What walls are standing in front of you right now?

Ministry walls are barriers that inhibit moving forward.

Personal walls are based on leadership. Organizational walls limit your church's ability to live fully into your mission. There are all sorts of walls.

If I wanted to define the idea of ministry walls, I’d put it this way. A ministry wall is some outside force, appearing to be beyond natural control, which sets a defining boundary of effectiveness.

Let’s dig into that definition a bit more.

First, the outside force bit. Outside forces are the things you feel you can't affect. Where you are right now, that flat elevation looking up at a wall, is a situation where you don't feel equipped to take on the wall.

That leads us into the second part of the definition: Appearing to be beyond natural control. This is the idea of agency vs. control. Simply put, a controlling situation is one where we have no input. Outside of natural disasters, I rarely think any situation can 100% be in the control category. Often, it means stepping back and realizing where you do have agency to affect the situation.

I love the mind shift of realizing a challenge isn’t a roadblock, but instead, it's a ministry wall.

The last part of the definition: Which sets a defining boundary of effectiveness.

This is the issue that ministry walls give us. If we are unable to get over the wall, we are thereby limited. Only one wall isn’t that limiting, but imagine if you had three or four of them you found yourself up against. They might not all show up at the same time, but if a barrier appears, and you aren’t able to scale it, it stays there.

Congrats. You now have a ministry wall.

Perhaps it’s not learning to deal with conflict. It could be you struggle to understand finances and budgeting. You could have a productivity wall. Or, one of the things I hear about is that pastors struggle to lead relationally in a congregation that is a bit mismatched (yep, that’s the one no one likes to talk about).

Last thing.

Ministry walls aren’t like walls in an obstacle course. Once over, you don’t drop back down to the same elevation. Usually, once you get over the wall, you find yourself at a higher spot. The tough work it's taken to get over the wall leads to a very different landscape on the other side of it.

If you have ministry walls, you need to learn to get over ministry walls.

I’ll be back in the next email to talk more about that.

Chad

PS - Episode 77 is a great look at the concept of Ministry Walls.

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