.  It says that our ministry has short term needs that must be met. When they are met we can then give to others. There is great wisdom in this way of thinking, but it is easy to get into the habit of not being generous that we fail to do so, even when we have the capacity.

To put it bluntly; over the course my life I have seen a move in our thinking. Only twenty years ago we wore as a badge of honour the numbers of people who had left our congregation to serve on the mission field. Today we are more likely to parade the size of budget, or the number of church plants, or the size of our staff. Each of these are things to thank God for, but they come at a cost to gospel generosity.

What we lose

So why not continue to keep the resources for ministry at home?

The teacher in Ecclesiastes says “cast your bread upon the water; who knows when it may return to you”. The more generous we are, the more likely we are to receive blessings back in unexpected ways.

For example as we give up people to other ministries I constantly see God raising up a new generation of leaders from our midst that would not have been raised if others had not left.

As people move to other ministries there is a vacuum to be filled and I notice that as people move in to fill the vacuum, so our congregation work better at the priesthood of all believers – rather than the ministry of the few.

I also notice that as we give up people to serve elsewhere God blesses these ministries so that new people, people who we could not have humanly reached in our own setting, hear the gospel and come to salvation.

An example

Let me give you an example. I work at Moore College, and about this time of year we prepare to farewell our prospective graduates into a wide variety of ministries.

As I discuss with churches what they expect of our graduates there is a lovely care for them, and a desire for them to help the congregation grow to maturity, and also to be used to see others saved. But there is not often much thought put into what the congregation is contributing to the lives of their assistant ministers who will leave in a few years time.

My plea is that those who will remain long term in a congregational setting see that any time and resources invested in their assistant ministers is their investment in the Kingdom growing in as yet unknown places and in unknown ways.

Of course this is also the case for anyone we pour our lives into; whether they stay with us or go. 

(Photo credit: artotem)