There Was Grumbling...

Acts, Chapter 6, begins by saying: “...In those days, as the number of the disciples was growing, there arose murmuring by the Greeks against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Then the Twelve called together the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not right for us to leave the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, choose from among yourselves 7 men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this work, and we will persist in prayer and in the ministry of the word. The proposal pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, Procerto of Antioch. They presented them before the Apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them, and the word of the Lord grew, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem; many of the priests also became obedient to the faith...”

Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that it be Your word and Your Spirit speaking to us. Lord, thank You that Your power is made perfect in our weakness, and I ask You, Lord, that only the diamond of Your word would remain with us today. We, as Congregación León de Judá, are before You like little Samuel in the Bible, saying, speak, Lord, Your servant is listening, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Thank God. This text begins by saying that in those days, as the number of the disciples was growing, et cetera, et cetera—growth. How many here want us to grow as a church? Really? Are you sure you know what you’re asking for? Are we sure?

You know that growth—we know it is a blessing; living things grow, and whatever does not grow is dead. So of course we want to grow. But do you still want to grow when the chair where you always sit is occupied by someone you have never seen before? Do you still want to grow when there is no easy parking? Do you still want to grow when there are people who are different from you and who bother you? What I mean is that growth comes with growing pains, as they say in English.

When children are growing, they sometimes experience physiological pains. Sometimes a bed gets wet when they are growing and learning new things. Not that I would know anything about that from personal experience, but this is just to say that when children, adults, and people grow, life gets complicated; it gets complicated. And that does not mean the moving of the Holy Spirit is not genuine. On the contrary, no matter how genuine the word and the moving of the Spirit may be, the headaches also increase with the number of people.

Because how many of us know that we human beings are not easy at all; we tend to be rather complicated. I know I am, so if you bring together 100 more, 500 more, 1,000 more, the growing pains begin. It is the same with families that grow in a small house: with each child, each new blessing from above, each new baby, each new son or daughter, the house fills up, and then you have to wait to use the bathroom, and then people start stepping on one another’s toes a little, and now we have grown. It is a blessing, but it comes with headaches.

That is how it was for the early church. The Spirit moved and they grew, but problems also arose, and we are going to talk a little about that. And I believe this speaks to Congregación León de Judá. Thank God we have growing pains. Ever since I started here 12 years ago, there have been growing pains. The Spirit moves and new people come in. And we, as an institutional church, have to grow along with our numerical growth.

You know what? I often say that the church is not so much an organization as it is an organism. The church of Christ is not a Christian club; it is not an organization like any other club or organization. Thank God we are a living being. The Holy Spirit is in you, He is in me, and He unites us; we are one body, and we are all members of this body. Whether I want to be or not, we are connected, we need one another, and we cannot exist and live without one another. We are a body.

But we are also a growing body that needs coordination, and that is where the administrative and institutional aspect of what a church is comes in. How many have seen, or remember, or perhaps are experiencing right now what it is like to go through adolescence, through puberty? A boy grows a foot in one year and comes in, and you say, who are you? Yesterday you were here, and today you are up here; he grows fast.

But sometimes it takes time for the body’s coordination to adjust to the body’s growth. And there is a certain—the word in English—there is a natural awkwardness; things happen to him: his voice cracks—I don’t even know how to say that. Little marks appear on his face because there are new hormones and the body is changing. But then time passes, he grows, and his features and everything else fall into place just as they should.

And that is how it is with an adolescent church. There is growth, but then the body’s coordination has to keep pace with the physiological, spiritual, and emotional growth. When a church is going through that, like any other adolescent, things happen. Some things fall through the cracks, institutional mistakes are made, and there are people whose feelings are hurt because the organization lacked coordination. And sometimes there are people, like these widows, who are neglected at a time of need.

That is what happened at this moment. Do we think the Apostles wanted these widows to be neglected? Do you think they sat down and said, “You know what? We’re not going to give food to those Greek widows”? It was not intentional. No one wanted that. But it happened. Things like that happen in a church that is going through growing pains. There are always things like that. In English we say, there are balls that get dropped. There are things that fall through the cracks. There are problems involving the physical facilities, space for people, parking, room assignments, and the handling of equipment and furniture. We have to get organized so that we can manage the growth.

Now, sometimes it sounds unspiritual to talk this way. I want to think about prayer and fasting and the anointing, and I hope we think about that every day, brothers and sisters, because without that we end up becoming a Christian club. We have to pray; the Holy Spirit has to move. But you also realize that the moving of the Spirit and organization do not contradict each other.

