Varsity on the Hill Need

I have been sharing on the need to prepare ministers, especially missionaries to be able to serve God without necessarily needing support from structures. In fact, I am at this point praying about it as I plan to establish the first such centre.

But I will share some things I heard during my latest mission to the Coast to get you in the frame of starting to earnestly pray for that release.

Do you know that the validity of your calling depends on the connection of the leader of the structure you serve under to God? In other words, your calling is irrelevant if the leaders have lost theirs.

A friend who has been in ministry for over forty years was recently kicked out of the ministry he has been serving under and had to start afresh. All because he went in private to the head (like Christ advised) to tell him that he felt that the direction ministry was taking was not good, or something like that.

I have also suffered something similar a number of times. You take the scriptural and spiritual route and get punished severely.

Another friend I knew had been on a remote mission station for over twenty years. He even bought a plot to build the church by selling another one they had had some distance from the town.

The mission sent him some little money to start building the church. Unfortunately, they had not sent him support for a very long time.

He reasoned like most people in that situation. If they have money to start building, surely my support must be on its way. And I suspect the support due him was more than the little money they had sent him to start building.

Living without support for a long time in a place you minister means you will have several debts. And as it is a place I have been I know it is a very expensive mission field.

He therefore thought to use some of it to deal with some pressing needs as he waited for his support which to him was imminent. Then, once his support came, he would immediately commence the building.

Well, the support didn’t arrive. And the bosses started demanding results. Anyone who has been in church leadership knows how a simple thing can be blown out of all proportions to imply some impossibility.

Finally, the pressure so increased that he died for shock or something like it, leaving his family like that.

Another one had also been on the mission field for long. He had more or less established himself there.

Then the sending denomination decides they are through with missionaries and missions.

They therefore sent communication to all their missionaries asking them to go back home (where they were born) as they wait until the church leadership can place them when they see a church needing a pastor. They even sent them money to make the move. We are talking about dozens of them.

But this missionary had no place to lay his head at home as he had invested his all on the mission field having joined missions as a young man. Where does he go? And he has stuff and family.

That pressure also overcame him and he died.

I am sure you know of a minister who was kicked from a position because he refused to agree with the sins of the bosses.

Why should a minister’s calling be subject to people who do not share his reverence for God?

Are all structures wicked? I know someone is wondering.

Of course not. Sadly, some structures that were started on a solid spiritual foundation floundered when the leadership lost the connection. Sometimes it happened because the leadership saw a different vision and decided that what they were pursuing no longer fit in with their new vision. Yet they refused to consider the people (especially dependents) who had earlier bought into their previous vision.

Others had a leadership change and the new leadership becomes removed from the original vision.

Still others have an overthrowal of sorts and the new leadership seeks to kill the original vision to be able to get rid of the history of the ministry.

How does that happen?

A vision will normally attract favor and release. This means that resources will start flowing where the vision is clearly set.

Sadly, far too many believers do not know what a vision is and so are unable to relate to one. They think or see it as a very creative and smart work of a very hardworking person.

It means they will think that what they will need to succeed is work harder than the visionary.

They will then support exceptionally and do any assignment with utmost commitment

The results will be so clear to anyone who looks. This means that they will be entrusted with a vision they have no idea exists. But they will be acting and speaking of the vision as they hear it being spoken by the visionary.

What will happen when they are entrusted with the vision? They will simply transfer its priorities to things that make sense to his mind, things that have nothing to do with the vision.

Yet others will join the vision and as they get deeper and deeper in it start seeing wastefulness as too much resources are being poured on a vision that does not exist (in his mind and heart of course).

He will therefore infiltrate the leadership so that he can take over the running of those resources being wasted on ‘nonsense’. And they will many times succeed as the visionary is many times so focused on the vision to waste his effort on administration for example.

He will discover that he has suddenly been kicked out of a structure God led him to establish.

These are things I have seen. Some I have also experienced firsthand.

What does such change of vision engender for the minister who responded to God’s call under the original visionary? How will he continue accountability relationships with the new leadership that has divested from the vision that sent him into mission field? How will the new leadership support something they have disowned or discarded?

The other day a pastor told me a story I have heard all too often.

He started a church from scratch and God blessed his ministry. In a short time it was flourishing. They were able to buy land and start building.

Then the denomination informed him that he has no congregation, indirectly implying that he closes the church.

Of course he demonstrated to them that the church was not only there, it was growing.

They then sent him to a place so far to establish a new work. When he protested (of course he had a family and couldn’t just move like that), they asked him to briefly step aside as they investigated the issue of there being no congregation?

But that was just a pretext to plant another pastor and get rid of him. Over two years down the line and they have not finished the investigation or communicated.

Those are some of the guiding principles in the establishment of Varsity on the Hill.

The vision is of preparing ministers who will be able to continue bearing fruit whatever happens. Their ministry will only be subject to God’s revelation as they walk in obedience.

The purpose of the skills is twofold.

First is to enable the missionary live very cheaply by being in a position to do the bulk of repairs himself.

That is essential because I have been to missionaries who have stores full to overflowing with broken down equipment, many of which have very minor breakages. And they do not have the money to take the same for repair.

Thus knowing basic electrical wiring will enable him to deal with the basic repair and wiring jobs in the house. Knowing how to change a car wheel will get him out of a sticky place. And knowing the basics of vehicle maintenance can drastically reduce running costs when a car is available.

The second is to enable him become real salt wherever he is sent. This is because he will become a solution provider by sorting little problems in the community he is ministering to. It might even end up becoming an income stream if God leads that way.

Living within available means will be a key component of the training as is the creative utilization of available materials.

This is what will make the missionary able to live wherever God sends him whether support is forthcoming or not. In other words, he is not desperately dependent on the structure that sent him.

Again I am reminded of people who were promised support before departing to the mission field who realized too late that they were being politely dumped as no support ever arrived.

So, we are basically preparing a minister who can minister only with God’s release. He will appreciate support but it is not that support keeping him on the mission field.

Will we pray?

Is God telling you anything concerning it?