Listen to this Podcast

Please Note: The following Article is a transcript of the podcast.

I was brought up in a pastor’s family. There are many advantages to that and also there are many disadvantages. One big disadvantage is that you have access to the inner circle of pastors and leaders. The downside to that is that I began to see people who preached about God. Christ, taught about Christ, but never really lived that kind of a life. I have personally witnessed pastors who are in touch with rowdies, with thugs, who, who use them whenever they want some extra protection, whenever they want their work to be done. I began to witness things that made me hate ministry and everything about it. And if today I’m in full time ministry, it is absolutely the grace of God.

Welcome

Hey, welcome to the second episode of the pastor’s podcast. I hope you liked the first one in the second episode. I’m going to talk more about my story of how I became a pastor. And in this episode, I’ll be sharing details about why I hated ministry at one point in time. I hope this episode will help you strengthen your walk with the Lord and will also help you to prepare yourself to commit for full time ministry.

Let me explain

Now. You may say, well, that sounds awesome. It sounds wonderful. But what’s with the title? What’s with the title? What do you mean by hating ministry? Now, don’t get upset. I know this may kind of trigger some of you. Don’t get upset. I’m gonna share my story and you’ll understand what I mean. I believe every man who is in pastoral ministry today is simply there because of the sovereign plan of God.

Every pastor who leads a church, every pastor who stands on stage to preach is there doing that work simply because of the grace of God. Because more than our own efforts, more than our own dedication or commitment to the ministry, it is God who shaped us to be pastors. It is God who shapes us to be pastoral ministry. Like how we often hear pastors saying in the wedding ceremony, they say like this, “that this is the Lord’s doing.” The same goes for pastoral ministry. It is the Lord’s doing. I am able to commit myself fully to the Lord in doing this full time ministry because it was the Lord’s doing.

Why I hated ministry ?

Because when I look back at my life, when I look back at my life, if I had followed my own plans, I would never ever be a pastor. Because I hated ministry and everything to do with it. I hated it with my whole heart. Why was that? Being part of a pastor’s family, you get to be part of the inner circle of ministry. You get to see more of pastors and leaders and you get to interact with a lot more people. The problem for me started when I began to witness pastors plotting to bring a church down so that they can send that pastor away. So that their own son can take over the church. I began to see how, after several years of being in ministry, pastors can become power hungry and greedy for money.

And for the sake of that selfish plan, they will go to any extent. I remember one particular episode where certain pastor’s family was going through a big crisis, like a very big crisis. But the senior leaders never really stepped in to address the issues. Rather, whenever they would step in to address the issue, the issue would just get worse…get even worse than what it was before. My thinking was, senior leaders who are more wise, they know what’s the right thing to do. But the more they do something, the issue just gets worser and worser. The issues would never get resolved. It just kept getting worse and worse to a point that this family that was going through that crisis broke.

I mean, literally broke. Several years later, I came to know that the senior pastor could have solved the problem. Could have solved the problem, but chose not to do it. Why? Because they wanted their children to take over that particular church. And to organize this, you know, to organize the takeover of this church, the senior pastor visited the elders of that church, spoke against that pastor and, you know, did so much of politics in the background so that the elders can literally push them out of ministry.

I have witnessed kidnappings. supposedly organized by pastors. When you hear all that, it changes a lot of things in you. For me as a boy around that time, it brought in hate. It brought in absolute hate for the ministry. I told myself over and over and over again that I will never be a pastor. I would go to church, you know, simply because my dad was a pastor.

And if the church goes on for the longer duration of the services long, I would scold my dad. I was rebellious. I hated ministry in every way because to me, I couldn’t process the fact that men of God who carry the title of a pastor, who are supposed to bring families together, who are supposed to help in the process of healing people are the same ones that break and destroy so that their own children can be benefited.

When I look back, there’s still. Some level of pain in my heart because I still see those pastors on YouTube talking about their life of faith and how they’ve been faithful to the Lord. And I’m, I’m sure that people who walked closely with them have witnessed a very different side. So all of these experiences brought me to a point where I hated ministry.

My Insomnia & addictions

And, uh, Hate to ministry was one side and on the other side I was addicted to pornography and my life was an absolute mess. And at that time, all I wanted to be was an audio engineer. I didn’t want anything to do with ministry. My only goal is to just become an audio engineer. But in the third year of studies at Bible college, I went through this phase where I just couldn’t sleep at night.

It lasted for a month. I had insomnia, couldn’t sleep at night. And I would. Go to sleep in the in the nights and wake up in the morning with this exact tiredness in my body I’d feel so exhausted I was almost like a dead body walking. That is how I was. I couldn’t bear what was happening to me. And at that time I realized that it is now time to fix my life.

God saved me

It is now time to fix my life. I prayed and surrendered myself to the Lord. I asked him to forgive me, asked him to save me, God came in, he changed my life. So today, when I look at myself, I’ve started a church, I’m preaching and teaching every week, I’m counseling people. When I see myself doing all of that, I’m reminded that it is God who transformed me.

We see Paul in the Bible. He went from a man who hated Christians to a man who served them till he died. I believe a change of heart A change of heart, the heart that transforms from hatred to love is probably one of the greatest miracles. More than healing of cancer, more than healing of any sicknesses, if we witness a man going from hate to love, A man going from hating God to loving God, that is a real miracle.

His Grace

When I see my life, when I see what I’m doing today, it is nothing short of a miracle. I am who I am. I am what I am simply because of God. And as I look at the future, as I look at the ministry, all I want to do is I just want to be faithful to him and serve him for the rest of my life.