Caught empty handed, that sounds like such a great way to get caught. Be honest, if you were doing something wrong or something you should not have been (people say it that way, less guilt but its still wrong not the point keep moving) you want it to be empty handed where people can’t connect you to that thing or event. But what I mean here is in ministry when church society is so used to the church being program driven and event, after event, after event and when you are not doing anything, you are “caught empty handed”.
The question is, is this a good thing? Is this something you want to do? Well I’m reading a book by Craig Groeschel and its called “IT”. This book is actually showing me some insight on what I thought was already imporant but in a sense to scared to follow through on. The last chapter I read was all about how church’s that have “it” ( you know that one substance you can’t tell what “it” is but you know, that you know that the church has “it”) do less programing and less ministries to focus on what they do GREAT! What does this mean, well I’m glad you asked now you can put your hand down ( see I’m a kids pastor and even after the kids ask their questions they still have their hand up, crazy right, I know ha ha) This means that by doing less you are actually doing more! What a great thought. I have from year one of full time ministry always asked leaders not to stretch themselves for the fact that you are able to impact more when you give yourselves to ONE thing rather than TEN things. Such as, if you have a dollar to spend and you spend it all in one place you are able to give/gain something of more value then if you take that same dollar and split it up to 10 dimes and spend it in 10 different places, you have not made the same impact. Whats the danger to this? Well one that I have experienced, is that people will automatically think that you are doing nothing, scary right? Thats why we try to put so much on our plates, thats why we try to stay busy and work, and work, and work so that people around us will think we are hard workings, that we accomplish a lot (when we know again that the more we do, the less we do) and we build our own selfish empire that has no foundation and for that matter very little anything else other than the dust we are stirring up from running around.
What am I trying to say? I know this post has been a little more random but don’t you dream of being GREAT, is’nt that everyones desire, don’t we all want to be stinken awesome at ONE thing. I know I do, and I know that I’m good at a lot of things (thats not prideful settle down) but I don’t want to be good at a lot of things, man I want to be Great for Jesus number one, I want to be Great for my wife, and Great for my kids (just Sage right now 
) and then I want to be Great in ministry! Nope, not there yet but that is what I’m working towards. What are you working towards and the biggest question yet, What do you need to drop, so that you can be “caught empty handed”. Thats just my perspective, enjoy it, and if you didn’t, I don’t want to hear about it j/k leave some comments! Enjoy your Day!
Thanks man, I needed that. Now how do we drop those things? I sometimes wonder if this concept is a pipe dream. I hope not because I believe what you are saying is true.