Teach This Book

I just finished reading a great book called "Velvet Elvis." The author is Rob Bell, the well-known pastor of the Mars Hill church in Grandville, Michigan.

In Movement Two of "Velvet Elvis", Bell tells how he became a pastor, and he shares the story about how once he was at a summer camp, speaking at a Sunday morning chapel service in the pines, when he heard "inner words spoken somewhere in my soul that were very clear and very concise." The words that Bell heard were, "Teach this book, and I will take care of everything else."

Teach this book.

That's really what it all comes down to in ministry, doesn't it?

Teach this book.

No matter where you are in the world, and no matter what you are doing in an international church or ministry, and no matter what language or cultural or financial or relational or denominational challenges you may be up against, in the end it all comes down to just one thing.

Teach this book.

You may be a pastor giving a message every Sunday, or you may be leading a ministry involved in showing the compassion and love of Jesus to others, or you may be part of a mission in a persecuted or apathetic or unreached part of this world, using whatever skills and talents and spiritual gifts that God has given you, but once again whatever you are doing comes down to just one thing.

Teach this book.

It's what we need to do in ministry, more than anything else.