When Jesus brought about the miraculous catch of fish, do you remember the miracle? He tells the Apostles, look, go, put out into deep water and cast the nets. And they go, and Jesus speaks to those fish in the spirit, and they all... but a net was still needed to pull in those fish. They still had to work together and call other boats to bring the fish into the boat. If there is no net, there is no miracle. Or rather, if there is no net, the miracle is wasted. You need good nets in order to retain, enjoy, and enter into the fullness of the miracle God has performed.

The multiplication of the loaves and the fish—do you remember that? That was not, as I said in English, a free-for-all; it was not some crazy commotion with everyone rushing in all at once like madmen. No, no, no; what did they do first? What did Jesus do before performing the miracle? He assigned His disciples to divide everyone into groups in an orderly way and seat them on the green grass. Thank God, because He is the Good Shepherd and He knows how to guide His people. They had to get organized in order to enjoy the multiplication of the loaves and the fish.

You know, this morning I remembered an event I have spent 10 years trying to forget. One night—it was October 31, before we had a Hallelujah Night like the one we have now—the children’s ministry held something here. They invited me to speak to the children. I usually say that I love the children’s ministry; I provide pastoral coverage there, but do not leave me alone with a little group of children—they will eat me alive—so that is not my gift. My gift is to supervise, bless, and cheer on those who really do it well.

But that night they put me there to speak with the children. So I did it, and I came up with the excellent idea of offering and giving candy to these children, so afterward I brought out a big container of candy. Imagine what happened to me! Like piranhas, they threw themselves on top of me; they ate me like goats. It was chaos. Thank God our children’s ministers know how to organize things better than that.

What I mean is that there is blessing, but we have to think; we have to get organized. Sometimes these things are organic processes. New believers, like new babies, need food, they need love, they need connection. It is something human, but if structures are not organized to make it happen, this organic, natural process does not take place. We need cell groups, we need classes, we need ministries and contexts so that an intensely human process can take place. So organization was what was lacking in this case involving the Apostles.

And you know, it also reminded me of other moments in my life here at León de Judá. You know that when I started here, there were about 500 people and just the pastor by himself; there were no other pastors, no secretary, no office, no telephone—I don’t know. How did he do it? You know that in American churches you never see that. Once they have 500 people, they already have 15 pastors. And he was all by himself, although thank God he was not alone, because there were anointed leaders at his side.

But in terms of infrastructure, it was minimal. And I remember us making our first photocopy here in this office; it was a sacred moment. And the pastor was talking to me there: we are going to get organized over these coming years. Then Carolina and everyone else came in.

But getting organized almost always requires a crisis. It takes a mess, and then you realize, look, we have to organize this mess that is happening. If someone wanted to use a room in this church, do we know what to do? Take it off the internet—you’re saying, look, I’m in Chile; why are you talking to me about that?

But here, to use a room, you have to call Carolina and reserve it. Before, 12 or 10 years ago, if you wanted to use a room, what did you do? You arrived, went in, and used your room, thank God. But then what happened? Sister So-and-so arrived with her little group to hold her meeting, and then big Brother What’s-his-name arrived, and both of them wanted to use the same room, and the old man and the old woman came out in them. As they say in English, tempers fly. And then there are problems because they both want to use the same room. And then what happens? They call someone like a pastor to put out the fire. Everyone is stressed out, and things do not go well.

And then the brilliant idea occurs to us: look, maybe we can assign rooms? What do you think? And 10 years later, do you know what just happened to me after preaching the sermon this morning? I went upstairs to my discipleship class, and last week the brothers and sisters had the idea, look, why don’t we move to another room that has windows? And I said, well, I don’t see anyone here this week; why would there be any problems? Me, the pastor who had just preached about that. So there we are in the room, and the other brothers and sisters from the Crown ministry arrive—a ministry I did not know had started because I had not spoken with Omar, who was organizing it. And there both groups were, waiting. Thank God for the mercy of the brothers and sisters at moments like that.

Even 10 years later, I am still putting my foot in it. We are in a process of growth. And sometimes it is funny, and we can all laugh about it. That is where love comes in and smooths out all the friction; people give one another the benefit of the doubt, and much is forgiven. But sometimes, when there are misunderstandings, when there is an adolescent organization, some of the mistakes cause problems and hurt people.

