An Expose' on Ministry and its Accomplishments

An Expose’ on Ministry and its Accomplishments

Let’s begin by acknowledging a well-known personality.   The name Billy Sunday is familiar to people who reach back some years to a preacher who covered many communities before the modernization of large stadiums bringing people to Christ.  There is a story about another preacher, whose name is unknown to me, who was awakened early one morning and told to go to a local train station and preach a sermon.  The time was very early around 3 AM.  He ignored this urgency and fell asleep.  After the third time he reluctantly got up and went to this railroad station and preached a sermon to an empty building.  Some years later, Billy Sunday revealed the call to his ministry was hearing someone in the railroad station he was sitting in preach a sermon about Christ.  Apparently he was alone on a different level than the first preacher who never knew to whom he was preaching.  The rest is history, and he, like many others through history, have been called by someone else’s ministry that God had already prepared to be the impetus for that person’s call.  

There were two young boys at a revival tent but there were no available seats.  A man saw them and offered two seats in the rear of the area.  As they listened, one boy gave himself to Christ.  This was Billy Graham who heard from Rev. Mordecai Ham.  The process of one person planting a seed through the Holy Spirit precedes another who waters the seed while another person works at the harvest of the original planting.  Rarely does the first person that God uses when planting a seed become knowledgeable of the final result.

As all of us who write, preach, or in some way reach people through evangelization, are always a part of planting seeds of faith in Christ.  It never is a proposition of just a chance we happen to be there in any situation.  We must believe that God already created this opportunity for any of us to be in the right place at the right time.  Without placing myself in a self-adhering ministry I must relate one very instance that brought the calling of another deacon to fruition.

In Midland, Texas, there obviously is one or more persons to whom God wanted to reach for his continued planting of seeds of faith.  However in this case it would only occur if a deacon would reach them through his ministry.  For reasons only known to God, this required that a deacon from this parish be the one to complete this seed planting.  

My desire to be a full-time deacon was uppermost in my mind since my business as an electrical contractor reached a low and consequently my wife and I were going through bankruptcy and our house was on the block of being sheriff-sold.  My resume for full-time ministry was answered by St. Annes in Midland, Texas.  As it caught their eye, and since they were looking for someone with my qualifications, they contacted me and we eventually ended up flying to West Texas.  Without enhancing the eventual circumstances that led to my dismissal after 3.5 months of a 20,000 dollar contract of employment, I will say I just didn’t fit their expectations.  They were very courteous and in a manner of Christian ideals terminated my short employment.  

The gest of this ministry is not to bemoan a situation that happens more often than we believe, but it created a future result of what God already planned in a hidden ministry yet to occur.  Some years later I happened to send a text to Mike LaMonica, a family that was very close to us while in Texas.  I got a response from Mike who told me he became a deacon because of me in my ministry.  Immediately God revealed to me that these persons who would need a message through a deacon occurred because my ministry in Midland, Texas would inspire Mike to enter the diaconate completing the steps of planting, nourishing, and harvesting seeds to accomplish his plan to reach people everywhere in the world.  None of us will ever realize how one moment of pain or disappointment will affect another when following the call of God.

These one or more persons to whom deacon Mike would reach in some manner; would they become a future Billy Sunday?  If I had not gone through a bankruptcy and needed to find a new beginning for my family, I would never had met Mike and he may never have become a deacon who would follow the call to reach these other people in Texas. 

If the preacher who was awakened three times to preach in an empty train station, had ignored to go and present Jesus to an empty station, would Billy Sunday have become the impetus to pass on the world of evangelization we have today?  

We cannot second guess God and the manner he uses to call each of us to ministry.  Think for a moment as you read this what type of teaching you have been involved with and the one or more souls that your words, mannerism, or faith has reached in and converted the person God has sent you to.  Your belief in following God’s call to you has touched another who will follow you as well.  

Ralph B. Hathaway