The Ordination of Luca D. Welch

As You Go into Ministry, Remember These Things

July 26, 2026

Ministry will give you joys you cannot presently imagine and burdens no one can fully explain beforehand. You will learn some things from Scripture, some from other people, and some only through experience. As you go into ministry, remember these things.

1. Remember That Your Hardships Are Not Unique

• You will experience criticism, disappointment, exhaustion, misunderstanding, and plans that do not work.
• When those things happen, you may be tempted to think your situation is unusual.
• The truth is that nearly everyone who serves people eventually encounters the same things.
• Your circumstances will have their own details, but your burdens will not make you a uniquely mistreated servant.
• “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
• Peter likewise reminds suffering believers that “the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world” (1 Peter 5:9).
• “Do all things without murmurings and disputings” (Philippians 2:14).
• Paul could say:
  • “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed.”
  • “We are perplexed, but not in despair.”
  • “Persecuted, but not forsaken.”
  • “Cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
• Do not waste suffering by turning it into self-pity.
• Learn from it, laugh when you can, pray when you cannot, and keep going.

2. Keep Yourself in Proper Perspective

• Ministry is serious; you are not the center of it.
• You are important to the people who love you, but the work of God does not depend upon your fame, reputation, or indispensability.
• You will eventually be forgotten just like the rest of us.
• “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone” (Psalm 103:15-16).
• Paul asked, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?” (1 Corinthians 3:5).
• “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Corinthians 3:7).
• Do not spend your life trying to become impressive.
• Enjoy the ministry:
  • Enjoy studying.
  • Enjoy preaching.
  • Enjoy the people.
  • Enjoy the absurd moments that become good stories later.
• Take the truth seriously, take people seriously, and take yourself lightly.

3. Remain a Lifelong Learner

• Ordination does not mean that you have arrived.
• It means that others have recognized your fitness to begin and continue the work.
• There will always be something in Scripture you have never noticed.
• There will always be a question you cannot yet answer.
• There will always be someone from whom you can learn.
• “If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2).
• “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Timothy 2:15).
• Even near the end of his ministry, Paul requested “the books, but especially the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13).
• Keep reading.
• Keep asking questions.
• Keep changing your mind when the text requires it.
• Never become so committed to appearing knowledgeable that you can no longer learn.

4. Count Blessings, Not Statistics

• Ministry creates endless opportunities for comparison:
  • This month against last month.
  • This year against last year.
  • Your church against another church.
  • Your attendance, offerings, reach, buildings, invitations, and influence against someone else's.
• That is a wild-goose chase without a finish line.
• Comparisons can make you proud when the numbers rise and miserable when they fall.
• Most people are not thinking about your statistics nearly as much as you are.
• “They measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12).
• The real requirement is not visible success but faithfulness: “It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).
• Learn with Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content” (Philippians 4:11).
• Count answered prayers.
• Count faithful friends.
• Count opportunities to teach the Word.
• Count the people who have loved you and the people you have been permitted to love.
• Count blessings, and leave the scorekeeping to God.

5. Be Yourself

• Other ministers can be a tremendous blessing to you.
• Learn from them, appreciate them, cooperate with them, and enjoy their friendship.
• But do not build your identity upon another person's reputation, platform, audience, or success.
• Never spend your ministry riding someone else's coattails.
• Paul, Apollos, and Cephas each had followers, but Paul rejected the personality divisions that resulted (1 Corinthians 1:12-13).
• “Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another” (Galatians 6:4).
• “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
• Receive what is good from others without becoming an imitation of them.
• God does not need another copy of your favorite preacher.
• Be honest about your own gifts, limitations, interests, personality, and opportunities.
• Be grateful for the stars, but drive your own wagon.

6. Keep Different Kinds of People in Your Life

• Do not surround yourself only with people who think, vote, dress, worship, work, and speak exactly as you do.
• Know older people and younger people.
• Know educated people and people whose wisdom came through hard experience.
• Know wealthy people and poor people.
• Know people from the city, the country, different churches, different cultures, and different assumptions.
• You do not have to agree with everyone in order to learn from them.
• Paul became “all things to all men” so that he might gain a hearing for the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:19-22).
• “Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits” (Romans 12:16).
• A life populated by only one kind of person eventually produces narrow thinking.
• All kinds of people will enrich your life, sharpen your thinking, expose your blind spots, and enlarge your capacity to minister.

7. Let Ministry Be Larger Than Your Plans

• You may begin with a clear picture of what your ministry will look like.
• The actual opportunities God permits may not fit that picture.
• Do not define ministry only by:
  • A pulpit.
  • A title.
  • A church building.
  • A Sunday schedule.
  • A particular audience or method.
• The apostles served “in the temple, and in every house,” and “ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ” (Acts 5:42).
• Paul taught “publickly, and from house to house” (Acts 20:20).
• Ministry may find you:
  • In the temple, publicly serving the Lord.
  • In the homes of the poor and lowly, teaching His Word.
  • At a hospital bedside.
  • At a kitchen table.
  • Answering one person's question long after everyone else has gone home.
• “Make full proof of thy ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5).
• Do not become so devoted to your preferred form of ministry that you miss the ministry actually placed before you.

8. Trust the Gospel to Save

• Programs can organize people.
• Music can move people.
• Personality can attract people.
• Friendship can encourage people.
• Education can improve people.
• But the gospel saves people.
• “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).
• Never decide beforehand who is likely to believe.
• The gospel can save:
  • The most degenerate person you will ever meet.
  • The most unlikely person in the room.
  • The respectable, proper, and apparently well-ordered person who does not recognize his need.
  • The broken person whose need is visible to everyone.
• Paul called himself the chief of sinners and said that Christ's saving him displayed “all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
• The Corinthians included people with deeply sinful histories, yet Paul could say, “such were some of you: but ye are washed” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
• Do not substitute life improvement for salvation.
• Do not be ashamed of the simplicity of the message:
  • “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”
  • “He was buried.”
  • “He rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
• The gospel is what changes lives because the gospel is what saves.

A Final Word

As you go into ministry, remember these things:

• Do not complain as though your hardships were unique.
• Do not take yourself too seriously.
• Do not quit learning.
• Do not count anything but blessings.
• Do not ride another person's coattails.
• Do not surround yourself with only one kind of person.
• Do not define ministry so narrowly that you miss it.
• Do not forget that the gospel saves.

Enjoy the ministry God gives you. Love the people He places around you. Preach the Word faithfully. Keep learning, remain humble, and trust the gospel to do what no minister can do.