These widows had to go hungry for several days because of a lack of coordination. And that happened in the church of Acts, so it makes me feel good. We are not so bad; they had their headaches too. But there are people who are hurting. Real pain happens. And we have to recognize that we need to grow in order to prevent that and heal it, but in any process of growth, situations like these are going to arise. And those widows have to forgive. Forgive whom? The Apostles? I imagine so—just think about that. They might have thought, maybe it is Peter; he is just over there killing people and does not care about me. I imagine they would not have said it after what happened to Ananias and Sapphira; I would not say that after something like that.

But might they have thought it? Might they have thought it? They do not care that this widow I know is going hungry. Those Apostles do not care. Might they have thought it? We also have to forgive; we have to recognize that things happen when we are growing—growing pains. This does not excuse it; it does not mean we leave the problem as it is. It gets fixed; we work on it, as we are going to see, but a great deal also has to be forgiven. We have to give one another the benefit of the doubt and recognize that if we are going to grow, things will happen; things will happen.

You can imagine how that problem arose. It is a time of revival, with people accepting Christ day and night, demons flying out of people, and new people coming in. Do you know on what day Peter preached his first sermon? Pentecost. It was a feast. The people who were there, most of them from outside Jerusalem, came from other places and stayed to seek God. They stayed in Jerusalem. So in the church you have not only the people from that town, but also hundreds and perhaps thousands of outsiders who came and stayed.

He says, look, I’m staying here. The anointing is here; I’m staying here, I’ll sleep on the street, I don’t care. But there were also some widows among them. And so, in those days, a widow had no other option. If you had no children or family or uncles, there was no welfare, and so the church took on that burden. But they also said that if widows had family, their relatives should care for them so that they would not be a burden to the church; they had to work things out. But with outsiders, immigrants, lots of people, and many things going on, it is easy to imagine how it happened.

Now, the problem was—and let me read it again—in Acts, chapter 6, verse 1, which says:

“… there arose a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews…”

I want to dwell on the word murmuring for a moment. Has anyone here murmured? Why do we murmur? Why not speak out loud? Because you don’t want the bad thing you’re saying to be heard. There is a Steve Green song for children: Do everything without complaining or murmuring. Do everything without complaining or arguing. And there I was, teaching my son this verse and then, five minutes later, realizing that I myself was murmuring.

When I have a microphone, I am very careful, because everything can be heard over the internet, even when it is on mute. Murmuring, complaining: oh, those people neglecting others…. So, it was between two groups. The pastor already spoke about that, and I’m not going to go into all of it again, but there were groups—the Greeks. So they were all Jews, but some were Hebrew Jews; these were the Jews who had grown up in Jerusalem, traditional Jews who spoke Hebrew well and had grown up there, where the temple was. They were Jews from Jerusalem, Hebrews. But there were also Greek Jews and Jews from Turkey who came from elsewhere and perhaps spoke Hebrew with a different accent. Perhaps their physical appearance was different, and prejudices may have entered into the situation.

You know what? At Lion of Judah, we are quite a stew of people here—just imagine! What a variety of people! In any row, five countries are represented. Any row and any little group. And you know that with the English service, things get even more complicated—very spicy now. In the Spanish service alone, we have almost 30 countries represented. Do you know how special that is? And now, with the English service, we have people from Africa, people from Haiti, African Americans, little gringos, Japanese folks, mixtures of people who are all here together, and there must be more than 30 countries. Thank God, because now there is a new nation and there is a new king. We are a new people, a holy people, whose identity and citizenship are in heaven. It is a prophetic testimony.

But it is also a complicated life. It is a complicated life. So we must always, always recognize the prejudices we may have and say, Lord, perhaps I grew up hating gringos, or, what do I know, some particular country or certain people, distrusting certain people. Lord, forgive me; he is my brother, she is my sister, even if their style or way of being bothers me a little. We must recognize the prejudices we have and repent; it is sin. And God does not want us to have that.

That may have been the case here with them. The Hebrews may have looked with contempt on the Greeks among them. But you know what? The apostles did not rebuke them for racism, so I think it is more likely that the situation was not so sinister. I think it is more likely that it was an oversight.

Think about our own church; it is natural. People from the same country know one another; people from the same part of a country know one another. There are natural friendships; they are from the same hometown. It is natural. They’re all women from Baní—not merely Dominican, but from Baní. Everything has to be from Baní; to work there, they have to be from Baní, and no… and let me say, it is not because it is better than another country; it just happened to be next to the house.

But the point is that people naturally know one another, thank God. God uses this in our church, because natural networks form within the diversity we have. And this can be lovely and good, but here, I think it is more likely that the Hebrews who were running the program, because they were from there, most likely knew among themselves who the needy widows were. But they did not know who the Greek women from outside, from another country and another culture, were.

