Summary
In their book "Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome" authors Kent and Barbara Hughes offer insight to anyone currently involves with or contemplating involvement with church ministry. In the introduction, the husband and wife team tell a story of a pastor that gave into failure and left full-time ministry (Hughes 1987, 9-13). This confusion of success and failure in regards to ministry effects many every day. The team explains that they too almost fell victim to overwhelming feelings of failure in their ministry and their subsequent conquering of these feelings through the truth in God 's word.
After defining the problem of how the secular world defines success in the first part of the book, the remainder of the book is broken down into three main sections: success, encouragement, and helps. The first section discusses success, more specifically what success is, from God 's point of view. In this part, the authors list the definitions of success in ministry. Concepts such as faithfulness, serving, prayer, holiness, and attitude receive individual chapters designed to explore the topic from a biblical standpoint.
The next section contains what the authors deem as the best encouragements for ministry. Again, the authors show their readers the scriptural …show more content…
Hughes writes "Prayer is fundamental to success in the ministry" (Hughes 1987, 71-83). Every aspect of life needs prayer. This quote serves as a reminder to that fact. It is through prayer that we can discover the will of God in our lives. We need to spend time daily with the Lord. Without constant communication with God, we cannot hope to get closer to Him. Ministry is about helping others get closer to God. We either introduce someone to God or help them along the road to knowing Him. The only logical way for us to accomplish that task which God called us to do, is for us to get closer to him through
In their book "Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome" authors Kent and Barbara Hughes offer insight to anyone currently involves with or contemplating involvement with church ministry. In the introduction, the husband and wife team tell a story of a pastor that gave into failure and left full-time ministry (Hughes 1987, 9-13). This confusion of success and failure in regards to ministry effects many every day. The team explains that they too almost fell victim to overwhelming feelings of failure in their ministry and their subsequent conquering of these feelings through the truth in God 's word.
After defining the problem of how the secular world defines success in the first part of the book, the remainder of the book is broken down into three main sections: success, encouragement, and helps. The first section discusses success, more specifically what success is, from God 's point of view. In this part, the authors list the definitions of success in ministry. Concepts such as faithfulness, serving, prayer, holiness, and attitude receive individual chapters designed to explore the topic from a biblical standpoint.
The next section contains what the authors deem as the best encouragements for ministry. Again, the authors show their readers the scriptural …show more content…
Hughes writes "Prayer is fundamental to success in the ministry" (Hughes 1987, 71-83). Every aspect of life needs prayer. This quote serves as a reminder to that fact. It is through prayer that we can discover the will of God in our lives. We need to spend time daily with the Lord. Without constant communication with God, we cannot hope to get closer to Him. Ministry is about helping others get closer to God. We either introduce someone to God or help them along the road to knowing Him. The only logical way for us to accomplish that task which God called us to do, is for us to get closer to him through