HEALTHY CHURCH: Is Your Bucket Filled?

My friend and ministry leader, Hal Seed, has written an excellent article on four buckets you need to make sure are always full in your spiritual life and in your ministry. In the beginning, you are pouring into your buckets, and the day is coming when you will share what you have stored. When your bucket is filled, it begins to overflow and your ministry should function out of the overflow of your intimacy with Christ. As a leader, never forget that the thing others need to see the most is that you are walking with Christ. The truth is that you cannot give what you do not possess and who you are is far more important than what you do.

Being filled with the fulness of God is Paul’s admonition to the church in Ephesus and to us as well (Eph. 3:14-21). Doing things for Christ must flow out of our being with Christ. Richard J. Foster said, “Through spiritual disciplines, we create space for God to work in our lives and shape us into His image.” Slow down, be silent and be still before the Lord. Silence has been referred to as God’s first language. Your first responsibility is knowing God personally and daily through intimacy with Him by spending time alone with Him. Do not ignore this vital spiritual discipline that must become a spiritual habit.

• The first bucket to keep filled is exactly what we just described — spiritual practices. Here are some regular rhythms you need to implement: divert daily, withdraw weekly (Sabbath) and quarantine quarterly (prayer retreats). That is what keeps your personal daily walk with Christ fresh, vibrant and alive. True worship is obeying God for no other reason than delighting in who He is. His attributes cause you to overflow as you ponder His bigness, holiness and mercy. There is a huge functional difference that occurs in your spiritual walk when you move from serving God to get something from Him to serving God to get more of Him.

Romans 12:1 tells us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices which is our “reasonable service” or our true worship. I Peter 2:5 (CSB) says we “are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God…” Priests had three responsibilities, with the first priority being to worship and love God. We exist for God. Moses not only told Pharoah to let God’s people go, he told him why — to worship the one and only true God.

Second, priests represent God to the people. You are the first impression people have of who God is and some people will make up their minds about God based on their experience with you. Think of how weighty it is that you and your church are the only Bible some people will ever read. Are those around you seeing the love of Christ through you and your congregation?

Third, priests were to represent the people to God. We are called to be priests, and one way of fulfilling that duty is by praying fervently on behalf of others, especially their spiritual needs. Are you consistently standing in the gap for those who are struggling spiritually and those who are far from God? Priests offer up the sacrifices of their bodies (Rom. 12:1), praise of their lips (Heb. 13:16) and people they bring to Christ (Rom. 15:16).

This impacts you directly and personally by allowing the gospel to impact every area of your life. The gospel must go deeper into us in order to go wider through us. The gospel is not only how you begin this journey with Christ, it is also how you grow and continue with Him. Gospel change is the Spirit of God using the story of God to make the beauty of God come alive in your heart. Hal reminds us that spiritual practices are your rhythms of spiritual habits that keep your personal relationship with Jesus fresh. These spiritual practices give you a pace and rhythm for your private walk with Jesus.

Do you have a plan to slow down, be still and silent, seek solitude in Him, search the Scriptures and then be in His presence through supplication?

• The second bucket to be filled regularly is character strengths. This will not happen if spiritual disciplines are not your first priority. Here is what Hal had to say about this bucket: “Traits like persistence, integrity and the fruit of the Spirit, mixed with your personality and spiritual gifts, give you character to draw on to serve Him with inner strength.” Paul stated clearly that God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask or think according to His power working in us.

There are several character strengths mentioned in the Scriptures such as integrity (Prov. 10:9), courage (Joshua 1:9), humility (James 4:10), perseverance (Rom. 5:3-4) and self-control (Titus 1:8). A big part of this bucket is determined by how God hard-wired you and your personality. You have to know yourself to lead yourself because all of us have strengths and, yes, we all have weaknesses. Some of us have to watch our tempers while others will be prone to procrastinate. Do not forget that God has also given you spiritual gifts to enable you to serve Him well in building up the body of Christ.

Character strengths become visible by developing godly competencies in team building, problem solving, time management, resolving conflict, communicating well and then executing the plan God initiated in your heart through prayer and seeking Him. We will cover the other two buckets in the next article, but think about Heb. 5:14 in how to keep your bucket full: “But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”