You know that in a large group it is very possible to get lost in the crowd if you are not connected. That is why cells or small groups, in whatever form, are so important. Otherwise, a person can get lost in the crowd, and we do not want that. We are a family, but if we are not in a smaller group, we will not get to know one another. And people will not know about a person’s needs.

So that is what happened in this case. So the Greek women were neglected; I do not think it was intentional. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was simply because of the situation. But sometimes a situation can cause harm and must be fixed, so they addressed the matter together.

And you know, taking one small step back regarding different races, it is natural, when someone is different and is mistreated, to feel that the cause is something deeper. When I was studying at seminary, I hung out with the Koreans; I like kimchi, so I hung out with them. They told me that in that place they sometimes felt somewhat marginalized. So, if there was a conflict or a problem, their first thought was, it is because I am Korean and they like me. And there was one administrator in particular who was rather grouchy, as sometimes happens, and there she was in the office, being herself with them—grouchy—and their first thought was, she treats me badly because I am Korean. But after a year, they realized that she was mean to everybody, thank God. And then they realized, okay, that’s just how she is. That’s how she is.

Things like that happen in a community, and we have to step in to solve the structural problems that result in the neglect of a widow who needs care from her church. So what do the apostles do? Two things: on the one hand, I see that the apostles did not handle this in a completely democratic way. In one respect, they were very decisive, making decisions. But on the other hand, they were extremely democratic. We are going to talk about that.

The most important thing is to recognize that, in every country, the church of Jesus Christ has a tendency to imitate the civil government. If it is in a democracy, it tries to be democratic; if it is in a dictatorship, the pastor becomes the strongman, something like that. So it is natural. But the truth is that the church of Jesus Christ is not accountable to a civil government—yes, it is accountable, but it is not a civil government; it must seek principles from the Word to manage its affairs.

So if you look, the apostles begin by gathering the group together, and I do not see here that the people approached them. They were good leaders and knew that murmuring was going around; they knew. Our pastor had a gift—I don’t know what—but he knows everything; he looks at you and knows you. It is a gift of wisdom and discernment that he has. And I—well, I don’t know whether I am talking about him behind his back or whether he is looking at me, so… forgive me.

But leaders know more than we think they know, okay? The apostles knew that there was murmuring. So I think they themselves did their homework, investigated the situation, and thought of a solution. And I think—I imagine—there was dialogue, but there was also decisive action. They gathered the people together to talk about the matter, and they said something interesting. In verse 2 they say:

“… it is not right that we should leave the word of God to serve tables…”

You know what? In Spanish, this sounds bad. “It is not fair that…” sounds like a child saying, “It’s not fair.” But that is not what the original says. The word means that it is not good, it is not pleasing to God, it is not right—that is a better translation. It is not right for us to neglect prayer and the ministry of the Word in order to attend to this program and bring food to the tables.

I do not think this was a comment saying that this was worthless. I think it was very valuable. I imagine that the apostles had to face the temptation to assign one of the Twelve to take charge of the program. Perhaps not Peter, John, or one of the important ones, but how about Bartholomew? What has Bartholomew done? Perhaps an apostle who has nothing else to do. Let’s put him in charge of the program. That must have been a temptation for them. But they resisted; they resisted.

They resisted the temptation to take matters into their own hands, even though they could have done so, because they knew: if we solve this ourselves, it will be a Band-Aid; it will not be a long-term solution, because the role of an apostle is different. So they had to find another mechanism to solve the problem. They recognized their calling. How awful it must have seemed, I imagine, to some who expected the apostles themselves to take matters into their own hands.

I imagine some may have thought, they do not care. But that is not true; that is not true. They knew that they had to devote themselves to prayer and the Word. Jesus himself did this, remember? Jesus begins to heal and cast out demons, and he heals Peter’s mother-in-law and stays in the house, with everybody there—remember? Then, the next day, Jesus gets up very early in the morning and goes to a mountain while it is still dark, like these men in our church, praying out in the countryside at five in the morning. And there he is, praying, praying, praying, when Peter comes with the gang, searching for him. I can picture them, breathing heavily. Here you are! We have all been looking for you. What are you doing here? There are people who need to be healed; everyone is looking for you. What does Jesus say to him? He did not say, oh, I’m coming. What did Jesus do? Look, I have to go to other towns; that is why I have come. If I stay here healing everyone in this town who needs healing, then I will not fulfill my mission.

