Summary: Ministry is actually a whole lot like being a real parent. Are you comfortable with your ministry developing its own personality? Do you feel that it MUST remain in your hands to move forward properly? Let others have a chance to spread their wings and take flight.

Are you ok with a ministry taking on a life of its own? Are you ok with someone else shaping that which you started? Are you ok with some aspects of what you started being undone and remade through the hands of another? Are you comfortable releasing control? Do you feel that it MUST remain in your hands to move forward properly? Are you cool with releasing something and that something NOT keeping your exact image? When you think about entrusting someone else with ministry, do you have a skyrocketing sense of anxiety? How much of this hesitation to multiply is about you and your personal sense of control?

I often thought about the ministries under my care as my own personal children. I had oversight and responsibility over Sunday School, Children’s Church, Wednesday Night Ministry, Pre-Teen Ministry, Special Needs Ministry, Summer Programming and more. I had to make sure all of these “children” or ministries had food, clothing, and direction from “good ol’ dad.” I viewed all of these ministries as my children and I wanted to raise these children right.

And yet, children are to grow up, right? Kids don’t crawl forever. Kids should learn to walk, shouldn’t they? Am I the type of parent that never wants my kids to stumble or get a scrape? Would I be a hover parent that inhibits normal growth? Would I demand control around every corner? Would I have to be present at all times, smothering all exploration and freedom?

Can I ask you a hard question? Are you cool with one of your “Children” or one of your ministries developing its own personality? Are you ok with allowing another leader the space and grace to breathe? Are you willing to provide the needed “Family Values” to a ministry and yet allow them the freedom to cut their own way? Ministry is actually a whole lot like being a real parent, isn't it? My challenge is to let others have a chance to spread their wings and you sit back and marvel at their ability to take flight.