Jesus had to leave some sick people there. That is hard—to fulfill his mission, to sacrifice himself for the salvation of the world. But you have to say no in order to say yes to what God has given you. Now, do not misunderstand me. I believe pastors should sweat a lot and move chairs, thank God. Every chair, for me, is a prayer: Fill this chair with a blessed person.

I believe ministry leaders should get their hands dirty, and I loved it—I think my favorite part of being the director of discipleship was being the steward during exams and coming in with a table on wheels. So sometimes you have to do those things, to be the steward.

But if the apostles devoted themselves solely to directing that program and stopped praying and preaching the Word, where would that leave the church? They had to find a solution that met both the widows’ needs and the apostles’ needs. It is a Discipleship 3 solution, a win-win solution. It is not, I win and you are left there screwed—fine, I don’t care. Win-win. Seek solutions; approach a conflict without viewing the other person as your enemy. This is important in a church, in a family. And know that my enemy is not that person; it is this situation, which God will give us wisdom to solve together.

So, thank God, the apostles took action and learned to delegate. I don’t know whether you have noticed, but we have some coaches here who manage children’s ball teams—any coaches in the house, two or three? How many of you have seen seven- or eight-year-old children playing soccer? What is the field like? Have you seen it? There goes the ball, and the whole gang of children piles onto that ball—have you seen it? And they all move like one gang, and the… over there yelling, excuse me, stay in your position! But no, everybody wants to be where the ball is; everybody wants to be where the action is.

One of the blessings of a growth crisis was that new positions opened up for new servants of God to rise up under the apostles’ apostolic anointing. But they had to play their position; they had to create new positions that God gave them so they could carry out that work with anointing and excellence.

You know what? This is painful; it is painful. I think it is easier for new people to get used to a church that has more layers of authority. But how many were here 10 or 12 years ago, when you could call Pastor Roberto at any hour, day or night, and there he was at the house, like an uncle in the home, another member of the family? Now that is not possible.

You know what? Our pastor has an apostolic calling. This does not mean that he is perfect. Look, today he has a headache; he is human, flesh and blood like us. But he is an apostle who has a calling that is both regional and national. His heart is not set on one church; it is set on the Kingdom of God. His vision for the new temple is not merely that Lion of Judah should be bigger and that we should have more space; it is to establish a center of revival in the New England region. He is an apostolic pastor who has both a local and a regional calling. And you know what? If you are here in this church, you share this calling. You are in an apostolic church. It is a church with its quirks, a church with growing pains, a church with a thousand problems, but a church with a special calling: to establish a center of revival for the nation and the nations—an apostolic church.

So I say this because, if we are going to be in an apostolic church, we have to be like this group in the early church, adjust our expectations, and know that the leader—let’s say you are a cell leader, or you are in a cell—that cell leader represents the pastor to you. And if you are a cell leader, the cell-leader coordinator represents the pastor to you. And the chain continues; there is a chain of authority. In this way, apostolic authority flows to the people who serve at every layer of the ministry, of the institution.

If we try to deny that and function in another way, we lose the apostolic anointing that is there for everyone God has called to serve in this church. Look at what happened here: the Apostles became super democratic in a certain respect; they gave the people the opportunity to choose their own leaders for this program. In our church we vote on some things; we do not vote on whether or not we are going to obey the Bible—there are certain things that are not put to a vote. But we do vote to elect deacons, and we vote in congregational meetings to approve the budget and other important matters.

And here in the Bible, the Apostles gave the people the opportunity to choose their leaders, but with certain requirements: he had to be a man full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. If he is not, even if the decision is unanimous, we have veto power. They set the parameters for the decision and then delegated the responsibility of running the program to those people.

I want us to look at the names together, please—verse 5, the names of the first servants here in this case. The first one they chose was Stephen; that name rings a bell. He becomes the first martyr of the Christian church, an incredibly powerful man. If there had been no growing pains, if there had been no solution, where would Stephen be? Stephen emerged from these growing pains.

Look at the next one. Who comes next? Philip. Do you remember Philip? He ministers to the eunuch, and then the Spirit takes him to another place. Anointed men of God who moved in the same anointing as Peter and John and James. The apostolic anointing was passed on because the Apostles laid their hands on them, and the anointing was passed on to them.

I want the anointing God has given Pastor Roberto to be upon my life. Now, I will never be Pastor Roberto; my beard does not grow as nicely as his, and my voice will never be so... But I can have the same anointing, the same faith, the same vision. Men, women, children, young people can move under the special anointing that is in this church, if we give due importance to the anointing and to the delegated responsibility that must exist in a large church. If you notice, there is a list of names here, and they are all Greek names.

So among themselves they decided, “You know what? Let us give the people closest to the problem the authority to solve it.” And that is how the anointing flowed upon them. It is not easy, because it meant that these widows could not enjoy the close presence of Peter and John. And you know what? Sometimes there is pain in getting used to not having so much access to the senior pastor of a large church.

You know what? Many of you did not see, during the process we went through in this church, the church learning that there are others who can perform weddings and funerals and do all those things. But I will never forget the tears the pastor shed over the first funerals he had to miss, when he could not be there, knowing that he could not be present in certain situations. And there were tears. There is pain for everyone in getting used to certain structural changes that must always take place.

But when this space is opened up, others arise who can minister, the harvest is greater, and we can tend the harvest and have nets for a miraculous catch. I know what your ministry is: perhaps you minister to young people or teenagers; perhaps you have a cell group; perhaps you participate in a cell group and make phone calls; perhaps you teach Sunday school or give abstinence classes; or perhaps you work in the parking lot. In every area of service in this church, there is apostolic authority available to you, regardless of your age. And God has called us as a church not only to grow numerically, but also to grow as a church in terms of maturity.

It is time for us to grow up and grow into our size—to grow until we fill the large garment that has been placed upon us—and God calls each one of us to do that. It does not matter if you have been in this church for only one day; you are part of this, part of this calling, and it is up to us to say yes to the Lord. To say, “Lord, if the question is, ‘Do we want to grow?’ I want to say yes.” I have gone to churches where a leader tells me, “I like it small.” I like it small. And a good person who loves God said it, but she loves a church where she can know everyone and have a great deal of access. And that leaves us with the question: Do we like it this way, are we content with this, or do we want to fulfill the calling God has for us?

The temple is more than a building; it is a responsibility, a calling to broaden our vision into an apostolic vision, to get on the same wavelength as the pastor regarding what he has received from God. He did not seek this out—believe me, he does not think he is such a big deal—but he knows what God has given him, and through him God has given it to all of us. So I invite you today, right now, to stand up, and we are going to respond to the Lord.

Stephen and Philip emerged from that mess the early church went through. I believe there are some female Stephens and Stephens, Philips and female Philips here in this church. Some are still five years old; some are eighty. But they are people with a calling to which we have not yet said yes. And it is time to say yes. Saying yes, Lord, means committing myself to my calling and also respecting the apostolic anointing God has delegated to those who supervise me in my ministry.

I invite you to close your eyes with me, and I want you to think about your ministries, about what you do in the church, and about some of the people—children, adults, young people—who are under your care, or perhaps the task that is under your care. Picture the setting, the moment, who is there; picture yourself there. And I also want you to picture the face of the person God has placed there to supervise you—not the pastor, not the associate pastor, but the person in the ministry who organizes the area where you serve—and to see in that person the authority God has given him or her, and also to think about your responsibility to minister to those who are under your care. If you are not serving in a ministry, you do not have to search for one anxiously; God takes care of raising up His Stephens. Just say, “Lord, here I am. I want to serve. I want to move chairs and greet the person beside me, and I want to serve You, God, in whatever You want. Here I am.”

Let us pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for the sacred privilege of representing Your kingdom in the lives of others. I present to You the ministry You have given me; I present to You the tasks and the people who are under my care. Help me to move in the apostolic anointing of this church and to serve, Lord, so that one day I may hear the words, “Well done, faithful servant; enter into the joy of your master.”

Lord, I present to You my male or female supervisor in the ministry. Forgive me for the times when I have said that I submit to the pastor, but not to him or her. Lord, I bless that supervisor. I thank You, and I ask You to help that person grow in You and become all the leader You want him or her to be.

Lord, if I do not have a ministry, I say to You, “Here I am. Here I am, Lord. I want to be used by You. Lord, open opportunities for me to serve tables; I will gladly do it. And whatever I do for each person I serve, I do it in the name of Jesus, as though I were doing it for You Yourself.” Thank You, Lord. We receive the apostolic anointing in this church. We ask You to help us, Lord, to organize ourselves, to be faithful, to grow, and give us patience, Lord. I also want to invite the many in the congregation who need to forgive: some of us are the neglected widow. We must forgive. Lord, we forgive the church; we forgive the pastor if we have blamed him. We forgive. Lord, we want to be part of this community, and we want to grow together. We dedicate ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.